Folk proverbs are neither as full of celebrity allusions as idioms nor as poetic as regular poems. However, as a unique folk culture in China, it also contains the crystallization of the life experience and wisdom of the working people in China. At the same time, it also contains a strong atmosphere of ordinary people's life.
Today, Bian Xiao is going to talk about a folk proverb: "Men walk on Wan Li Road and never eat Lycium barbarum." What do you mean? When I first read this proverb, I'm afraid many people, like Bian Xiao, will have such a question: Why don't men eat? Isn't medlar a good health food? Let Bian Xiao talk about it in detail.
Lycium barbarum, an oval berry. "Compendium of Materia Medica" records that "taking it for a long time can resist cold and heat and strengthen bones and muscles". Traditional Chinese medicine often uses it to treat dizziness, weak knees and make up for liver and kidney losses.
Modern medical research also found that Lycium barbarum can delay aging and enhance immunity. What's more, with the improvement of living standards, everyone has begun to keep in good health. Soaking Lycium barbarum in a thermos cup seems to be a symbol of modern people's health. But it ignores the fact that some people with spleen deficiency can't drink the water soaked in Lycium barbarum.
However, in times of poverty, people with poor family life need to leave their homes and seek a livelihood in distant big cities. At that time, uneducated people could only engage in manual labor. As long as they were adult men, they needed to go out to work, whether they were young men who had just married or middle-aged men who had been married for a long time.
So they left their wives and children and went to a strange place, staying for a year, two years or more. In the common people's cognition, Lycium barbarum can strengthen yang and tonify kidney. So usually at home, when the husband and wife discuss having children, the wife or husband will prepare some medlar to let the children come early.
For men who are ready to travel, they will face the long-term absence of their wives. Having said that, Bian Xiao believes that most readers already know the meaning of Lycium barbarum in this proverb.
Yes, "Lycium barbarum" in this proverb not only has the meaning of Lycium barbarum, but also has a figurative meaning. It means that the husband is not fooling around.
Therefore, "a person walks on Wan Li Road and doesn't eat medlar", on the one hand, it means that a person working in a foreign country can't eat medlar to strengthen yang and tonify kidney; On the other hand, it means that the wife is a thin-skinned woman, especially the newly-married wife is embarrassed to say that the husband should not be philandering outside, and can only metaphorically say that the husband should not eat wolfberry outside. So young wives need to pay more attention to their husbands who are not at home.
At the same time, let the husbands who are far away from home know that they should know how to lead an honest and clean life, be loyal to their wives, and know that there are still wives and children waiting for them to come back at home.
Metaphor is not only a language expression, but also a way to express people's life behavior. On the surface, Lycium barbarum and don't philander outside have different meanings, but through people's thinking and creation, readers can understand the profound meaning.