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故鄉的秋收與鬼月 紀毓鼎（1915-2005）
Harvest
Season & Ghost Month
in
My Hometown
譯者/Translator: Crystal Tai (the author's granddaughter)
故鄉立秋後稻穀成熟，四野片片金黃，農家忙著收割。處處飄盪著稻香，洋溢著歡笑。小兒女們也會爭逐撿拾遺留的稻穗。此時老牛不用拉水車了，但要拉碾米的石磨。
In my hometown, when the first signs of autumn (see the
translator's note in the previous chapter) appeared, it was time to harvest
rice. Our rice paddies all looked golden then. Farmers were busy harvesting. A
pleasant scent of raw rice spread everywhere. So did bursts of joyful laughter.
Children often competed with one another to pick up rice panicles left in the
field after the harvest. At this time, old cows didn't have to pull water mills
any more, but they had to pull rice-grinding stone mills.
我們小小年紀也懂得田園收穫都靠老牛辛苦耕耘，所以很喜歡穩重溫馴的牛。因為牛的貢獻至巨，種田人家又是從小飼養牛，一養多年，成了家庭一員，融有人畜間說不出的情感。所以農村規矩禁止殺牛，也不吃牛肉。
We, the children, understood that we had to give our
hard-working old cows credit for our harvest. We liked the stable and
even-tempered cows very much. Cows contributed immensely to farm work, and they
were raised like members of each farmer's family for years. Words could not
describe the special feelings between farmers and their cows. So, the killing
of cows was forbidden. Our villagers didn't eat beef, either.
節氣的立秋通常在陰曆七月。此時夜空中牛郎織女星特別光亮。於是，故事編出牛郎織女隔銀河相愛，只有陰曆七月初七，喜鵲幫忙用嘴銜尾巴，結成一座橋，讓他們走過相會。
“The first signs of autumn” as a weather period usually coincides
with the seventh lunar month. At this time of year, Altair and Vega were
particularly bright stars in the evening. A story was therefore made up about
them, calling them a couple in love, with Altair as a cowboy and Vega as a
weaving goddess. They had a long-distance relationship across the Milky Way.
Only on the seventh of the seventh lunar month, magpies would come to form a
bridge by lining up and each holding the preceding one's tail by mouth. Then
Altair and Vega would meet on the magpie bridge.
故鄉的閨中少女都在此雙星顯現之後，呈列瓜果針線，望天祭拜，叫做乞巧。這意思是要求得心靈手巧，做得好女紅。
When these two stars appeared, unwed young ladies in my
hometown would display fruit and sewing kits outdoors. Then they prayed to the
sky. This ritual was called “praying for deftness,” which means they wished to
become more clever and deft, to do better needlework.
陰曆七月是所謂的鬼月。鄉下秋收之後，除了郊祀謝神，陰曆七月十五叫中元節，是飲水思源，祭拜祖先的日子。這天我家例須灑掃庭除，敞開大門二門，在正廳中安置一排五桌午宴，全家男女老幼依序叩拜，奠酒如儀，焚化紙帛，必恭必敬，祭如在也。祭祖之後，人們不忘孤魂野鬼可憐，於是七月三十日成為專門度鬼的日子。
Meanwhile, the seventh lunar month is called “ghost month” in
Chinese culture. After the harvest, we always performed an outdoor ritual to
thank gods for the crops. Then the 15th of the seventh lunar month marked the
Ghost Festival, during which we would pray to our ancestors, thinking of them
like the source of water we were drinking. On this day, my family routinely
cleaned up the entire villa and widely opened our front gate as well as the
second gate. We moved five sets of dining tables and chairs to the living room
and placed banquet dishes on the tables during lunch time. Our family members
took turns to bow to the tables and chairs respectfully as if seeing our
ancestors sitting there. We poured wine for them and burned fake currency bills
for them as money they could spend in the next world. After worshiping the
ancestors, we did not forget those pitiable homeless ghosts. The 30th of the
seventh lunar month in my hometown was therefore the day to help homeless
ghosts do better.
故鄉在陰曆七月三十有水上道場，是用多條木船連在一起，中間架著法台，由七或九位和尚誦經念咒。工人們同時撐船在大河小河中慢慢滑行。船尾的人則點亮用彩色紙做的蓮花燈，一盞盞放於水面上。這一儀式乃根據佛教所說，西方極樂世界有七寶蓮池。七寶蓮池的模樣雖難以想像，但故鄉那些美麗的蓮花燈，一直都在我一生回顧的童年中閃爍。
On the 30th of the seventh lunar month, there were rituals on
the water in my hometown. People lined several wooden boats up and tied them
together to place a platform between every two of them. Each platform carried
seven or nine Buddhist monks chanting Buddhist classics. In the meantime,
workers rowed the boats to slowly slide on wide or narrow waterways while the
person at the stern of each boat lighted up lotus lamps made of color paper and
placed them on the water. This ritual came from a Buddhist belief that there is
a seven-color lotus pond in the Buddhist heaven, namely Nirvana. It's hard to
imagine what the seven-color lotus pond looks like, but those beautiful lotus
lamps always glow in my childhood memories, which I keep revisiting through my
life.
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【法奶日報www.lulijen.com2015.8.14.出刊，第9-1457號】