Chapter 136 Temple Fair (Only describes the old temple fair, no main plot, please skip it)

The temple fairs in the old capital were extremely prosperous and were held every month.

There is a flower market on the second day of every month, the Earth God Temple on the third day, the White Pagoda Temple on the fourth and fifth day, the Huguo Temple on the seventh and eighth day, and the Longfu Temple on the ninth and tenth day; there are also Dongyue Temple, Changdian, Lama Temple, and Fire God Temple, and these are the ones in the capital.

In addition to the Baiyun Temple, Wuxian Temple of the God of Wealth, Pantao Palace, Yaji Mountain, Bailongtan, Miaofeng Mountain, etc. outside the city, it can be said that there are activities every day if you want to participate.

In the old society, there was a group of people who made a living by performing at temple fairs, such as a group of suona players and drummers in the South Barracks outside Chaoyang Gate, called "Zouhui".

It is similar to today’s sales promotions in shopping malls, with money contributed to organize the event, and the bigger the better.

Before it was destroyed by fire, Longfu Temple was the most famous temple fair venue in Dongcheng.

So, we must go to Baita Temple on the fifth day of the New Year!

The two little guys, Renchun and Yichun, could no longer contain their excitement and finally looked forward to the fifth day of the New Year.

I don’t need to be woken up early in the morning, I can just get up and get dressed by myself.

Then after breakfast, they waited eagerly for Wang Deming and his two aunts to take them out.

“Haha, let’s go!”

"Great!"

Wang Deming walked in front with his hands behind his back, like a big boss, and his two daughters-in-law were each holding a child.

After exiting the alley, we hailed three rickshaws on the roadside and headed straight for the Baita Temple on Fuchengmennei Street.

Baita Temple is adjacent to Mashi Bridge (Zhao Dengyu Road) to the east, the palace gate to the west, and Jinshifang Street to the south.

The morning market is on the Mashiqiao side; Suluobo Hutong is the candy and fruit wholesale market; the west entrance of Lilu Hutong is where vegetables, fish, meat, and non-staple foods are sold; and in the afternoon, there are stalls selling second-hand goods.

The street from Baita Temple to Mashi Bridge is lined with big shops such as Dahetang, Qihuitang, Fujulai, Tianqing Tea House, and Yumingzhai Pastry Shop.
Kongmenkou and Jinshifang Street are narrow streets, but they are lined with shops: rice and grain shops, oil and salt shops, mutton shops, pork shops, woolen thread shops, paper shops, and clothing shops.
All five elements and eight works are complete!

Fruits are in short supply during the first month of the lunar year, so the two rows of stalls set up by suburban farmers in front of the main entrance of Baita Temple all sell: red pears, sugar pears, lotus roots, heart-shaped radishes, and dried persimmons. The large baskets of fruit are all wrapped in quilts, with only one on the top left outside as a sample.

The farmers still wore khaki jackets, wrapped white towels on their heads, and held pipes in their mouths, waiting for buyers to come and select their products, just like fishermen waiting for fishing.
There was no need to shout out loud, people who came to the temple fair just looked at the pictures and donated generously. The best business was actually the one selling Xinlimei water radish.

Because Wu Dinghuan was waving a half-eaten carrot in his hand and standing on tiptoe, shouting to Wang Deming in the crowd: "Deming! Here!"

They are really a couple. When I got closer, I saw that my master's wife was holding a radish with 1/3 of it eaten and chewing it.

Looking at this little round face, Wang Deming inexplicably thought of the little hamster he had raised in his previous life. What a sin!
"Here, Deming!" Wu Dinghuan enthusiastically took out another water radish from the bag and handed it to him, "Eat radishes in winter and ginger in summer." "Just right, crunchy!"

"It's just a little expensive, 5 cents a pound!"

Wang Deming declined the offer and said righteously, "Brother, I just had pickled radish this morning, so I don't need to replenish it."

He glanced at the cloth bag in Wu Dinghuan's hand, "Have you bought the red pears? Well, my lungs are too hot right now, I need to moisten them."

Wu Dinghuan had a look on his face that said, "I don't believe you, but I still took out five pears from the bag and gave one to each of them. He said distressedly, "These will cost 5 cents!"

Wang Deming rolled his eyes silently and thought to himself: If someone who doesn’t know heard this, they would think we can’t afford it.
How can one per person be enough? At least one pound per person!
I just wiped it with a handkerchief and it tasted delicious and moist!

After the two families met, they followed the crowd and slowly walked into the White Pagoda Temple.

The first hall is the Heavenly King Hall. In the open space in front of the hall, farmers from the suburbs also set up stalls, mountain goods stalls: washboards, rolling pins, wicker dustpans, brooms; cupping jars, earthen dustpans, stove hooks, iron chopsticks; green-glazed clay pots, yellow-glazed jars, teapots, tea bowls, bowls, plates, and casseroles.
Every stall owner selling porcelain is an expert at tying things together. No matter whether you are buying a set of tea sets or a few bowls, they are all tied up with hemp ropes and the buyer carries them away.

The stalls were filled with opera costumes, big-headed monks, small whips, wooden swords and spears, things that couldn't be moved, rabbits beating pairs, Bajie beating wooden fish, cloth tigers, mud dowries, bamboo dragonflies, wooden snails, small cymbals and drums, and chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, and rabbits made of dyed straw.
After buying a few toys for Renchun and Yichun, everyone entered the Hall of Heavenly Kings.

Wow, no wonder monks are all fat and big-eared, they have really been good at business since ancient times!

The east and west sides of the Heavenly King Hall extend inward to the pagoda courtyard, and are all lined with business stalls that are connected to each other to form a curtained corridor.

On the east side are handicrafts: silk flowers, velvet flowers, wooden combs, hairpins, wigs, woolen yarn, etc.; on the west side are cloth, shoe uppers, towels, foreign socks and cosmetics.

Of course, what they sold were local cloth and domestically produced foreign cloth: Dawufu white cloth, blue-green twill, Haichang blue cloth, as well as the northernmost Guizi Hongyangbiao and Zhigong cloth; the patterns were Danfeng Chaoyang and Fugui Peony.

Wang Deming looked very familiar, and the sheets and quilts were exactly the same as the retro domestic bed sheets and quilt covers in his previous life. Wow, this aesthetic has not changed for decades, and I even touched it with my hands.
As soon as I left the hall, I heard people cheering, "Good!" "One more!"

Hey, there were several circles in the open space in front of the second hall. From time to time, people cheered. In the middle of some of them was a storyteller wearing a dog-skin hat, spitting and telling stories: The golden-haired rat scurried to the second floor in a few swishes.
Some of them were singing the Leting drum: Pan Bao was standing on the stage, and a big black man came up to the stage
There were also wrestling performances. It was a very cold day, and they were shirtless, wearing only woolen vests. After testing each other back and forth for a few times, one of the big men knocked his opponent down with a low kick, which brought rounds of cheers.

There were also people performing shadow puppet shows, selling rat poison, throwing coins into a copper basin (just like playing with rings in later generations). Oh my god, there was also a parasite exhibition and people selling anthelmintic.
Strolling to the pagoda courtyard, the west side is full of snack stalls, with white cloth as the tent and blue cloth around the table, steaming hot: tea soup, rice cakes, donkey rolls, Aiwowo, pea yellow, enema, frost sausage, braised meatballs
They are all run by Hui Muslims, with big white signs rusted in front of each stall that read "Qingzhal Hui", "Nian Gao Zhang" and "Cha Tang Wang".

Hey, I would never have guessed what the stall on the open space behind the pagoda is. It turns out to be a fortune-telling stall!
They all wore washed-out blue Taoist robes, with an ancient style and a sanctimonious appearance. In front of them were either Tai Chi diagrams or Bagua.
The sign in front of me said, "Important predictions, face reading, fortune telling, drawing lots, fortune telling for the year."
The strange thing is that when they have no business, they just close their eyes and rest, pretending to be sophisticated; unlike in their previous life when they passed by a fortune-telling stall, they would wave at you to solicit business: "Hey, little brother, do you want to have your marriage told?"
The back door of Baita Temple is Yuanbao Hutong, where there is a bird market: pigeons, quails, yellow-browed birds, and eagles. Many bird dealers and people carrying bird cages are wandering around here.

After the bird market is the dog market: cats, dogs, rabbits.
Before we knew it, we had been walking around for most of the day, and since the restaurants were still closed, we had no choice but to go home.

Qin Huairu and Zhang Shouchun's feet and legs were already sore and numb, and the two children were even worse off.

Wang Deming held one in each hand, and they all dozed off in his arms.
　The material for the Baita Temple Fair comes from "Recalling the Baita Temple Fair" written by Mr. Chang Shouchun; when I was looking up information, I saw that Mr. Chang Shouchun commented on the now reopened temple fair and the flyover culture promoted in the capital, and he was dismissive; how can the flyover represent the culture of the capital?

　　
　
(End of this chapter)