Chaoshan style (by time)

In Chaoshan area of Guangdong, for a long time, everyone has to hold an adult ceremony-leaving the garden. It means: you will come out of the garden from today, and you are no longer a child.

The unique adult customs in Chaoshan area. Families with 15-year-old boys and girls should prepare three kinds of fruits to bid farewell to their in-laws (commonly known as in-laws) on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month and the Mid-Autumn Festival of the fifteenth lunar month, indicating that their children have grown up and can leave the garden, and are no longer children who play in the garden all day. The ceremony is to assemble three kinds of fruit crystals into four, eight or twelve pieces, put them on the commonly known "plastic broom" (bamboo dustpan for drying), and invite them out of the in-laws' furnace. Children who leave the garden should bow down and then stop worshipping. Children who leave the garden should wear red leather shoes and eat chicken heads, and eat a little of all food. The custom of wearing red leather shoes and eating the head of a chicken is said to have originated from Lin Daqin, the champion of Chaoshan in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty. It is said that Lin Daqin could not afford to buy red shoes when he was young, so he wore red leather shoes. One day, when he came home from school, he saw an old man squatting on the ground with a rooster in his arms and a pair of red paper beside him. One was silent, and the other said, "There is a bun on the cock's head." Passers-by were asked to answer. If he can get the rooster, just pay him a page of couplets, but he can't. Lin Daqin stood for a moment and then said to him, "Go shave." That's right. The old man gave him a cock. When I got home, my father slaughtered and scalded the rooster, and cut off a chicken head to reward Daqin to show his superiority. Later, Daqin really won the first prize and became famous all over the world. Influx people think this is a good sign. They buy a pair of red leather shoes for their children when they enter school, give them a big rooster and give them a chicken head when they leave the garden.

The custom of going out of the garden is also slightly different in Chaoshan. In some places, only boys go out of the park, but no girls; In some places, we should ask God's advice first and know that there is no "taboo" and "collision" before holding ceremonies. Chaoan county should use 12 flowers to soak in water for gardeners to bathe; Put on new clothes, red leather shoes and a new Chinese-style chest covering (longan and Shunzhi's money are hidden in the Chinese-style chest covering); Hiding in the house that day. Besides in-laws and gods, we should also worship Huahua's mother. When a man leaves the garden, there should be a rooster in the sacrifice, a woman should use a hen, and relatives should be invited to eat food and wine. The customs in Chenghai County are basically the same as those in Chaoan County. Raoping county bathed gardeners with 12 samples of fig branches, bamboo branches, pomegranate flowers, peach branches, champion bamboo and grass. Fifteen-year-old men and women in Huanggang Town, the county seat, were told by fortune tellers that they were not allowed to leave the garden. They just held a simple ceremony, dressed their children in new clothes, bought a pork belly, cooked it for them behind the door, commonly known as "changing intestines", and then bid farewell to their in-laws and discarded the incense burner. Those who leave the garden in Jiexi, Puning, Huilai and other places will eat fried pork bellies and pork bellies on the same day, and at the same time invite children to eat around the "plastic broom" in the field, congratulating those who leave the garden on "putting on the intestines and stomachs of adults" and bidding farewell to childhood. Gardeners in Jiexi County will send (fermented) ankles, chickens and ducks to relatives and friends, and relatives and friends will return cloth. There is no custom for Hakkas to leave the garden in Jiexi County, but some villages near the "Fulao" area are affected and have this custom. The adult ceremony of local Hakkas was held on 2 1 year-old, which was called 2 1 birthday, and neither coronation ceremony nor going out of the garden. There is also the custom of going out to visit the garden in Hailufeng area. The age of the gardener in Fairtown is set to 16. In ancient China, Han men 15 years old "tied their hair" and "gave birth", that is, teenagers were crowned at the age of 20, and women 15 years old were crowned. Men and women of various ethnic minorities have different ages for bar mitzvah, generally ranging from 18 to 20 years old. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "15% d, 16% adult." Holding a bar mitzvah ceremony for people aged 15 shows that the age of adulthood has advanced. In the past, the coronation of adults in Chaoshan area was not recorded in the county annals, but it was recorded in Chenghai County annals of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty, saying that before the man got married, his family prepared a crown scarf for him, and the crown scarf was awarded by the patriarch. When a ceremony is held, the person who praises the ceremony will give a congratulatory message and then add a crown. This custom is only held occasionally in scholar-bureaucrat families, and the common people do not have this custom. And women put their hair in a bun when they are about to get married, no matter how high or low it is. As can be seen from the above records, the coronation ceremony is different from leaving the garden, and the adult ceremony in Chaoshan has been replaced by leaving the garden. Zhong Jingwen, a famous contemporary folklorist in China, said in his speech at the inaugural meeting of Guangdong Folklore Society 1983 that leaving the garden in Chaoshan is a special adult ceremony.