As we all know, "closing the door" means refusing guests, but why is "closing the door" associated with "soup"? This has to start with the historical allusions of prostitutes receiving customers in the Tang Dynasty.
Allusions to closed doors
The word "closing the door" was first seen in a passage in Changxinlu quoted by Feng Zhi in Yunxian Miscellanies in the Tang Dynasty: "Shi Feng is also a prostitute in Xuancheng. Treat guests equally ... if you don't meet, you will wait behind closed doors. "
It turns out that there was a famous prostitute named Shi Feng in Xuanzhou City of Tang Dynasty. She is not only beautiful and romantic, but also good at singing and dancing. She has a charming golden voice, and her dancing is even more charming. She is proficient in poetry, piano, ink splashing and painting.
Therefore, she is a sensational celebrity. Fiona Fang baili aristocratic children and romantic wit, are happy to see Shi Fengfang.
But Shi Feng is arrogant and disdains gold and silver. She values talent rather than money, and divides people who come to see her into three or six categories according to their appearance and talent. For senior guests, she went downstairs to receive them; If you are a dude, you will be rejected by those who are uneducated and unskilled. Over time, some dudes who have been mistreated for many times bear a grudge against her and vilify Shi Feng from afar.
Smart Shi Feng came up with a way to reward everyone who was rejected with a bowl of soup so that they would stop talking nonsense. Later, when people came to see the soup, they knew that Shi Feng was unwilling to receive it, and left after a long excuse. Although I am dissatisfied, I have nothing to say.
So, what is Shi's "behind closed doors" made of? It is said that Shifeng's "closed door" is made of tofu and duck intestines. The reason why this dish is made with these unsuitable raw materials is to express the host's contempt for the guests.
However, what Shi Feng himself didn't expect was that some people who didn't know what to do ate Shi Feng's "closed door" and found it delicious, which attracted some people to taste it specially. Nowadays, "Closed Door Soup" has become a traditional dish along the Yangtze River in Anhui!
"Closing the door" is named after this incident and has been passed down to this day. Later, "closing the door" became synonymous with refusing guests. It is more polite to entertain guests with soup than to refuse them outright. It's a pity: if modern people refuse customers, they have to "close the door" and there is no "soup". It also refers to being "shut out" when the host is away when visiting others.