I didn't particularly like Chinese New Year when I was a child. It is a torment for a child who is used to going to bed early to watch the New Year's Eve and still can't sleep at twelve o'clock. The backyard of the vestibule is covered with lanterns, palace lanterns and gauze lanterns. Candlelight is bright, and sesame stalks are everywhere. It's certainly interesting to step on it, but the cold wind makes my face red and uncomfortable. There are no children on the kang table. Lucky money doesn't come for nothing. You should kowtow like garlic. There are images of ancestors in the hall, and the elders pointed out, "This is your great-grandfather, great-grandmother, great-grandfather, great-grandmother ..." Although they are all modest and kind, I still don't understand the significance of pursuing the future cautiously. "Girls love flowers, boys want guns …" But I'm afraid of marijuana Lei Zi and those two kicks. Others set off firecrackers, and I hid in the house covering my ears. Everyone has a bag of mixed food. Hum, look at the dust on the peaches and dates. How can you send them to your mouth? As usual, the New Year's Eve dinner was especially rich. On New Year's Eve, we stopped work, so the New Year's Eve dinner is actually a cauldron dish. Stewed meat in a cauldron is blind with vermicelli and blind with mushrooms; Stewed chicken, winter bamboo shoots and sweet potatoes in large pots, jars and pots. I can't use it for more than ten days. In fact, they clean up the leftovers every day. A jar full of steamed bread, a jar full of sauerkraut and a jar full of salty pimples, I don't know when it will bottom out. Mustard heap, plain gluten and ten coriander are more popular. On New Year's Eve, the cooked cake was served as soon as it was handed over. I'm too sleepy to eat. I ate two bites at random and fell asleep. I didn't know that Dongfanghong was white.
I got up early on the first day of junior high school. I braided my hair and put on new clothes, a big cotton-padded jacket and a new blue cloth gown, a black jacket and a pair of gray mouse down boots, and a green nose. Greet people and say "new happiness." Late in the morning, the mule cart was set up, and the attendants were ordered to pay a New Year call to several closest families with boxes in their arms. If you are lucky, people will "refuse to answer the phone." It's best to submit a post and turn around and leave. Otherwise, if you say "please", you will get a promotion, and at least three knocks will be a gift. I have done this job several times, and I feel timid from the bottom of my heart.
One or two years before the Republic of China, grandparents died one after another. My father led the family to make a reform movement in family life style, and got rid of many old habits, including the Chinese New Year ceremony. I don't have to kowtow from door to door to pay New Year's greetings. I'm not a kowtow anymore. I don't cook New Year's dishes during the Spring Festival. I ordered eight big dishes and a batch of side dishes from Zhimeizhai, put them in four round cages, and bought some fresh vegetables to help at home. The strange thing of eating and making cakes for several days in a row no longer appears in my house. Father said, "I can celebrate the New Year whenever I want. Why bother everyone?" We must visit the factory, not to drink bean juice, eat boiled peas or candied haws, but to buy old books from Wanghai Village and the Temple of Fire. We have also been to Baiyun Temple once. We ate dust all the way and the temple was crowded with people. Where can there be immortals? I will never think about it again. During the New Year in China, one of my most memorable entertainments was flying kites. On a sunny day, I picked up a long bamboo pole in the yard alone, holding the pole and thread. I watched the kite rise in the wind, and suddenly I met Feng Gang and stopped in mid-air. At this time, although I was frozen stiff, my heart was full of joy.
In the early years of the Republic of China, President Yuan Shikai instigated Cao Kun's troops stationed in Lumicang to mutiny and plunder Peiping and Tientsin. That day was the twelfth day of the first lunar month, which drew a tragic and absurd end to the jubilant New Year holiday of the whole people. Since then, every year during the Chinese New Year, there is a lingering shadow in my heart. Everyone congratulated on their new happiness. I don't know where happiness comes from.