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The beautiful mountains and rivers of ancient
Huizhou once gave birth to many wealthy merchants and powerful
families and created a flourishing culture that developed
into the unique Xin'an culture. Bound by the special geographical
conditions and feudal ethics, people of Huizhou have maintained
their distinctive folkways and customs. Just as is recorded
in the earliest Xin'an Annals. Isolated by high mountains,
people are not influenced by the customs of other places .The
mountaineers's style of dress remain unchanged for hundreds
of years. As late as the Ming and Qing Dynasties they lived
in compact clans without one single outsider, their living
style closest to that of ancient times. However, it has been
the common practice of the Huizhou people to work hard but
live frugally, to engage in studies while doing farm work,
to respect the elders and to care for the young. From generation
to generation they have held a high regard for etiquette.
When you tour around the villages and towns of
Huangshan Municipality and stay with the folks, you will,
through the talks over the drinks, find in them a special
unsophistication. You will see a custom which retains, to
varying degrees, traces left from the Ming and Qing Dynasties,
or even from the Tang and Song Dynasties. Such traces are
ubiquitous--in their daily life, funerals, weddings, baby
birth celebrations, or in their couplets, festivities, temple
fairs, or sports and recreations. And what is more, customs
and dialects vary from place to place. As is described, one
sees different folkways every ten miles and hears different
lilts every five.
The word salt, for instance, is pronounced yan
in Tunxi, and ya in Wan'an about two miles away, and cuozi
in Xiuning Town not more than ten miles away. And the dialects
contain a lot of image words. A butterfly is called cloth
wings , an inkslab "ink tile" and an eel ''snake"
fish. Sometimes the folks talk in an elegant style and use
words that are often found in a classical drama. To cite a
few examples, they say platform instead of table, grand instead
of rich, outstanding instead of pretty, spouse instead of
wife, raise water instead of fetch water. Some expressions
bear a classical literary style. They would say a pleasure
all over instead of comfortable. Such embellishments lend
great fun to the daily speech.
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