The roar of firecrackers, the old year has passed; The warm spring breeze ushered in the New Year, and people happily drank the newly brewed Tu Su wine.
The rising sun sheds light on doors of each household, New peachwood charm is put up to replace the old.
The new peaches and old symbols in Wang Anshi's poems are Spring Festival couplets. In China, every household exchanges Spring Festival couplets every year, so the market for New Year pictures and Spring Festival couplets is huge, so during the Chinese New Year, all kinds of places selling Spring Festival couplets and New Year pictures can be seen all over the country. Some are stationery stores and some are roadside stalls. Although most of them are printed materials, they bring the flavor of Chinese New Year.
In recent years, with the improvement of people's living standards, this mass-produced Spring Festival couplets with the same content can no longer meet people's personalized requirements. In addition, more and more friends are learning to write calligraphy, so writing Spring Festival couplets by themselves has become everyone's first choice. At the same time, there are also many non-profit organizations and community organizations that walk into the community gate and write Spring Festival couplets for everyone for free.
However, the red paper used in Spring Festival couplets is very particular, and the materials used are diverse. Nowadays, people use more Spring Festival couplets made of rice paper. What happened from white rice paper to red Spring Festival couplets? We will discuss it in detail next time. Today, I mainly talk about the past life of Xuan paper.
In my hometown, Xiaoling Village, Jingxian County, Anhui Province, basically every household makes a living from the rice paper industry, from which China's rice paper goes to the whole country and even the whole world. The mountains and rivers in my hometown gave birth to the bright pearl of rice paper. Now it has become a national quintessence and a symbol of national culture. However, in the turbulent years, the production of rice paper was once stopped and destroyed. Fortunately, Xuan paper workers in their hometown resumed the production of Xuan paper under extremely difficult circumstances, which preserved this beautiful cultural heritage for mankind.
Xiaoling Xuan paper began to be produced in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and reached its first production peak in the late Qing Dynasty. However, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom turmoil, according to county records, there were ten families in Xiaoling Village at that time. Under such difficult conditions, Xuanzhi people were indomitable. From scratch, the rice paper industry has developed again. In the Ming dynasty, it reached nine ridges and thirteen pits, and there were paper slots in the pits. At that time, Xiaoling people opened paper stacks all over the country to sell paper, and also sold rice paper abroad. At the same time, it set up a factory jointly with the local New Fourth Army, which made great contributions to revolutionary propaganda. Then came the arrival of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. After the Battle of Songhu, all the Xuanzhi people who were abroad returned to their hometown to wait for the opportunity to return. That time was the most difficult day for the national industry and commerce.
After the founding of New China, the state attached great importance to Xuan paper and set up state-run factories. The traditional rice paper technology has given new vitality in the new year.
My words won't let you know much about Xuan paper. I will write all the stories of Xuan paper into a series in the future. With the strength of China, our traditional culture will be loved by the whole world, and all our cultural treasures will surely shine with new brilliance. Welcome to the hometown of rice paper, and I will tell you the story of rice paper systematically.