Chapter 322 Men are afraid of making a fuss, women are afraid of crying.

Our country has a vast territory and abundant resources, and customs vary from place to place. There are still "crying songs" circulating in many places.

The so-called "crying songs" are actually the collective name for wedding and funeral songs.

In the past, in some coastal areas, women in every household had to learn to sing "crying songs".

When local girls grow up to twelve or thirteen, their mothers and aunts will teach them to sing crying songs (as an aside, the author's grandfather Jun's generation can basically sing, and his three aunts can also sing. The accent is quite special. Especially

Grandpa, singing crying songs when there is nothing wrong, regardless of the occasion, is really a headache).

At that time, adults were working in the fields, and little girls were in the fields, learning female singers and crying songs. When there was a wedding or funeral nearby, the girls would go together to listen to how other people "cry".

According to local customs, singing weeping songs is an essential skill for women. If a married woman cannot sing a weeping song, people around her will ridicule and ridicule her. After arriving at her mother-in-law's house, she will be looked down upon because she cannot sing a weeping song.

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Crying wedding songs refer to a woman singing to different people on the eve of her wedding and on her wedding day, and she also cries while singing.

If an elder dies, the daughter or daughter-in-law of the family will have to sing a crying song. Failure to sing or singing poorly will be considered unfilial. Therefore, local women must show their "crying" when attending the funeral of an elder or relative.

secretly compete with each other to see who can cry louder, who can cry longer, who can cry with clever and changeable thoughts...

In short, if you have a high level of mourning, you will be valued by all your relatives and friends.

There is a popular saying in the local area: "Men are afraid of making fuss, and women are afraid of crying." Therefore, learning crying songs is a compulsory course for local women before getting married. They must not only learn it, but also learn it well.

Crying in mourning is not easy to learn, because it is divided into three parts: sutra, tuo-tou and loose crying.

The so-called "Sutra" is combined with the funeral ceremony, and different contents are sung in different procedures. For example, after a person dies, the wife or daughter sings the "Breaking Sutra", sings the "Clothing Sutra" when changing clothes for the deceased, and sings the "Brushing Sutra" when combing the hair.

"...

Different programs sing different songs.

The so-called "tricks" also have relatively fixed content, such as "repaying a favor to one's mother", "twelve seeking mothers", "name of flowers in December", "ten woes", "seventy-two woes", etc.

The last type is "loose crying". As the name suggests, there is no limit to the content of loose crying. It all depends on the individual's performance. You can sing it based on your own experience or relationship with the deceased. The closer the relationship is with the person, the more sincere the cry should be.

cut.

Because there are no restrictions on the content, you can express yourself freely, and you will often cry heartbrokenly at the scene, and the singing will make others cry. Sometimes, despite repeated attempts to dissuade the cryer, the cryer still can't help himself...

In traditional funeral rituals, mourning is very important.

If at any family's funeral, the mourning sound does not "resound throughout the world", people from all over the country will think that the descendants of this family are not filial enough. Therefore, some people's level of mourning is not high, or they want to have a more mourning scene.

They are bigger, more affectionate, and will spend money to hire "mourners."

Professional mourners have existed since ancient times.

In Guangzhou during the Republic of China, professional mourners were also called shouters.

Called "Koupo", they are usually lonely and helpless old women. They live scattered in remote alleys and often come into contact with local gangsters, beggars and orphans. Their lives are not good.

The only way they can maintain their lives is to mourn.

At that time, many families in Guangzhou would hire a caller for funerals. The hiring time depended on the scale of the funeral. Some only hired people until the first seven days, while others hired them until the "third seventh day", which is twenty-one days. Some funerals were larger in scale.

For larger ones, you may even hire a caller for 7,749 days, or even for 100 days.

Once a caller is hired, she must bring her own bedding to the employer's home and live in the deceased's room. They are also responsible for accompanying the deceased and serving the deceased's incense lamp. When the room of the deceased is cleaned, all the incense lamps used by the deceased are used by the deceased.

Bedding, clothes, mosquito nets and other daily necessities are usually separated from the mother-in-law and the widower.

Of course, the main job of the caller is to cry in mourning, usually three times a day in the morning, noon and evening. Some employers may require you to cry four times. The content of the cry every day is provided by the employer, and the caller just sings and cries at the same time. Since

It's a professional thing. When calling someone to mourn, your voice should be sad and sad, and your pronunciation should be clearer. The cry must be very emotional, so that everyone attending the funeral will be deeply affected, and even shed tears.

Sometimes, the content of shouting and crying is also "offensive".

In some large families, when an elder passes away, there have always been conflicts between the families, and now they take the opportunity to attack each other.

Therefore, when there is a funeral in a family, each house may hire a caller, and several callers sit together to mourn.

At this time, the content of the cry is very important. In order to attack other relatives, their employers often use puns or cryptic expressions to criticize others, or even sing about scandals that have been concealed for many years in the family.

It’s exciting at this time. After a few shouting ladies, you sing and then I come on stage. It looks like crying in mourning, but in fact it’s a “quarrel.” Relatives and friends can also understand the inside story and understand many family conflicts. Some tabloids

Journalists will also sneak in or find relatives of the deceased to learn the lyrics of the shouting and attacking each other, exaggerate and exaggerate, and then write "insider information" or serialized novels, which are very popular.

Therefore, those shouters who are good at improvising on the spot and attacking the opponent with wonderful lyrics are very famous and require a lot of money to hire.

This situation has been prevalent since the late Qing Dynasty, and it occurred even more often during the Republic of China.

In fact, being a professional mourner, whether in ancient times or modern times, is not easy.

In comparison, the treatment of modern professional mourners is much better than that of professional mourners in ancient times.

After hanging up the phone, Yuan's mother felt heavy in her heart. She was forced to embark on the path of being a professional mourner. Although she had made money in the past ten years and greatly improved her family's living conditions, she also suffered a lot.

caused great psychological pressure.

Pressure mainly comes from three aspects:

First, relatives, friends and family members did not understand her. After her relatives and friends learned that she had become a professional mourner, they slowly cut off contact with her. Her parents and mother-in-law also strongly opposed her doing this job.

Especially my mother-in-law, more than ten years have passed, and when I see that she still has a nose or eyes, I don’t even think about it, if she hadn’t cried for money to buy medicine for her, it’s hard to say whether she would have lived past sixty, let alone

I am preparing to celebrate my seventieth birthday.

Second, the villagers' rejection. Ever since she became a professional mourner, when people in the village saw her, they were like seeing the god of plague, and everyone was afraid to avoid her. The feeling of being isolated by the whole village was really uncomfortable.

Third, not only did it affect her children, causing them to be isolated, but now it also affects her son's marriage. Even though Yuan's mother acted indifferent, only she knew the pain in her heart.

The only thing that makes her happy is that her husband, despite being opposed at first, uncharacteristically supported her and formed a mourning team with her after he tasted the benefits. This is how he has his current income.

In two days, her mother-in-law's seventieth birthday will be held. Yuan's mother has put off all the door-to-door business in the past few days and plans to use this birthday to ease the relationship with her mother-in-law.

Hope everything goes well.

…

At 8:19 pm on September 10, 2023, my cousin-in-law gave birth to a baby boy naturally. Mother and baby were safe.

In the hospital, the aunt held her grandson and smiled from ear to ear. The smile on the uncle's face never stopped. As a person from Bailiang County, nine out of ten people have the idea of ​​​​preferring boys over girls, even if they have been in the family for a long time.

My uncle, who is the principal of a primary school, is no exception. This is a concept that has been passed down from generation to generation and is not easy to change.

Seeing Huang Lingwei staring at the child intently, Jiang Feng couldn't help but bump her gently with his shoulder, and said with a smile: "Weiwei, the child is cute, how about we have one next year?"

Huang Lingwei had been living with him for two months, and she had done everything she needed to do. She was no longer as shy as before. When she heard this, she responded with a smile: "One is not enough, at least two, twins."

The aunt laughed and said: "Weiwei is right, you two should get married quickly and have twins next year."

Several other people also laughed.

The eldest uncle asked with a smile: "Xiao Feng, when are you planning to set the wedding date?"

Jiang Feng said: "It is tentatively scheduled to be after the Spring Festival, but the specific date has not yet been determined."

The cousin sister-in-law who was lying on the hospital bed smiled and said: "You guys should get married and have children as soon as possible. With your looks, the children born will definitely inherit your respective advantages. Their looks must be incredible. It's scary to think about it."

expect."

Cousin Liu Junxiong also nodded and said: "Yes, her looks must be so good that any star would have to step aside."

Huang Lingwei glanced at Jiang Feng and couldn't help but imagine what their child would look like.

Jiang Feng and Huang Lingwei did not stay in the hospital for long.

For about half an hour, Jiang Feng and Huang Lingwei looked at each other, then looked at their cousin on the hospital bed and said, "Cousin, you have a good rest. Weiwei and I will leave first."

Huang Lingwei took out a big red envelope that she had prepared a long time ago from her bag, handed it to her cousin, and said, "Cousin, have a good rest. We will have a wedding banquet when the child is one month old."

My cousin-in-law made some concessions before accepting the red envelope.

Then, after a few more polite words, Jiang Feng left with Huang Lingwei.

…

The next day.

Jiang Feng and his party left Zhonghai and headed for Hangzhou.

In a private room of a restaurant in Hangzhou, Jiang Feng met Pei Ying and her husband, Professor Liu.

While waiting for the waiter to serve the food, Pei Ying took out the same agreement as Fang Yun from her bag, handed it to Jiang Feng and said: "Master Jiang, our husband and wife are here today only because of your help. This is our one point.

Be careful, I hope you won’t dislike it.”

Jiang Feng took it and took a look, and couldn't help but smile: "Mr. Pei, it seems that you and Mr. Fang are angry at each other. The matchmaking gifts are exactly the same."

Pei Ying smiled and said: "The two of us have made some achievements in the financial field, and this is the only one we can do well. Since you have already accepted Mr. Fang's offer, you can't favor one over the other."

Jiang Feng sighed and said: "Okay, then I will accept it. You are really thoughtful."

After getting down to business, the next step is to chat all over the world. Jiang Feng has a plug-in, so he has endless topics to talk to everyone. Even a genius like Professor Liu who focuses on mathematics, he can make the other person unable to stop talking.

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This meal lasted for more than two hours before it was over.

After Jiang Feng said goodbye and left, Liu Yi couldn't help but sigh: "Master Jiang is really a god. Chatting with him is like a breath of fresh air. It's like meeting a close friend who has known each other for decades. He can talk about any topic. It's really amazing.
To be continued...