Siheyuan: Starting to work in the security department

This year is a very successful year for Niu Ping'an.

This year I started a family;

I’m almost a father this year;

This year I will no longer be alone.

This year's Spring Festival, Niu Ping'an rarely took the initiative to ask to be on duty.

After all, he is no longer alone now!

Qin Jingru is already pregnant, and a week ago, Niu Ping'an went to Qinjia Village alone to give gifts to his father-in-law.

By the way, I said hello to my mother-in-law, and when Qin Jingru went on maternity leave, I telegraphed back to Qinjia Village and asked her to take care of her.

Niu Ping'an also invited the two elders to celebrate the New Year in the city, but since they had a son at home, the two elders naturally rejected Niu Ping'an's kindness.

Niu Ping'an was very busy for a period of time before the New Year.

You have to take time out every day to buy New Year’s goods and prepare food.

Many things often require waiting in line for half a night before you can buy them.

On the twenty-fifth, freeze the tofu; on the twenty-sixth, go buy meat; on the twenty-seventh, slaughter the rooster; on the twenty-eighth, let the dough rise; on the twenty-nine, steam the buns.

New Year’s Eve dinner is not made in one day. The biggest benefit of the Spring Festival is that it satisfies your cravings.

During the Spring Festival, each resident of the city was given an extra half pound of oil and half a pound of meat, and each household could also add two pounds of flour, one pound of soybeans, two pounds of mung beans, a few pounds of Xiaozhan rice and five pounds of fish to their shopping list.

Diligent housewives arrange three meals a day for the whole family during the New Year with their ingenuity: the dough is fermented on the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, and various dough fruits are fried on the 29th. They are reluctant to use oil on weekdays, but now the sweet, salty, crispy and fragrant shredded carrot meatballs, sweet potato meatballs and chops are filled to the brim.

Steamed buns, made bean buns, and other staple foods for the New Year should be prepared before New Year’s Eve.

The New Year’s Eve dinner is divided into two meals. First, there is rice and fried vegetables at five or six o’clock in the evening. The usual rice is replaced with small rice, and it is added with grilled hairtail, casserole tofu, lion’s head or four-happiness meatballs, and bean sprouts.

This is the most important and most sumptuous meal of the year. People who are away from home must rush back to eat it, and the dish must include fish, which means "abundance every year".

At 12 o'clock at night, the whole family will eat dumplings together. The dumplings are wrapped with Fuqiang flour, which is much whiter than the standard flour we eat every day. They are usually filled with pork and cabbage, and sometimes with sauerkraut.

The custom of eating dumplings requires bamboo tool shops to work overtime to make bamboo sieves before the Spring Festival every year.

Cabbage is the main dish of the people. In the Spring Festival menu, the ways housewives use it can almost make a cabbage banquet: mustard cabbage dumplings, cabbage heart mixed with cold dishes, spicy spiced cabbage, pickled cabbage, cabbage with vinegar, stir-fried or stewed sauerkraut, pickled plums with oil, etc.

On the 27th and 8th day of the twelfth lunar month, the streets are crowded with people selling New Year's goods. State-owned non-staple food stores all put up wooden boards in front of their stores to sell on the street.

There are two festive red lanterns printed on the New Year's Eve ticket. A large piece of meat weighs two to three kilograms, which is much more comfortable and enjoyable than buying it at two and a half kilograms.

Every household has to buy some hairtail from Changhua Island, Mingtai fish from Tumen, freshwater fish from Urad Front Banner in Inner Mongolia, and miscellaneous marine fish from Bohai Bay as the main dish for the New Year's Eve dinner.

Tang Guaer offered sacrifices to the stove, the girl asked for flowers, the boy asked for cannons, and the old man asked for a new felt hat.

In addition to the traditional Spring Festival food Guandong candy, there were candies in the shapes of little dolls, flower baskets, pagodas, chickens, and ducks on the market. In addition to various flavors, oranges, and Dafang biscuits, the crispy and delicious "1963" was newly launched in 63, and the packaging also came with an art calendar of that year.

The girls' favorite head flowers and corsages include chrysanthemums, peonies, roses, peonies, gladioli and other flowers. They also often can't help but spend money on potted flowers such as plum blossoms, peach blossoms, camellias, forsythias, poinsettias, asparagus ferns, cinerarias, begonias, daffodils, cyclamen and other flowers in flower shops.

Adding a new toy for the Chinese New Year is a little secret of parents who prepare New Year goods. They buy a small piggy bank for children aged 8 to 12, a small drum for children aged 2 to 4, and a diabolo or kite for children aged six or seven.

Wooden swords and guns, waist drums, large swinging balls, building block towers, iron cicadas, hairy shuttlecocks, facial masks, as well as new toys such as "rolling mice" and "fighting cocks". Parents hold their wallets tightly and think about which one is the most cost-effective.

The steel mill only started to close for the holiday after working half a day on New Year's Eve.

As soon as Niu Ping'an returned home, he started to get busy, and the yard was filled with fragrance.

Dumplings stuffed with cabbage and pork, fried meatballs, braised pork, stewed chicken, braised yellow croaker, scrambled eggs with green onions, and fried shrimp.

Although there are only two people in the family, this is Niu Ping'an's first real Chinese New Year, so it must be a sumptuous feast.

Niu Ping'an also took the time to buy a pair of couplets from Yan Bugui and put them up at home.

Of course, a fee for writing is essential.

"Happy New Year, Jingru!"

"Happy New Year, Brother Ping An!"

Niu Ping'an and Qin Jingru clinked glasses and happily began to enjoy the New Year's Eve dinner.

The two looked forward to a beautiful life in the future, and even though they were the only couple celebrating the New Year, their life was filled with laughter and joy.

Xu Damao became single again and went back to Xu Fugui's place to celebrate the New Year;

Liu Guangqi, the eldest of the Liu family, came back with his wife and daughter to celebrate the New Year, but the atmosphere in the Liu family was not so warm;

Yi Zhonghai is still alone;

Although He Yushui's relationship with Sha Zhu was rather strained, he still went to Jia's house with him to have a New Year's Eve dinner;

Everything was fine in the front yard, and the Yan family was still sharing peanuts and melon seeds.

At twelve o'clock midnight, after setting off the door-opening firecrackers and eating dumplings, the traditional New Year is officially welcomed.

On weekdays, the coarse grains are cooked carefully and there is little meat. On New Year's Eve, the rich and strong rice dumplings are particularly delicious.

Even if you don’t have pocket money on weekdays, you can make paper lanterns and windmills during the Spring Festival, or even go to the Factory Market and buy nothing, which can make children and adults happy for a year.

On weekdays, parents and children are quarantined, and being able to have a reunion dinner, even if it is just radishes and cabbages, is a blessing in life.

On the first day of the new year, Niu Ping'an was still lying on the warm kang early in the morning when the children from the yard came to pay New Year's greetings.

The situation is different after I got married. The children in the yard also started to come to my house to wish me a happy New Year.

Niu Ping'an was not stingy either. He gave each of them 50 cents as a New Year's money and also gave them some melon seeds and peanuts.

Even Qin Huairu's three children were no exception.

After dealing with the affairs in the hospital, Niu Ping'an went to Director Wang's house as usual to send gifts and celebrate the New Year.

After paying New Year's greetings, he took Qin Jingru to visit Niu Baoguo's grave.

Niu Ping'an wanted to go back to his hometown to burn some incense for his predecessor's parents.

However, the round trip journey of at least four or five days was too inconvenient, so it has never been carried out.

There was nothing to do on the second and third days of the New Year, and Qin Jingru was not convenient, so they did not go to Qinjia Village to pay New Year's greetings. Instead, the two of them went to the temple fair.

The greatest pleasure for people in Beijing during the Spring Festival is visiting temple fairs.

Temple fairs bring endless fun to the lives of ordinary people.

There are many temples in Sijiu City, so there are also many temple fairs.

According to a survey in 1930, there were 20 large temple fairs in the urban area and 16 in the suburbs.

The most popular temple fairs are Longfu Temple, Huguo Temple, Tudi Temple, Flower Market and Baita Temple.

The temple fair not only has local snacks, folk flower fairs, but also various skill performances.

The temple fair also sells all kinds of general merchandise, ranging from antiques, calligraphy and paintings, pearls, jade, and silk to needles, thread, flowers, birds, fish, insects, and many daily necessities. It really includes everything.

Every time a temple fair is held, people from all over the city gather there to buy daily necessities, taste local snacks, watch flower show performances, and some just come to "shop".