Nowadays, there are calligraphers everywhere in Zhao 'an, which makes Spring Festival couplets no longer a mysterious and fresh thing. On the occasion of the Spring Festival every year, the county party committee and county government will organize cultural activities to the countryside and encourage calligraphers from all units to go to the countryside to write Spring Festival couplets for the people.
I write like a paper bug crawling around, of course, I have no chance to participate in such activities. But I had the experience of selling Spring Festival couplets in early years.
The story happened in the winter vacation of senior one. There is a vegetable market in front of my house. In a chat, Chen Mengmeng, the monitor of the primary school graduating class, came up with the idea of selling Spring Festival couplets in front of my house. With the psychology of giving it a try, and in order to let myself have a meaningful winter vacation in the individual crowd, I readily agreed.
Young people are very enthusiastic about doing things. Chen immediately found two other boys to join us. One of them is my classmate Hu, and the other one is really sorry, because they always call him by his nickname, so I often forget his real name. Let's just call him Ajie's nickname.
Four people started a clear division of labor. I'm in charge of the accounts. I will keep the income from buying red paper and ink and selling Spring Festival couplets. The brush is brought by Chen, who is in charge of writing Spring Festival couplets. Chen's little sister used to be my little sister's monitor. At that time, the two sisters were in close contact, and I met Chen, who was only a classmate for one year. Chen's calligraphy was taught by his grandfather. At that time, there was no saying that calligraphy had passed the grade. If he has, he should get six or seven points. Hu and Ajie are responsible for paper cutting, folding and cutting.
Our booth started on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. Chen's beautiful calligraphy attracted many people to watch, but when we were proud of it, we found that they were just watching. Occasionally, someone suggests buying a word "spring" or "blessing", and we will all be grateful and excited.
When my little brother's friend came to visit, it was fresh to see that we from the student party had also started our own business. I asked Chen to write a word "wealth" and handed it to him, telling him to stick it sideways when he went home. He smiled from ear to ear and stuffed a 20-yuan red envelope into my pocket. That's why my brother gave me lucky money every Spring Festival, but I was very proud of the word "money" that Spring Festival.
In the face of written Spring Festival couplets that can't be sold, four people often look at them and sigh. Every time a classmate comes to visit and asks about business, the word "bleak ~" always pops out of four mouths at the same time.
This kind of day lasted about three or four days. At 27: 28 on the lunar calendar, people who came to buy Spring Festival couplets suddenly appeared like mushrooms after rain. And what everyone wanted in those two days was almost a pair of Spring Festival couplets. The first part is "a little sincerity to help the emperor sit down", the second part is "everything comes down to earth", and the cross section is "thank you for your kindness". At this point, we four bookworms understand that many families should worship God the day before New Year's Eve, and all families who worship God should post "God's couplet". Most people buy this couplet one day in advance or on the day of worship. At that time, the demand was in short supply, which kept us busy.
Some people buy ordinary Spring Festival couplets at the same time, and those who don't worship God buy Spring Festival couplets one or two days later. So in the next two or three days, we have been busy. We enjoy this busyness and the joy of collecting money every day.
That week, we always made five or six hundred dollars. For the student party in the 1990s, this is a huge sum of money. I gave all my money to three boys to arrange. During the Spring Festival, several friends used the "public money" to eat, drink and have fun.
In the winter vacation of sophomore year, I am teacher Feng again. Because of our last experience, we didn't start work until the 27th of the twelfth lunar month. The happiest thing is that many old customers came to ask about the Spring Festival couplets before we opened. The most interesting thing is that a strange customer who bought Tiangong couplets from us gave us a pair of Spring Festival couplets issued by their company when he passed our booth the next day. What I am most proud of is that my father who studied calligraphy said that Chen's calligraphy is much older than last year.
Senior three was busy studying during the winter vacation, and no one mentioned selling Spring Festival couplets again.
I met Chen on the second day of my freshman winter vacation. His first sentence was: "May, do you sell Spring Festival couplets?" Then they gave each other hearty and happy laughter. We all know that some beautiful stories only belong to a specific time!