Folk customs in chaozhou people

Every Lantern Festival, sugar cane sellers can be seen on the streets of Chaozhou. Sugarcane piles with roots and leaves on the roadside, and passers-by stop to buy it because there is a custom in Chaozhou: eating sugarcane on the fifteenth night (the first month). Chaozhou elderly people earnestly taught: eating sugar cane for fifteen nights will not cause tooth decay. I don't know when this dietary custom was handed down, and the author has no way to verify it. There are generally two varieties of sugarcane in Chaoshan area: black wax sugarcane and bamboo sugarcane. Black wax cane juice is soft and generally used for eating, while bamboo cane juice is hard and generally used for narrow sugar. However, the rattan used for fifteen nights is bamboo. Because bamboo cane is cool, eating bamboo cane can reduce fire. Therefore, the custom of hipsters eating sugar cane for fifteen nights has its basis in addition to the spiritual factors formed by the custom. When I was a child, it was difficult to taste the sweetness of a year, but my mother always bought some sugar cane and leaned behind the door at midnight, saying that this was a custom handed down from the older generation: eating sugar cane for fifteen nights would not cause tooth decay. So a group of children squatted on the patio and chewed sugar cane. This is really a sweet legacy, and we have never suffered from tooth decay and pain in our life. On the fifteenth night, we should buy the whole sugarcane home and put it behind the door, which indicates that our home will be as tall as sugarcane in the new year. Eating sugar cane should start from the tail, which means that our days are "eating sugar cane from the tail is getting better and better" and chaozhou people's rite of passage is "going out of the garden"

The popular adult ceremony in Chaozhou (Shantou) is to leave the garden, which originated from the "crown ceremony" and "gift" when chaozhou people left the garden in ancient times. Both men and women should hold the "leaving the garden" ceremony for him or her when he or she is 15 years old (nominal age, actual 14 years old). The time is usually held from March to July in the lunar calendar. When the child 15 years old, parents first write the child's birthday on red paper, asking God for advice, and choose a day that does not conflict with the child's birthday as the garden-leaving day. If the fortune teller says that the child's leaving the garden conflicts with the child's birth date, it is not appropriate to leave the garden, and a simple ceremony will be held. But in modern times, people generally don't deliberately choose a date. The time of going out of the garden is mostly fixed on the seventh day of July (the Seven Qiao Festival), and a few people choose July 15th (the Mid-Autumn Festival).

Chaozhou's garden etiquette procedures are complicated, and there are some differences according to different regions. On the day of leaving the garden, the child took a bath in a "flower bath" soaked with 12 kinds of flowers, wearing a new waist pocket with 12 longan and two "Shunzhi" copper coins in it. And put on new clothes newly sewn by grandparents, wearing red clogs given by grandparents, looking smart and mature, hiding in the house and not allowed to go out.

Early in the morning, children's parents will take a little pig offal prepared in advance and add sugar to make pig offal soup, which means that when they grow up, they will have a "belly" and be sensible.

Treat people gently. Put the three fruits together and divide them into four, eight or twelve pieces, and put them on the altar so that the in-laws who protect the children can bow down.

At noon, my mother prepared a sumptuous lunch with meat and three eggs, a total of twelve dishes. Vegetables are mainly thick, green garlic, celery and so on. Children eat thick and thick, and after leaving the garden, they are everywhere. Green garlic, when you grow up, can count and divide, smart; Celery, the word "Qin", means that children can work hard when they grow up. Children who leave the garden also pay attention to their seats at banquets. On this day, the luncheon was held at the right place, and the head of a chicken was facing him (her). No one else can move, so let the children eat the head of a chicken, commonly known as "biting the head of a chicken", which means "winning the championship".