Old things in the south

Chapter 49 Love and Holding Hands
The Love Life of Gaoshan Girls
The love life of Gaoshan girls is very romantic.When a girl reaches the age where she can marry, her parents will set aside a separate room for her, allowing her to live a free and unfettered love life. At this time, the young men who are courting can play the nose flute in front of her "embroidered pavilion". Or Zuiqin, to tease a girl's heart and woo her.In this period of exclusive love, she can choose the one she likes to marry for life among all suitors.Just imagine that in the uncivilized mountain forest, under the moonlight, in front of the hut, a strong hunting boy is playing their simple homemade musical instruments and singing their love songs without words in courtship:

Where have you been, my favorite person!
The mountains are high, the sea is vast, I can't see you.

Birds fly over mountains, ships go over seas,
But I can't go,

My favorite person, where have you gone?
The girl adorned with jewels will be tempted by the song, and welcome this lovely boy into the hut to spend the happiest love life in the beautiful night.What a touching love scene!This kind of love is the real free love, love in nature and music, love for the sake of love, don't have to worry about the other party's material or knowledge, don't have to worry about everything about the environment.Many literati have chanted this kind of primitive love in poems, like Yu Yonghe once wrote in his "Journey to the Barnyard Sea" 200 years ago:

When my daughter arrived at Pogua,
Aunt is busy building a house;
Blow the nose and flute in tune,
You can choose to teach yourself.

When a man and a woman are mature in love, they will hold hands in front of her parents to show that they have succeeded in love and promised each other a lifetime.This is what the Gaoshan people call marriage "hand in hand". The word "hand in hand" has also been used as the name of "wife" by the Han people in Taiwan for hundreds of years.It is recorded in many documents in Taiwan:

The female general and Ji, the parents let her mother-in-law whirl unrestrainedly, the young and the young play with each other, play the qin and choose them, just as they like, the male gives betel nuts, and the female receives them, that is, privately, it is called holding hands.Self-matching is heard from parents, people who buy wine and drink in the same society, call themselves their wives and call them holding hands, and Han people call their wives to their husbands, which is also called holding hands. (Zhuluo County Annals)

Marriage is called holding hands. When making an alliance, the parents of the man's family leave a cloth, and when Ma Da (unmarried man) gets married, the parents send it to the woman's family. (Taiwan Government Chronicle)

There is no marriage agreement, the daughter is already grown up, and the parents live in another room. The young courtesans all come, play the nose and flute and play the harmonica, and the woman is reconciled. And hold hands, hold hands to express the meaning of private promises. (Barnyard Sea Journey)

Although the Han people also call their wives "holding hands", the marriage of the Han people's material conditions is not as good as that of the Gaoshan people who truly love each other and become "holding hands"!But then again, after the baptism of human civilization, the Gaoshan people don't know how their love life will evolve!

(End of this chapter)