From the Qingming Festival to most of spring, it always rains, and you have to hold an umbrella when it rains. An umbrella is a common daily object for people. The weather in the sky is unpredictable, and people need to use it to block the changes in rain, rain and snow. Therefore, this object has a high sense of presence in people's lives. Every household has a corner for umbrellas. The parasols and umbrellas used by the family are usually stored here, and are taken out when the sun is strong or it rains. .
China is the first country in the world to invent the umbrella. Although the shapes of ancient umbrellas and today's umbrellas are different, their functions are similar. A long time ago, historians recorded in the history books: "Umbrellas are an ancient piece of silk used to keep out the rain." Later someone added: "A new red oil umbrella is used to cover it in the middle of the day." In short, it is used to block the sun and rain. Imagine that in China more than 3,000 years ago, people were already walking through the rain or under the scorching sun with umbrellas. It is inevitable to feel that the past and the present are connected.
The umbrella in the movie "In the Mood for Love"
Before the emergence of umbrellas, what did people use to protect themselves from bad weather? There is a Tang poem in primary school textbooks that many people are familiar with: "Green bamboo hat, green coir raincoat, no need to return in the slanting wind and drizzle." "Ruo Li" is a bamboo hat, and like "coir raincoat", it is usually made of bamboo strips, It is made of Ruo leaves and some waterproof bark. People wear it on rainy days to prevent it from getting wet, just like our raincoats today.
But coir raincaps and hats are not unique to the Tang Dynasty. People in the pre-Qin Dynasty wrote in the Book of Songs: "When you come to think about it, there is no coir and hat."
Eastern Han Dynasty "Shuowen Jiezi" writes about an object called "簦", "簦, hat cover. From bamboo, Deng Sheng", this is a kind of bamboo hat with a handle. Think about it, a stick holding up a small "shed" is actually what an umbrella looked like in its early days. Later, the material of umbrellas gradually changed, from simple vegetation to expensive silk. After the emergence of papermaking, some people applied tung oil on the paper to make it waterproof, and gradually evolved into the most common paper umbrella in later generations. "Taiping Yulan" quotes: "A piece of silk is used to protect oneself from the rain, which is called an umbrella. The cover is used for umbrellas and has been used for three generations." "Umbrella" is pronounced like "umbrella", which is also one of the early names of umbrellas. In the Tang Dynasty, the name "umbrella" was finally determined.
There are many legends about the invention of umbrellas, one of which is about the inventor Lu Ban and his wife in the Spring and Autumn Period. It is said that there were no umbrellas at that time. In order to protect people from the scorching sun and heavy rain as much as possible, Luban built many pavilions along the road. But Lu Ban’s wife still felt sorry for her husband, and always thought that it would be great if she could have a small pavilion that she could carry with her. So she imitated the pavilion and built a lightweight small shed out of bark and grass leaves. A handle is also installed so that the husband can carry it with him at any time without getting exposed to the sun. This legend is very humane and symbolizes one person's affection for others. In the now well-known "The Legend of White Snake", Bai Niangzi and Xu Xian also used an umbrella to seal their love when they first met. As a result, objects like umbrellas have been imbued with the pure romance and warmth of ancient times.
An umbrella seals love in The Legend of White Snake
All practical objects appeared for convenience in the early days, and umbrellas are the same. But later, as umbrellas became more and more popular and common, people began to attach rich social information to them. Especially after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the imperial courts of all dynasties had strict regulations on the use of umbrellas. Especially when emperors traveled, their cars had to have a "canopy" made of silk and satin to show their majesty. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, emperors and high-ranking officials used "purple lids", and those with slightly lower rankings used "green lids". Even the specific colors were stipulated.
The "Book of the Sui Dynasty" contains the prevailing umbrella etiquette at that time: "Princes and princesses, third rank or above, use pheasant tail fans, purple umbrellas"; "Emperor and officials of third rank or above, green umbrellas with Zhuli";
"Green umbrellas with blue lining are as popular as those of scholars." In the Song Dynasty, the royal family had "square umbrellas and large umbrellas, all red, with purple surfaces and vermilion lining, and four-cornered copper chi heads", which were brilliant and majestic. In the following, "four-cornered green umbrella" will be used. The "green umbrella" regulations caused people to follow the trend, which directly led to the fact that everyone with a little status in the capital at that time used green umbrellas, and it was impossible to distinguish between superior and inferior. So the court had to order "Only the prince is allowed to use it, and the others are not allowed to use it."
This may seem a bit unbelievable today, but in ancient times, every object within reach in life was divided into various shapes to distinguish the superior and inferior. Even if they are all canopies symbolizing nobility, there are still distinctions between "curved cover", "guide cover", "bao cover", "peacock cover", etc., and the upper and lower levels must be highlighted.
Especially in the Ming Dynasty, this kind of control became more serious. "History of the Ming Dynasty·Yu Fu Zhi" records: "In the first year of Hongwu, the common people were not allowed to use silk parasols, but they were allowed to use oil paper umbrellas." Common people You cannot use Luo umbrellas, you can only use paper umbrellas. Even if you are an official, it depends on your rank whether you can "open the umbrella cover", what color the "Buddha top" should be used, whether it should be "green silk on the outside and red silk on the inside" or something else. , whether decoration can be added to the umbrella cover, etc. In essence, it is just an umbrella. But perhaps a blue umbrella that seems common today could be a scholar's lifelong pursuit in ancient times.
But fortunately, in addition to status, umbrellas are more of a poetic and beautiful attachment to the Chinese. Every time when the spring rain falls, when I walk in the spring rain, a girl wandering in the rain alley in Jiangnan, holding an oil-paper umbrella, will always appear in my mind. It's just an oil-paper umbrella, the most common kind, which was still used even decades ago. I saw it at my grandma's house when I was a child. There are no fancy decorations, hand-cut bamboo strips are used as umbrella stands, and the "small leather paper" mentioned in "Tiangong Kaiwu" is used as the umbrella surface, which is then brushed with tung oil, and some are painted with a few flowers. That's it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have either.
It must be so pure and natural, it must be made bit by bit by craftsmen’s hands, otherwise it will not be able to match the hazy spring rain season.