Siheyuan: Fighting against the beasts under the pressure of the system

Upon hearing the news, Zhang Minghui and others came to the front yard to watch the excitement.

Xu Damao was wearing a light grey Mao suit today with a big red flower on his chest, which is a popular wedding attire in the past two years.

Xu Damao's face was full of smiles and he looked very energetic, with his hair combed to a shiny finish. Behind him followed a group of beautiful women wearing work-style wedding dresses with a red flower pinned to their chests.

The light makeup on her face makes her look very comfortable.

Following behind were the relatives from Old Yu's natal family and the dowry. Before a girl gets married, her parents usually prepare dowry items for her, including furniture such as door boxes and kang cabinets.

Door boxes are mostly wooden boxes made of solid wood, and are named because of the two opposing doors in the center of the front. They are usually a pair, placed at the end of the kang together with the kang cabinet, with the two door boxes on top and the kang cabinet on the bottom.

The door box is generally 85 cm long, 50 cm high and the same width as the kang cabinet.

After the wedding date is set, the elders start preparing the dowry, from small things like flower-shaped steamed buns to large things like bedding, door boxes, and kang cabinets. Carpenters come to the house to make door boxes and kang cabinets.

Painters were also invited to paint on the front of the furniture. Most of the paintings were done with ink and wash painting materials. After the picture was completed, it was brushed with highly transparent varnish to protect the painting pattern.

Usually, there are a total of 8 pictures on a set of furniture including door boxes and kang cabinets, most of which are folk stories or legends.

The borders around the main painting are also decorated with patterns of auspicious beasts, auspicious birds, flowers, etc., symbolizing "happiness, wealth, longevity, happiness and fortune", expressing people's yearning for a better life.

Zhang Minghui saw that girls in the city were still very particular when getting married. In the surrounding villages, unless the family was wealthy and would give some dowry, the girl’s family would basically not give anything.

And outsiders won't find fault with it, this is normal.

But if a girl from the city gets married and her family does not send any dowry, the neighbors will gossip about her and say strange things behind her back, and the girl will also suffer in the future at her husband's house.

After liberation, through vigorous publicity by the subdistrict office, many feudal customs of weddings in the past have been abolished or simplified a lot.

In the past, the first step in getting married was to propose marriage. That is to say, if the man and woman did not know each other, there would always be a marriage introduction, which is called proposal.

After proposing marriage, there is one important thing to do - marriage compatibility.

Marriage matching is actually to check whether the zodiac signs and horoscopes of both parties are compatible. In the past, there were many superstitious sayings that the zodiac signs of the husband and wife should not conflict with each other. What does conflict with each other mean?

For example, "a white horse offends a green ox, a chicken and a monkey cannot get along well", etc., which means that the zodiac signs are incompatible.

In addition, you have to exchange posts and horoscopes. That means your child has had his horoscopes read, and my child has had his horoscopes read. If you are not an expert, it is difficult to match the horoscopes of two people.

You must find someone who specializes in this to do the matching. This is called marriage matching.

After the matchmaking process, blind dates will begin. Generally speaking, the man goes to the woman's home, and the woman does not go to the man's home.

Mainly the woman examines the man, such as appearance, character, and education. Then, by visiting the man's home, she also takes a look at the family's financial situation and economic strength. This is a blind date.

After the blind date, the next step is called making a small commitment.

In fact, the man's side sends a small betrothal gift first. Generally, it includes simple gold and silver jewelry, clothing materials, and some ordinary gifts, mostly food. This is called "putting a small betrothal gift".

After the matchmaking and blind dating, if the minor engagement is placed, basically there won't be any major problems for two people to get married. Placing the minor engagement means entering the confirmation stage.

After the engagement is made, the next step is to choose an auspicious date, which is to choose a time for the wedding.

After the date is set, the big betrothal gift will be given. The man will send more gifts to the woman's home. The contents are similar to those of the small betrothal gift, but the variety and scale are much larger.

After the engagement, the next step is for the woman to present her dowry to the man. This is a very grand event, and it is actually also a form of showing off.

The dowry must be presented with a procession that parades through the streets in a ostentatious manner.

As for the number of bearers, it depends on the economic strength of the woman's family, but it must be an even number, ranging from four, eight, sixteen, twenty-four, or even more.

Dowry generally consists of daily necessities, such as furniture, boxes, clothing materials, daily necessities, including copper washbasins, thermoses, spittoons... They must be in pairs and covered with red paper.

After delivering the dowry, it is time to marry the bride, which means the man goes to the woman's house to pick up the bride.

Proposing marriage, matching marriages, blind dating, placing a small betrothal gift, choosing a date, placing a big betrothal gift, transferring dowry, marrying the bride, worshipping heaven and earth, sitting in the bridal chamber, separating the young and the old, meeting the relatives, and returning to the bride's parents' home complete the entire set of an old-style wedding.

There are many rituals and etiquettes among the people, or even more, which vary from place to place, such as jumping over the fire basin, spreading the tent, eating descendants' cakes and other customs.

After liberation, there were no more red tapes and the process was much simpler. The men and women gathered together and walked to the backyard in a lively manner. The sound of firecrackers rang out from time to time.

The noisy sounds of children, the crowds watching outside, and many people coming into the yard to watch, Xu Damao's wedding was much more lively than Sha Zhu's.

After arriving at the backyard, all the relatives from her mother's side came into the house to watch. When they saw the thirty-six new legs ordered by Xu Damao's family, they all nodded with satisfaction.

Wedding gifts are also varied, including everything, such as thermos bottles, washbasins, or gifts of three, five, or ten yuan.

They were all gifts from each family. The more affluent families gave more, while the poorer families gave some gifts. It was not to be mentioned that Xu Damao had a wide circle of friends, and many people came to the factory.

Xu Fugui spent a lot of money and collected supplies during this period. Food was no longer in short supply at the beginning of this year. Although there was still a shortage of supplies on the market, they could still be bought at a high price.

Unlike the previous two years, we had money but couldn’t spend it and had nothing to sell.

Xu Fugui even borrowed some bowls, chopsticks, stools and other items from their yard in advance, as he was afraid that there would be a shortage of these items at the wedding and that the Xu family would be at odds with their neighbors in the yard.

If we don’t have enough dishes and chopsticks for our wedding, it would be so ridiculous.

The chef hired by the Xu family has superb skills and prepared a lot of ingredients. The guests who came to the wedding all praised the food and were extremely satisfied with the meal.

At first, the neighbors in the courtyard didn’t want to attend Xu Damao’s wedding. Later, when they saw that the food at Xu Damao’s wedding banquet was so good, some neighbors wanted to take advantage of it.

With a gift of fifty cents or one dollar, bring the whole family to have a feast.

Seeing the neighbors' actions, Zhang Minghui laughed heartily and secretly looked at Xu Fugui. It was okay. Xu Fugui was still quite gentlemanly. His face turned a little green, but he did not make any move to chase them away.

It was just that Xu Fugui looked at the bags of grain from time to time, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help twitching, which Zhang Minghui could see clearly.