What is life? Life is a symphony of firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, and pots and pans. This is real life. What is happiness? Happiness lies in every bit of daily firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea. Living an ordinary life of firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea with your family may be simple and ordinary, but it is the most rare happiness.
Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, commonly known as the seven things to open the door, are seven necessities in daily family life. They are the most common in daily life, but they contain many cultural philosophies.
I don’t know who said it: seven things for common people, firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea; seven treasures for literati, music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry and wine. This statement is biased. If a literati leaves behind firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, how can he come to play music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry and wine? Not only did the literati not leave the tea of ??firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, but they also realized some literary talent and essence from the tea of ??firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar.
For example, the first thing is firewood. The sun sets, the shepherd boy returns home at dusk, and the smoke curls from the kitchen stove. It used to be a warm and harmonious scenery in the countryside. There is a poem in an old enlightenment textbook: "Two or three miles away, there are four or five houses in Yancun. There are six or seven pavilions and eighty or ninety flowers." What is "Yancun"? When cooking with firewood, the village is naturally shrouded in hazy smoke.
"Legend has it that Zheng Banqiao, a famous writer in the Qing Dynasty, liked to go to a teahouse to drink morning tea. One day when he went to drink morning tea and walked to the city gate, due to the crowds, his gown was hung up by a woodcutter's load of firewood entering the city. . The woodcutter put down his load of firewood and apologized to Zheng Banqiao in embarrassment. Seeing that Zheng Banqiao was a scholar, he proposed: "I have a first couplet. If you can match the second couplet, I will give you a new piece of clothing, okay?" "Zheng Banqiao thought, reciting poems and writing poems is his strength, why should he be afraid of a mere woodcutter? So he agreed.
The woodcutter's first couplet is: "This wood comes from Chaishan Mountain." What about this couplet? It's not difficult to hear, but when you think about it carefully, it's a double-word couplet, which is very wrong! Zheng Banqiao thought for a long time and couldn't think of the second couplet, so he had to admit defeat and waved the woodcutter away. Zheng Banqiao went to the tea house and thought hard. I couldn't think of a second line all day, and seeing that it was already dusk, I couldn't leave without leaving. So I stood up and looked out the window. The smoke was lingering on the roofs of every house. What a beautiful scene the sunset in the west offered people the last moment of the day! At this time, every family in the village was cooking dinner, and smoke was rising from the roof of each house. It was a harmonious scene where man and nature were united. While sighing at the gorgeous scenery at dusk, I was moved by the scene, and a spark of wisdom flashed in my mind, and I immediately wrote the second line: "Because the fire turns into smoke every night. "This wood comes from the Chai Mountain, and because of the fire it turns into smoke" is a clever pairing of characters, and it is also a strange flower in the world of Chinese couplets. It is not just a word game, but also reflects the infinite creativity of our Chinese language. There are countless wonderful couplets since then, such as: This wood is the origin of Chaishan Mountain, and the white water is used as a spring to make the sun prosperous; This tree is the origin of Chaishan Mountain, and the girl's family will marry Brother Keke; This tree is the origin of Chaishan Mountain, and the black soil is the ink moon. use.
The second thing, meters. Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, rice ranks second and is the treasure that solves people's food and clothing problems.
Recalling the heyday of Kaiyuan in the past, there were still thousands of families in the small town.
The rice is fat and the corn is white, and both the public and private warehouses are abundant.
Du Fu's "Remembering the Past" is a portrayal of economic development in the prosperous Kaiyuan era of the Tang Dynasty. From this poem, it can be seen that since ancient times, the amount of rice has been a symbol of the wealth and poverty of Chinese people. A wise woman cannot make a meal without rice, and rice is the core of the seven things in life.
Legend has it that a long time ago, humans made a living by hunting. Therefore, it affects animal reproduction and causes famine! Therefore, everyone discussed finding food other than animals that could fill their stomachs. After searching for a long time, I couldn't find it, and I was very distressed. At this time, many animals came to help. Monkeys brought leaves, deer brought young grass, and sea otters brought raw river clams... Unfortunately, human stomachs cannot adapt to these foods. At this time, an old man said that there was a thing called rice, which was very suitable for human consumption. However, Shennong, who discovered rice, was very stingy and did not want to tell the people where the rice grew. The old man only heard his grandfather talk about the appearance of rice, and could only describe its appearance to people and animals. Everyone went to look for it separately, but unfortunately they all returned empty-handed. Later, the first person to find rice was a mouse, which brought the seeds back. From then on, humans had food other than animals. In order to thank the mice, humans made a promise that as long as there was rice, there would be mice.
Later, because rats reproduced too fast, all the rice grown by humans was eaten by them, causing a rat infestation, so humans began to eradicate rats. Whenever a mouse is beaten to death, the mouse always opens its eyes, meaning, die! Close my eyes! This story reflects the difficulty of human existence in ancient times.
To this day, romantic people like to say that loved ones are like "rice", the food in life, which can never be parted from. Occasional separation: I lean on the window and look out at the courtyard with tears streaming down my face, lazily pursuing the spring scenery in the garden. Deep kindness is like a knot of lilac, but it is difficult to express a banana heart.
The third thing, oil. The sentence "Spring rain is as precious as oil" describes the loveliness and preciousness of spring rain, and also expresses the extraordinary nature of oil. Xie Jin of the Ming Dynasty wrote in "Spring Rain": "The spring rain is as precious as oil, and it flows all over the street. It slips and makes Bachelor Xie laugh, and makes a group of cows laugh." Xie Jin and Tang Bohu were both talented men in the Ming Dynasty. It is said that Xie Jin, an imperial examination high school student, could not contain his excitement and hurriedly went to inform his relatives and friends. The road was slippery on a rainy day and he accidentally fell down. The villagers all over the street laughed when they saw him covered in mud and water and looking miserable. Embarrassed, Xie Jin regained his composure and said he would compose an impromptu poem to describe the fall. So, everyone calmed down and listened attentively. Later, he chanted the limerick on the spot. No one expected that he would in turn make fun of the neighbors who saw the joke.
Oil is a must-have for cooking and essential for living at home. In daily life, people have formed the understanding that if a meal contains a lot of fat, it means there is a lot of oil and water, and conversely, it means there is little or no oil and water. Therefore, people are accustomed to calling unexpected material gains, extra benefits or improper income "oil and water". On the contrary, it means no oil and water or not much oil and water.
In Chinese, some idioms related to oil have been formed. For example, "Taiwan Balm" - the old name of cooling oil. It has a wide range of applications, but it cannot cure serious diseases. This expression is used to refer to a person who can do everything, but is not good at anything. "Laoyouzi" refers to a very sophisticated and slippery person.
The fourth thing is salt. Life cannot be separated from salt. As for the relationship between salt and life, there is a saying in Chinese that "if there is salt, it will be salty; if there is no salt, it will be bland". If there is salt, the same thing is salty, if there is no salt, the same thing is bland, which is a metaphor for sharing blessings and suffering hardships together. In life, there is an idiom of "Chaojun and evening salt", which means eating pickled vegetables for breakfast and eating salt for dinner, which means that life is poor. However, in such a situation, salt is still the bottom line of life that cannot be omitted, and its importance is it goes without saying.
The function of salt is salty. Based on the function and characteristics of salt, some Chinese proverbs have been formed. "Salt is more valuable than salt, and everything is more comprehensive." It is a metaphor that things should be done carefully. "No salt, no solution to blandness" means that no problem cannot be solved without salt, and it is used as a metaphor that no problem cannot be solved without money. "Put some tofu in salt brine, and one thing will be reduced." "Rubbing a pinch of salt into the scars" is a metaphor for deliberately exacerbating someone else's pain.
As people age, they naturally eat more salt. The amount of salt eaten is related to a person’s age, and is naturally related to the amount of social experience. Therefore, "I have eaten salt for a few years more than you" or "I have eaten salt for a few years more than you" have become experienced and experienced customs.
The fifth thing, sauce. China is the founding country of sauce and has a history of thousands of years. In the "Internal Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty" by Ban Gu of the Han Dynasty, it is recorded that the Queen Mother of the West met Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in the world. It is recorded that the Queen Mother of the West told the Emperor Wu that the magic medicine contained "Lianzhuyun Sauce", "Yujin Gold Sauce" and "Wuling Sauce". . So there is a method of making sauce, which was passed down to the world by the Queen Mother of the West. It is also said that sauce was created by Duke Zhou. There is a saying of "one hundred sauces" in "The Rites of Zhou", and the invention of making sauce should be before the Zhou Dynasty.
"The Analects of Confucius Xiangdang" said, "If you can't eat the sauce, you can't eat it." From this point of view, Confucius not only created Confucian culture, but also established the rules for eating sauce for the Chinese. Tao Gu's "Qing Yi Lu" of the Song Dynasty said: "Jiang is the owner of the eight delicacies; vinegar is the food manager." The ancients ranked sauce first as the commander-in-chief of seasoning.
The rise of urban sauce gardens has met the people’s demand for sauce. There are countless soy sauce gardens in Chinese history, and among them there are many well-run, long-lasting, famous and well-known stores with a wide reputation. In history, there are "Liubiju", "Huaimao", "Yutang" and "Jimei" known as the "Four Major Sauce Gardens in Jiangbei". Among them, "Liubiju" in Beijing is the most typical. Liubiju has a history of more than 450 years. Among them, pickles are the most famous. It is said that the shopkeeper of Liubiju was a businessman named Zhao from Linfen, Shanxi, who opened the business during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. As the saying goes, seven things are needed to open a door: firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea. These seven items are essential for people's daily life. The Zhao brothers' small shop was named Liubiju because it did not sell tea.
The sixth thing is vinegar. Vinegar originated in my country. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the "Book of Rites of Zhou" records that "醯 enters the main 醯", and "醯" refers to vinegar and various other sour products. From this, it is estimated that vinegar has a history of more than 3,000 years. Different products and climates in various parts of China have produced local vinegars with different characteristics. The most famous ones are Jiangsu Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar, Shanxi mature vinegar, Fujian Yongchun mature vinegar, Sichuan Baoning bran vinegar, Liaoning Kazuo mature vinegar, etc. Among them, Shanxi mature vinegar Mature vinegar, Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar, Yongchun old vinegar, and Sichuan Baoning vinegar are among the "Four Famous Vinegars in China".
In Chinese, "vinegar" often refers to jealousy. Jealousy originally refers to jealousy between men and women due to love, and later generally refers to jealousy. In ancient times, there was a woman who was dissatisfied with her husband's concubinage and wrote a poem:
Congratulations to your husband for having her again. It's time to wash your hands and not stay at home.
Everything is explained when the door opens, including firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce and tea.
Where did the "vinegar" go? It turned out that the woman had eaten it.
There is a famous allusion to using "vinegar" to express jealousy. The wife of Fang Xuanling, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, was very jealous. Emperor Taizong deliberately gave Fang Xuanling several beauties as concubines, but Fang did not dare to accept them. Taizong knew that Mrs. Fang was determined not to agree, so he summoned Mrs. Xuanling and said: "Would it be better to live without jealousy, or die with jealousy?" This means that if you want to be jealous, choose to die, and prepared a pot of "poison" for her. liquor". Mrs. Fang showed no fear on her face and did not hesitate. She took the "poisoned wine" and drank it in one gulp, showing that she would rather die than be jealous. In fact, the poisonous wine Li Shimin gave her was just a pot of vinegar. Li Shimin made a joke to Mrs. Fang, so the story of "jealousy" arose. Since then, "jealousy" and "jealousy" have been closely integrated, and "jealousy" has become a metaphor for jealousy.
There are two female celebrities, Bing Xin and Lin Huiyin. They were both Fujianese and poets. They were both very attractive in the cultural circles at that time. They had many gay friends, and their husbands were colleagues at Tsinghua University. The two of them looked down and met each other. What was unexpected was that they had a deep grudge.
After Lin Huiyin’s family moved to Peking, a group of cultural elites from China’s intellectual circles at that time quickly gathered around him, such as Xu Zhimo, Jin Yuelin, Zhou Peiyuan, Hu Shi, Zhu Guangqian, Shen Congwen, etc. These people gathered at his home and talked loudly, which was very lively. It is said that Lin Huiyin talked about the past and the present at that time, and his views were very impressive. Slowly, Lin Huiyin's family became the most famous cultural salon in Peiping in the 1930s, which was called "the wife's living room" by people at the time. Bing Xin's novel "Our Wife's Living Room" alludes to "the wife's living room". "Our Wife's Living Room" wrote: "This group of celebrities and scholars gave advice, inspired words, and expressed their emotions in 'Our Wife's Living Room', and then dispersed. The one who waited until the end longed to be with 'Our Wife' The white-faced, thin-lipped, high-nosed poet went out to watch a play hand in hand. When his wife's husband, who was tired, depressed and somewhat useless, returned and his wife got cold feet, the poet had no choice but to say goodbye to the "living room" and quietly disappeared outside the door. In the dark night, the whole story of My Wife's Living Room ends here. "The heroine and poet of "Our Wife's Living Room" is based on Lin Huiyin and Xu Zhimo. How could the smart and aloof Lin Huiyin tolerate Bing Xin's public ridicule? She happened to return to Peking from Shanxi to investigate temples. She brought a jar of old and fragrant Shanxi vinegar and immediately asked someone to give it to Bing Xin to make her jealous.
The seventh thing is tea. China is the hometown and origin of tea. In our country, tea is known as the "national drink". "Historically, everyone from emperors and generals to literati, scholars, Buddhists, Taoists, monks and nuns, down to the common people, all regarded tea as good.
Before the Tang Dynasty, tea had many names. The most commonly used, most common and most influential word is "tea". In the middle Tang Dynasty, when Lu Yu had many praises for tea, he named "tea" when he wrote the world's first tea monograph, "The Classic of Tea". All characters minus one stroke were rewritten as "tea", which made the word "tea" independent from the word "tea" and evolved into a specific term, which is still in use today, thus establishing a three-dimensional structure of form, sound and meaning. The word "tea" has ended the history of confusion about the name of tea.
Reflecting the long history of tea culture, there are many tea serving proverbs: "The skin is broken when digging in the spring, and the bottom is found when digging in the mountains." "In the spring, it is better to plow shallowly to "break the skin", while in the summer, it is necessary to plow deeply to "dig to the bottom"; "The bamboo shoots come first, and the teeth come second." "Thick tea buds are of better quality than teeth-thin tea buds;" Picking three days early is a treasure, picking three days late is a root. "Tea picking must be timely, late picking will seriously affect the quality of the tea; "Tea is spring, and Ruo is treasure. "Ruo can seal and preserve tea," which is priceless if stored well.
"The storage of tea plays an important role in maintaining the quality of tea." Spring tea is bitter and summer tea is astringent. Be delicious, Qiu Bailu. "The quality of spring tea, summer tea and autumn tea is different.
Drinking tea is a long-standing folk custom in China. "It is better to go without oil and salt for three days than to go without tea for one day." It is a common courtesy to offer tea to guests. In the Song Dynasty, Du Lei said, "Guests come to drink tea on a cold night, and the soup in the bamboo stove becomes red when it is boiling." "The more the tea brews, the stronger the friendship becomes." , good things are not afraid to be discussed in detail." "As soon as the person leaves, the tea becomes cold." It is a metaphor for the presence of people, indicating that the relationship is average and the attitude is cold. The postscripts that use the metaphor of making tea, brewing tea, and pouring tea include: The roly-poly makes tea—— There is no standard; boiling water makes tea - it is strong and fragrant; Aqing's wife pours tea - there is no leakage."
Buddhism believes that tea is a kind of thing that nourishes the body and rectifies the mind, so drinking tea has become a "monk family tradition". The monks integrated tea with Buddhist rules, tea-drinking scriptures, Buddhist philosophy, and life concepts, thus creating the Buddhist tea theory of "tea and Zen." Its core concept can be summarized as: truth is found in tea, philosophy is found in tea, and Zen is found in tea. Tasting tea is also about appreciating one's mind, breathing out one's spirit, and a way to return to nature and one's true nature. However, the opposite statement from Buddhist tea theory is more interesting: "Tea is the doctor of flowers, and wine is the matchmaker of sex." This is a very vivid and incisive summary of the characteristics of tea by the ancients. Doctor, a waiter in tea houses and wine shops in the Song Dynasty. Dr. Hua refers to the person who brings together men and women. Flower refers to eroticism; color refers to female lust. Tea and wine are the mediums of pornography. Huang Tingjian called tea "Yunpou", Su Dongpo compared tea to "beautiful woman", and Emperor Qianlong compared tea to "Runxinlian".
Chinese tea culture is rich and colorful. Generally speaking, there are tea rituals, tea customs and styles, tea art and tea parties, tea banquets and food, tea poems, tea songs, tea dances and tea operas, etc., too numerous to mention. These tea cultures related to moral customs and folk customs have become a major contribution of the Chinese nation to human civilization in the world.
Haha, firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, tea, open the door and make the country safe. Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, life must be managed. Music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and wine were all inseparable from it in the old days, but now seven things have changed: firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea. Using the seven things to open the door as a metaphor is a language and cultural custom that has been formed by Chinese people for a long time. It expresses people's beliefs, thoughts, wishes, attitudes and values, and has profound cultural implications.