Jingxiang’s Travel Notes Chapter 22 | "Travel to the Northeast" Chapter 22
The sound of the horse-head erxian is far away, and the friendship of the three-foot hada is deep
Every city always has its own characteristics, maybe a tall building, maybe a temple, maybe local snacks, maybe all of these. The characteristics of Zhalantun are the suspension bridge and the 20 pillars symbolizing 20 ethnic groups standing in the welcome square. The Xilamulun Park and Sanglin Temple in Tongliao City should also be regarded as the characteristics of this city.
The purpose of visiting Xilamulun Park, which was transformed from an original orchard, was not for leisure, but for its giant Morin fiddle building. Directly north of the park square is a circular artificial lake. On the island in the center of the lake stands a giant building composed of three Morin fiddles next to each other.
The morinouqur is a characteristic musical instrument of the Mongolian people, but it is not the earliest musical instrument of the Mongolian people. Although it appeared late, it has become a symbol of Mongolian musical instruments.
I was a student during the Cultural Revolution. In addition to holding criticism meetings, the school also organized agricultural labor support. There was very little class time and even less homework. In my free time, I go to the countryside with my children to poke hornets' nests, play chess, read books, and also play musical instruments. I have played dulcimer, accordion, harmonica and even xylophone. However, it was just to understand how to do it. The only ones I really practiced for a while were the flute and violin. So, I know what "easy to master but difficult to master" means. Only after hard work did you realize that you were not the one, and later on you had a special admiration for people with certain professional expertise. Even if you see someone else's pen calligraphy is better than your own, you will be full of praise.
Before I was eight years old, I lived at my grandma's house. I was very envious of my neighbor's brother who was a few years older than me. He was very good at playing the erhu at the age of ten. Every night when I was lying in bed reading comic strips, when I heard him playing the erhu, I would put down the comic strip in my hand and quietly enjoy the passages that were either cheerful (such as "Spring Suburban Horse Trial") or sad (such as "River Water") ) music.
It was my first time to Inner Mongolia, and the first time I looked closely at the Matouqin. Two strings! Like the Erhu, it only has two strings, which is simply a modified version of the Erhu! The biggest difference between them is the resonance box: the Erhu's resonance box is a bamboo tube, one end of which is covered with snake skin, and the other end is empty. The sound is high, sharp, clear, and can be heard from far away. The resonance box of the Matouqin is trapezoidal or square, a bit like the resonance box of a violin. The characteristics of this sound box are mellow, low and lingering sound, but the volume is weak. It is difficult to associate this with the style of the grassland wilderness. But existence is the truth, and practicality has been reshuffled as the living environment and lifestyle change - Mongolian Zheng " Yatok, etc. The ancient musical instrument was replaced by the horse-head fiddle in the dominant position.
Parks are places for relaxation, while temples are places for spiritual purification. In this place where the Mongolian people live, there is a Mulberry Temple. This is not the Sanglin Temple in Tibet, but a temple built in Tongliao City in recent years. The size of the temple is not small. There are many Buddha statues and cigarette smoke lingering around. It is a prosperous scene.
The most primitive religion of the Mongolian people is shamanism. Since shamanism does not have a unified doctrine and has many sects, Tibetan Buddhism gradually takes a dominant position and is reshuffled just like the Mongolian musical instruments. It is not difficult to explain the Sanlin Temple. position in Tongliao. This reminds me of the status evolution between the purely local religion "Taoism" and the foreign Buddhism and Christianity: when Taoism, which focuses on self-cultivation and health preservation, meets Buddhism, which focuses on soul cultivation, Buddhism gradually replaced Taoism under the praise of the rulers. dominant position. As the Chinese celebrate Christmas, Christianity is quietly taking root in China. As the sky-high cost of worshiping Buddha in Buddhist temples spreads, people who use money to buy spiritual comfort will quietly move to churches that don't even charge admission tickets - a kind of high-minded faith is overturned by the smell of copper.
We are leaving Inner Mongolia tomorrow, so this dinner is considered to be horse wine. Principal Wang invited three principals, two section chiefs, and the director to have dinner. One of the directors of the vocational college made me very happy: "You really look like Siqin Gaowa!" She smiled and said: "My name is Gaowa too, but the first two characters are different." Hi, is your name Gaowa? They all look the same? It turns out that "Gaowa" in Mongolian means beautiful. Don’t we Han people also have many women named A Mei, A Li, A Hua, and A Mei?
Among the principals, one has studied the "Book of Changes" and two are experts in family education. Needless to say, this is another careful arrangement by Principal Wang.
The dishes changed again for dinner. Not only did we have lamb blood sausage, but we also had lamb sausage on a plate, as well as lamb kidneys, hand-made lamb liver, tofu soup, haggis pot, and other dishes whose names I can’t remember completely. Suddenly I realized that the mutton I ate in Inner Mongolia didn’t smell bad. The reason for this, apart from the fact that the Mongolian people are good at cooking mutton, is probably more due to the dullness of my taste buds caused by my cold.
I remember an experience like this on the train: a young man and woman were tearing apart a dried fish and eating it with relish.
I asked curiously: "What kind of fish do you eat?"
The young man replied: "Pollfish."
I continued to ask: "Are you going to eat it raw like this?"
Answer: "Yes, just eat it."
A middle-aged man next to me saw that I insisted on breaking the casserole to ask the truth, so he took the initiative to introduce me: "This fish belongs to the cod family and can be eaten in many ways. The Koreans are experts at eating this fish. They open the fish and take out the internal organs. , air-dry and sun-dry in winter, and then you can eat it directly. "Sometimes I feel lucky to always meet such experts.
"I have two questions to ask." I began to ask: "Don't you need to wash it after disemboweling it? Why does it have to be made in winter?"
The answer I got was: "Don't wash it, it won't taste as good if you wash it." It's funny to think about it now. How could I get the point? As for why it is made in winter, the reason is simple: there are no flies and bacteria in winter, and the northwest wind is strong. Isn’t the wax duck here made in late autumn and early winter? It seems reasonable, but I don’t know if it is for this reason. Some things are not the nature of things that we take for granted.
I took a bite at that time, and it tasted like shredded squid, but different. Maybe people who are not at the beach would taste the fishy smell, but what I felt was the fishy taste. I hadn’t caught a cold at that time and my sense of taste was normal. Otherwise, how could I taste the delicious taste of shredded squid?
But it's different now. I feel a little spicy and sore on my tongue, and of course I can't taste the taste delicately.
This is a hotel decorated like a Mongolian grassland. While we were drinking and talking, Principal Wang went out for a while. Soon after she came in, a Mongolian singer came to our private room to say hello to us. I thought it was a singer, so I waved my hand: "No need, we are chatting."
The singer froze, looking embarrassed. Principal Wang said quickly: "I invited you here."
At this time, I realized that I had done something I shouldn't have done: even if I was a singer, I shouldn't be the one to express my position. People sometimes do rude things when under the influence of alcohol.
The music started playing immediately, it was a mobile speaker. The singer obviously doesn't care whether the guest is drinking horse wine or horse wine, but the grassland welcome song "Song of Horse Wine" is definitely applicable, because he can express his welcome to the guest from the perspective of the hotel.
While the singer was singing, a waitress came to me with wine and hada.
Want to offer me hada? This was unexpected to me, because in my impression, only Tibet has the custom of offering hada.
I was unprepared and didn't know what to do. Under the guidance of Gao Wa next to him, he completed the ceremony according to the three actions of respecting the sky, the earth, and himself, and drank the wine in one gulp. The waiter unfolded the hada, and I quickly bent down and asked her to put the hada on my body. At this time, the singer's song was almost finished.
Later I learned that there is a legend about the Mongolians offering hada.
According to legend, Genghis Khan was unable to attack a tribe for a long time. Genghis Khan used powerful cavalry to surround the entire tribe. The leader of the tribe faced constant attacks and the dilemma of being cut off from food and grass. In order to protect his people from being killed after the fall, he decided to surrender. He took an entourage and a jar of fine wine to Genghis Khan's camp and said to Genghis Khan: "I want to hand over my people to a warrior. I don't know if you are a real warrior. I prepared a jar of fine wine. I offer you a glass of wine. If you drink this glass of wine, I will believe that you are a real warrior. I will lead my people to follow you forever. If you dare not drink, then you are a coward. We will not bow to you. A coward surrenders, even if we fight to the last breath, we will fight to the end!" Genghis Khan's dilemma: If you don't drink, you will become a coward. I drank it because I was afraid that the wine was poisonous.
I saw Genghis Khan picking up the wine glass, dipping it with the ring finger of his right hand, and then flicked it to the sky and said, "I respect God. It is the blessing of my father, Changshengtian, that we can live such a prosperous life." Then he dipped it and flicked it to the earth and said: " I respect the earth, it is the mother earth with abundant water and grass that has nurtured our grassland children and fat cattle and sheep!" The third time he dipped the wine and wiped it on his forehead and said: "I respect myself, I, Temujin, are the real people on the grassland! Hero, because I will unify the grassland and establish an unprecedentedly powerful tribe!”
Genghis Khan wore a silver ring on the ring finger of his right hand. After bowing to himself three times, the wine flowed down his finger and onto the ring. The ring did not react. He knew that the wine was not poisonous, so he drank it all.
Personally, I think the story should go like this: Genghis Khan used the ancient wine-receiving ceremony to cleverly detect whether the wine was poisonous. My statement moves the ceremony forward, indicating that Genghis Khan was following an ancient ritual and did not create this ritual by testing whether the wine was poisonous.
This reflects the cultural differences between the Mongolian and Han people. In the eyes of the Han people, the wisdom and wisdom of their ancestors will always be passed down and even exaggerated, but the methods and rituals used to treat enemies will not be used to treat friends. The Mongolian people are not so particular. They regard Genghis Khan as a god. Every restaurant and yurt can lack everything, but the portrait of Genghis Khan is indispensable. In order to show respect for this god, it is possible to move the occurrence of this ritual to after the accident.
No matter what the legend is, it cannot change the sincerity and enthusiasm with which Northeastern people treat guests. Carrying the pure white hada, we left Northeast China at noon on the day before the Dragon Boat Festival (June 11, 2013) and headed to Xuzhou in the Central Plains. Along the way there was a busy scene of farming, with farmers harvesting ripe wheat, and I, with the heavy harvest, embarked on another journey - looking for the forgotten ancient roads in the Three Kingdoms period.
Postscript: This is the end of "Travel to the Northeast". I would like to express my gratitude to all the friends I have met. Special thanks to Teacher Wang from Dunhua, Teacher Zhalantunbai and his wife, Principal Wang from Tongliao and other colleagues for their warm hospitality and thoughtful arrangements. A single thank you is not enough. To express my gratitude.
Next article: "The Ancient Road in the Wasteland" takes you to the ancient battlefield of the Three Kingdoms.