Wang Yinji
My life experience of more than 40 years tells me that even the rich who prepare festive banquets have never heard of setting thousands of tables at a time.
However, the Hani people in Lvchun County, Ailao Mountain in southern Yunnan held a long street banquet in 10, which set a Guinness World Record. They put 3050 tables of banquets on a mountain road more than 4000 meters long, and more than 10,000 friends of all colors from inside and outside the county, inside and outside the province, and at home and abroad came to the table with mixed surprises. This is unprecedented and is called the longest banquet in the world.
As a good wish for life and the future, the long street banquet has been passed down among Hani children in Ailao Mountain for thousands of years. On holidays and festive days, Hani people will hold a long street banquet in the scrawny street center of the cottage, which is also called the Long Dragon Banquet. It usually lasts for 3 to 5 days. Especially, the first day of the 10th lunar month coincides with the Year of the Loong's celebration of Hani October, and the Long Street Banquet is not only the first to bear the brunt, but also a huge event. October of the Hani nationality, like the Spring Festival of the Han nationality, is the most important and longest-lasting traditional festival in a year.
I didn't really feel and taste the world's first long street banquet with thousands of tables in Luchun, but I worked in the People's Armed Forces Department of Lu Chun County more than ten years ago, and I was lucky enough to feel and taste the long street banquet in October.
It was a Longteng afternoon in October of the lunar calendar, and hundreds of mushroom houses in the suburbs of the People's Armed Forces Farm were scattered into Hani cottages, bathed in the warm winter sun. Melodious drums echoed over the hut. Lao Lu, a Hani worker on duty with me on the farm, said to me, "Come to our stockade for October!" " "Lao Lu also specially told me to carry a' semi-automatic' on my back, take a few abandoned bullets with me and play a few shots to help entertain.
Although I am on official business, Hani people can't refuse to take a holiday. Otherwise, it is considered to look down on people.
So, I carried a semi-automatic rifle and 10 scrapped bullets on my back and followed Lao Lu's wheezing to climb the Hani cottage surrounded by green trees and clear springs. We entered the stockade at 5 pm, and the festive atmosphere enveloped the boiling hut. In front of the stockade in new firm, Hani girls dressed in festive costumes smiled shyly. She saw me wearing a military uniform, bowed to me and said softly, "Welcome to the army!" "
Entering Zhaimen, the square tables made of bamboo sticks spread out one by one on the bumpy but clean streets. The table has been filled with delicious Hani food unique to Ailao Mountain. Stone fish swim in the water, pigeons fly in the sky, native birds run on the ground, native bees are drilled in the soil, and three-color native eggs are rolled in the stomach. ...
Hani men and women with happy faces are walking through the banquet hall in the strip. They are either busy serving food and wine, or rushing to move rattan stools, or smiling at guests coming from afar. I followed Lao Lu and nodded to the busy people as I walked. Hani man and boy doll stared at the semi-automatic rifle on my back with surprised eyes and exclaimed with a smile: "Oh, boy!" " Kill muntjac, one shot at a time, and you can't get away! "
Lao Luxian took me to his house. His family lives in Zhaizitou, and five or six mushroom houses form an irregular farmhouse on the slope. A cow and calf in the stable are happily chewing the corn batter in the stone trough. In the earthen yard, flocks of native chickens and landlubbers stroll around leisurely. A blushing rooster pecked a stone on the ground and put it down again, asking the hen to find food. The hen thought that the local rooster met something delicious and ran to it at once. The cock clucked around the hen, dragging one wing. The hen has nowhere to run, and obediently squats down to her petite body. The local rooster jumped nimbly on the hen's back and successfully completed the beautiful thing of carrying on the family line.
In the smoky and dark kitchen, Lao Lu's wife was cooking with a spatula in her hand, and the whole yard was tightly surrounded by thick dishes. Lao Lu dragged a rattan stool to sit me by the fireplace in the main room and let me taste their most famous cocoon tea. His little son came running panting and shouted at us, "It's time to start the party!" " "
Lao Lu and I went to the center of the street step by step. 190 More than a table like a long queue of banquets has been arranged, and a dozen Hani men with bronze guns stand in a row, ready to try their hand. They are waiting for me, and they are getting impatient. Hani, the old man who presided over the long street banquet, leaned over the dining table and smoked a hookah. His deep eyes stared at the musketeers, and his rough, greasy and black hands made a gesture in the air. Three words flew out of his dry and empty mouth: ready-made! The musketeers standing in a row raised the bronze guns already filled with gunpowder and pulled the trigger in turn. Bang, bang, bang rumbling in the valley. After the gunfire, it was the cheerful cries of the dolls that pushed the festive atmosphere to a climax.
Under the guidance of Lao Lu, I stood alone beside the musketeers. After their copper cannon shot, Hani's big hand drew an arc in front of my eyes and shouted at me, "Raise your gun and put it away!" " "The semi-automatic machine in my hand made an earth-shattering roar of 10, which made the applause of adults and children deafening, and the applause could not be subsided for a long time. That overwhelming sense of satisfaction and comfort immediately flooded my whole body.
After the ceremony, the Hani old man shook hands and raised his wine bowl, wishing the hut good weather, abundant crops and prosperous livestock in the coming year! Shouting "Zibaduo" at everyone (Hani dialect: drinking).
A dozen or twenty dishes per table. If you are interested, you can sit down first, grab chopsticks and taste a dish at each table, just a little. After tasting hundreds of dishes, men who can eat again are also bloated and round, and it is difficult to bow their heads. Lao Lu asked me to try every table. I was wearing a military uniform, which seemed inappropriate. I randomly selected a table and sat down with Lao Lu.
The hospitable Hani people drink and eat vegetables while smoking a pipe, and give me a toast from time to time. I don't drink enough, and I can't stand them drinking hard with their jobs. By the time they poured the second bowl of wine, I had become a reed on the wall, top-heavy, my eyes were dim, and I couldn't drink any more. A Hani man at the same table saw that I didn't dare to drink any more, and grinned and said, "Brother Dajun is a good marksman, but he can't drink!"
The sun quietly went to the other side of the mountain, and the night slowly came to the hut. Soon, the moon will shed its dazzling silver light on the earth and the busy Hani cottage.
At this time, the married man was still drinking and chatting at the banquet, spinning his pipe. Unmarried boys got into the Woods next to the village, with a leaf in their mouth and blowing a touching love song. The beloved girl came looking for the sound and whispered with the beloved boy under the Doyle tree, which Ailao Mountain called the sentimental tree. Moonlight slowly passed through the leaves and sprinkled on their happy faces and bodies.
The love between Hani boy and Hani girl, the love between Hani boy and Hani girl, the moonlight as witness, the castle peak as witness, and the affection for one more tree as witness!
The night is getting deeper. The moonlight is getting brighter and brighter. The love songs played by the leaves still linger in the dense forest next to the hut.
Lao Lu raised his red drunken eyes, glanced at me, burped loudly and said, "It's time to go!" " "
On the way back, all I could think of was Hani strip club.
20 10 July 16 Night in Yinlong Garden
Note: This article won the second prize in the essay writing of 20 10 China Prose Pen Meeting held by the organizing committee of China Prose Annual Meeting, and the magazine "Semimonthly Talk, Selected Prose" and "Novel".