Dongshan Island, located on the southeast coast, has a long history of traditional culture. The people's "literature carries the Tao", the style of study is flourishing, and scholars have come forth in large numbers throughout the ages. The spiritual food on the island is rich and colorful, full of unique humanistic culture.

"Respecting and cherishing the word paper" is a good virtue in China traditional culture, which represents the ancient people's cultural thought of respecting. Legend has it that Cang Xie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor, invented and created Chinese characters. "every word has a god." Throughout the ages, emperors and princes and ordinary people have advocated respecting words. At the same time, the ancients believed that we should respect and cherish the paper with words, so as to form the virtue of respecting words and pass it on.

Praise for Han Zong's Picking up Manuscript Paper is a story related to honoring Manuscript Paper, which was circulated inside and outside the ancient city of Tongshan in the early years. Some elderly people should be no strangers. This story has the significance of inheriting and continuing traditional culture, and it is very extensive in the ancient city area.

According to legend, a long time ago, there was a student in Tongshan ancient city, surnamed Sun, a famous Sect, who devoted himself to his studies since he was a child. However, many years later, he often failed the exam, was down and out, and was in a trance. On weekdays, he is like a down-and-out "scavenger", disheveled and untidy, wandering in the streets of the ancient city. However, Sun has a soft spot for paper. Although he looks silly and "concerned about God", whenever he sees discarded paper in the street or even in the garbage dump, he will quickly pick it up and identify it, carefully arrange it in his hand, and talk to the words Kan Kan on the paper. Waiting to fill the clothes pocket or carry-on bag with the picked-up waste paper, I stumbled to send the picked-up word paper "Baby" to the "Golden Furnace (Pavilion)" set up by Sizhou Buddhist Temple in the southwest of the ancient city for burning.

What we call respecting paper with words, to put it bluntly, is respecting paper with words, which has a long history in China. According to Yanjing Old Customs, it is extremely serious to defile calligraphy, that is, to slander Confucius. Dare to use calligraphy is almost the same crime as disrespecting Buddha and unfilial parents. " As a result, many good books and monographs have appeared among the people to persuade people to respect and care for Chinese characters, and gradually formed the so-called "law of caring for Chinese characters"

Sun picked up the word paper just to let the "word paper" scattered in the streets and lanes to avoid being trampled by passers-by again. In fact, until the 1960s and 1970s, when you were walking in the alleys of the ancient city, you could often see passers-by used to naturally pick up "word paper" from the ground and stuff it into the cracks in the mottled walls to avoid being trampled or crossed unintentionally. ...

I remember when I was a child, every time a book or page fell on the floor, adults must teach the children in time and pick it up quickly. This is the rule. There is such a "taboo" in the old custom of the ancient city: you must not cross books and papers in your daily walk; Don't sit on a book or paper with handwriting, otherwise it will be regarded as "disrespect for words" For written or discarded paper, elders often tell them to collect it well. Generally speaking, on the second or sixteenth day of the second lunar month, when people go to the nearby land temple to worship "burning incense and igniting", they will respectfully put it in a gold and silver furnace and burn it.

Earlier, at the beginning of the new semester, school children went to school to "register", got new textbooks, and rushed home happily with new books in their arms. Everyone is scrambling to fold the cover of the book with kraft paper to protect and cherish it, for fear that the textbook will be stained by dirt. Once the corner of the book is wrinkled or damaged, it should be flattened and repaired, taking pride in caring for the book and being neat; Students don't want to waste paper for study. By the end of the semester, if there are still blank pages in the exercise book, they will carefully separate them and bind them into a book for later use.

I remember when I was studying in my early years, there were piles of waste paper (called hoarding) made of bricks and stones near the playground walls of several schools in the ancient city. In a certain period of time, such as "the end of winter" (at the beginning or end of the semester), the school teacher will always organize all classes of students to collect paper materials such as scraps of paper books or test papers, and all of them will be burned in a unified way, without daring to blaspheme.

Usually, when children go out and walk in the street, they will accidentally step on the "word paper". At this time, the accompanying elders, grandfathers and grandmothers are in a state of fear. They quickly picked up the crossed "word paper" and put it on the wrong child's head. Void hovers in both positive and negative directions, chanting prayers: "Please forgive the sins of saints." The old people are afraid that their "unreasonable" junior's mistake of "being good at this" has crossed the page, and they have no intention to offend the "satellite god" and beg for forgiveness. Through such a prayer ceremony, young people who expect themselves to make mistakes will not forget the familiar words they have learned. This scene was often seen in the ancient city of Tongling in the last century and was deeply impressed.

According to the textual research of Mr. Huang's Tongling Ji, Tongshan ancient city is located in Tongling area. In the early days, there were two sites, "Lion's Goat's Milk" and "Arrow Field", which were specially used by the people to burn "paper".

Later, most people in the workshop regarded Sun's behavior as alien and laughed at it. Even a derogatory word "Zan" was added before the name, and the surname was lost, so it was called Zan (meaning stupid). Maybe it's a local accent. "Word paper" gradually broke away from people's understanding of its meaning and evolved into the meaning of "crumpled paper" (messy paper). Therefore, people often have similar behaviors in their daily life. For example, someone who hides things that are usually useless but reluctant to throw away will often be labeled as "pick them up like a son of the Han Dynasty"! Make fun of it, laugh at it, laugh at it.

The times are progressing and the economy is developing rapidly. Now, how many people will occasionally think of the story of "Han Zong picking up word paper" and its potential intention of "respecting and cherishing word paper"?

Island accent, I don't know when, people call the coins used in daily circulation "paper characters", and the waste paper after writing is called "words (paper)", which sounds the same but the order is reversed. In the early days, we islanders had great respect for "word paper" and had such a pious awareness of rituals and rules that we were very emotional. I think this fully reflects that islanders advocate culture from generation to generation, and the people are rooted in the fear of words and the emotion of attaching importance to education.

In the ancient city, there are always some scattered past events;

The past is like a dream ...

Draft 2065438+July 8, 2005

Note: This article was selected in the third issue of Dongshan Literature and Art 20 18. In the text, "pick up the word paper", and the local accent reads "word paper"; Khioh, in Minnan, means abstract actions related to hands, such as picking up/collecting/sorting/gathering/collecting. For example, Minnan dialect: firewood, passengers along the way, two people working together, shirts and pants, and so on.