So extravagant, Zhang Baotong 2017.1.22

My hometown is in Xiangbei, and people who are familiar with it will say that people over there play cards and buy yards (buy Mark Six) into a trend. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info is like this, many people have an unusual interest and fascination with playing cards. No matter how busy they are with their daily affairs, they have to play a game of cards every day. And playing cards has not only become the primary way for them to make friends, but also the highest etiquette for entertaining guests. The salary income of local residents is really not high, and the salary of a girl who is cashier in the supermarket is only about 1,500 yuan a month, but if the price of playing cards is less than ten yuan or twenty yuan, no one will play with you. Speaking of buying codes, it is to buy Mark Six. A few years ago, when the Mark Six lottery was once rampant, many people would go to the dealer to buy a Mark Six as long as they had two yuan in their hands. Count on the Mark Six lottery in your hand once you win, you will make a small fortune. At that time, the market and residents of Miluo were in a panic depression, and I went back to Miluo several times during the Chinese New Year, but I could not withdraw money with the bank slips and passbooks in my hand, because the notice posted by the bank told me that there was no money in the bank. Later, when I was buying locks in Xi'an, a fellow villager from Changsha told me that Hunan people have the lowest bank savings rate in the country. While other provinces have low savings rates because their economies are underdeveloped, Hunan's savings rates are low because people have run out of money.

If you want to make money, Miluo people not only play cards and buy codes, but also are keen to usher in the send-off, gifts are still exchanged, there are many famous halls, and they are not tired of it. If you were to come to Miluo for a casual funeral, you would definitely say that it was the most cumbersome and troublesome folk customs and etiquette you have ever seen.

When I went back to my hometown this time, I happened to encounter the funeral of an acquaintance in the front row of my mother's house. A 72-year-old man fell while going downstairs and died in the hospital for a few days. The funeral is very strict on our side, with three, five, seven and nine days of mourning time, which sometimes needs to be determined by the Taoist priest in the temple according to the calculation of the day, and sometimes according to the wishes of his own family. Because we are a family compound in the Railway Engineering Agency, the mourning period is usually three days, and if the children cannot return within three days, it will take five days. The local mourning time is mostly seven days, and some families are easy to compare, and even use nine or more than ten days. This is a matter of burning money, depending on whose family has more money, the funeral will be grand and lively. In the most ordinary and frugal way, the cost of three days is about 40,000 to 50,000 yuan. If it is calculated according to nine days, it will cost more than 100,000 yuan.

Because the New Year will be celebrated in four or five days, the funeral needs to be done urgently, so the time for this funeral is three days. From the death of the old man the evening before yesterday, the tent was erected that night, to the start of all matters yesterday morning, until the funeral this morning. It was one of the most intense three days.

Compared to wedding projects, funeral programs are even more complex and faster and more effective than wedding programs. When the patient was breathing, a phone call was made to the person in charge of the funeral in the family compound, and the person in charge immediately called to start the funeral procedure. The chief manager then took out a funeral operation sheet for the whole process of the funeral to show the family of the deceased, and after seeking the consent of the family, he began to divide the work and call the funeral rental company, asking them to start building sheds, pulling wires, setting up tables, and setting up spiritual seats. Ask the Taoist priest to come and write the couplet, blow the suona, and arrange the spiritual seat of the mourning hall. Ask people in the store to give cigarettes, liquor, peanuts, melon seeds and towels, and ask people in the market to send chicken, duck, fish, and all kinds of dried vegetables and vegetables. Ask someone from the coal factory to deliver honeycomb coal, and ask a grocery store to deliver paper houses and flower baskets. Soon the whole preparation process was in place.

Because people here attach great importance to etiquette and customs, whether it is the birth of a child, the birthday of the elderly, or a funeral wedding, they will send invitations to acquaintances. If you don't invite, you look down on others, and you have to express yourself when you invite. Over time, there are a lot of human courtesies and etiquette between each other. Therefore, after the death of the old man, there are many people who come to mourn, not to mention giving money and gifts, just sending flower baskets and wreaths There are more people, so that the flower baskets sent have nowhere to be placed, and the wreaths are all packed in delicately packaged cartons. Because of the limited space, those wreaths were not opened at all, because those wreaths took up a lot of space, so the wreaths sent were just written in the blank space of the cardboard box with the name of the donor, and then thrown to the place where the wreaths were stacked. And those stacked wreaths can at least fill a large truck if they are loaded by truck.

There is a huge arch in front of the greenhouse, the arch is a big "lay" word above, the horizontal link below the word is "mourning a certain prince through the ages", the couplet on both sides is: Mei Tu Yurong contains filial piety, and Liu Tuo gold shows mourning. Later on, there are small banners such as: Sending guests to mourn, sending condolences and so on. The greenhouse is divided into an outer shed and an inner shed. The inner shed is decorated with deceased people, coffins, paper houses and posthumous photographs, and is a place for families and loved ones to hold their spirits, as well as for outsiders to pay their respects.

The outer shed is a place for outsiders to move, there are people who receive gifts, write elegiac couplets and play cards and drink tea, and there are also outsiders who come to worship the mourning hall. There are more than 10 mahjong machines and many stools and braziers in the greenhouse, which are rented from the temple, you can play cards during the day and night, and when it is time to eat, put the big round table on the machine, which is the dining table.

Outside the greenhouse, five large stoves made of gasoline drums were burning scrap wood, two chefs were cooking in four large iron pots at the same time, another was steaming, and seven or eight women helping the cooks were cutting meat or washing vegetables. The water for washing vegetables flowed down like a stream from the concrete floor above. Dozens of large aluminum basins contain a variety of raw meats, cooked meats, and dried vegetables. The peanuts and melon seeds that entertained the guests were packed in bags, the Furong Wang cigarettes and Shaoyang Daqu that entertained the guests were stacked in boxes, and boxes of paper cups and paper towels were taken out of the cardboard boxes, and they were gone in the blink of an eye. Firecrackers are set up dozens of meters on the ground, and there are dozens of firecrackers on the ground, and after they are finished, there are piles of scraps of paper on the ground. This kind of scene is very reminiscent of the kind of logistics support scene when the large corps fought during the Liberation War. At the same time, it also makes people sigh that Chinese usually pick and shrink when they spend small money, but when they spend a lot of money, they are very generous and spend thousands of dollars.

Leasing a mahjong machine is 50 yuan a day, and 10 sets are 1,000 yuan for two days. Bowls, chopsticks and cooking utensils are also 1,000 yuan for three days, the arch is 600 yuan for three days, 1,000 yuan for two three days to build a shed, and a paper house is 700 yuan, beating gongs and drums to the temple to give the deceased at least 1,000 yuan, and inviting the art troupe to sing a big opera at night for 2,000 yuan, as well as asking someone to write an elegiac couplet and playing the suona on the huqin, etc., 3 people are 300 yuan per person per day, fortunately, dozens of people who help are just taking care of the meal, and then send a pack of cigarettes and a towel, without paying the salary, which saves thousands of yuan to the deceased's family。 During the three days, there were three or four hundred people who came to mourn and help, plus relatives and friends, so I don't know how much it will cost to pay these condolences, help, and theater guests.

However, if you count the gift money you receive and subtract the cost of your expenses, you will actually have a surplus. Because there are more people who give gifts, and the minimum money is 200 yuan, most people generally give 300 yuan, and those who are closer to each other generally give 500 or 600 yuan. If 200 people send money, they will be able to balance the income and expenditure of this funeral. If 300 people give money, then you will get something, and if 400 people give gifts, you will make a small fortune. This is the main reason why people are so keen to throw big drinks and make a big fuss.

I have lived in Xi'an for more than 40 years and have never held a birthday celebration for myself and my children. I only celebrate my father-in-law's birthday once a year when he is in his 80s. During the birthday, the whole family was asked to have a meal in a nearby restaurant, and the cost was originally paid by the father-in-law, but we refused, so we shared it equally among the families. However, in Miluo, Hunan Province, children have to hold a banquet from birth to the full moon, and they have to send invitations to relatives and friends. People usually invite relatives and friends to sit together on their birthdays, and they don't invite them much, but when they reach 40 or 50 birthdays, they must have a big banquet and invite a lot of people. In the countryside, it is more particular, relatives and friends, and villagers have to be invited. Please eat and drink, not to mention, there are two plays, and the people who come to watch the play are constantly smoked, tea, melon seeds and peanuts are served, and finally a cake is given to everyone. However, I saw some scenes of birthday celebrations for the elderly, and it really surprised me. Once, I saw a family celebrating the birthday of an elderly man, and if nothing else, the arches of celebration alone were densely packed in a large row. I counted the arches, and there were 23 of them. Each arch is decorated with celebratory banners and couplets. It is said that each arch costs 200 yuan, and the 23 arches alone cost several thousand yuan. However, on the Xi'an side, if it is not a very important celebration, no unit will use the arch. Private ceremonies, on the other hand, never use arches.

Organizing a major event such as a marriage or funeral is even more important and lively. Many people even borrowed money to go into debt. In addition to the factors of comparing with each other and talking about human face, the main reason is to accept gift money. From the birth of a child, a person has to invite guests to a banquet, eat full moon wine, celebrate the first birthday, ten years old, go to university, get married, move to a new house, sixty years old, seventy years old, eighty years old, and have a big banquet until he dies. I remember that the original gift was usually ten or twenty yuan, and the maximum was fifty. And now, I feel that I can't get 200 yuan, and I'm embarrassed to sit at the banquet. So, to say the least, you have to get three hundred dollars. If you meet a few acquaintances for a happy event in a row, then your monthly salary may not be enough. I remember that a few years ago, a relative's unit built a new house, and everyone else bought the new house, but he didn't buy it, and the moonlight was to celebrate the housewarming of his colleagues, so he gave away two or three months' wages at once.

This kind of human ritual of inviting and inviting is like a vampire, a bottomless pit, so that people spend all their small savings on this meaningless eating, drinking, and lively scene. For the sake of face, the money is also rising, and the burden of favor is getting heavier and heavier. For the rich, this extravagance may be a show of strength and a gathering of resources, but for the poor, it is a disaster. Because this kind of human face will not only never be exhausted, but will also accumulate more and more.