The Spring Festival is the grandest and most meaningful traditional festival in China, with a long and ancient history. It evolved from the ancient times when people prayed for the New Year at the beginning of the year.
Introduction of the Spring Festival
The Spring Festival is the Chinese Lunar New Year, commonly known as the New Year, the new year, the New Year's Day, etc., orally known as the New Year, the New Year. The Spring Festival has a long history, evolved from the ancient times of the first year of prayer and sacrifice. All things are based on the sky, people are based on ancestors, praying for the year of sacrifice, honoring the sky and the ancestors, to report the beginning of the reverse.
The origin of the Spring Festival contains profound cultural connotations and carries a rich historical and cultural heritage in its development. During the Spring Festival, various activities are held throughout the country to celebrate the New Year, with strong regional characteristics. These activities are mainly to get rid of the old and bring in the new, drive away evil spirits and calamities, worship the gods and ancestors, and pray for the New Year in a colorful form, condensing the essence of traditional Chinese culture.
The origin of the Spring Festival
The origin of the Spring Festival is said to be more than one, in which the most commonly accepted theory is that the Spring Festival emerged from the ancient period of Yu and Shun. One day, more than 2,000 years ago, Shun accepted Yu's cession of the throne of heaven and led his men to worship heaven and earth. Since then, this day has been regarded as the first day of the year. In later generations, this is said to be the origin of the Lunar New Year, which in later years was commonly referred to as the Spring Festival.
The Spring Festival in each period of time is not the same, in the Xia Dynasty is the first month of Mengchun, the second road to the Shang Dynasty is the first month of the waxing moon, the Qin Dynasty period is the first month of October, and in different periods, the Spring Festival is also called very different, the pre-Qin period for the first day of the year, dedication to the year, to the Han period is the first day of the year, the year of the first day of the year, the 1911 Revolution, the Lunar New Year is precisely to determine the first day of the first month of the first day of the first month of the first day of the first month of the first day of the first month of the first month of the first day of the first month of the first day of the first month of the first month. The name is also fixed.
The Spring Festival is one of China's ten traditional festivals, has a long history. The origin and development of the Spring Festival is a gradual process of formation, refinement and popularization, evolved from the ancient times of the first year of the year prayers and sacrifices, and the ancient primitive beliefs, choose auspicious days for sacrifices, as well as the sky, the calendar and other humanities and natural cultural content. In ancient times, after the end of a year's agricultural work, at the beginning of a new year, people held sacrifices to thank the gods of heaven and earth, to repay the ancestors for their kindness, and to pray for a good harvest in the coming year.
Customs of the Spring Festival
During the period of the Spring Festival, there are all kinds of New Year's celebrations all over the country, and there are differences in the content or details of the customs due to the different regional cultures, which are richly characteristic of each region. The celebrations during the Spring Festival are extremely rich and varied, including lion dances, floating colors, dragon dances, God tours, temple fairs, flower streets, lanterns, gongs and drums, flag tours, fireworks, praying for blessings, guanchuan spring, and stilt walkers, dry-boat runners, and rice-planting songs, etc. The Spring Festival is also a time of celebration for the New Year's Eve. During the Spring Festival, there are different ways to celebrate the New Year, such as sticking New Year's red, observing the New Year's Eve, eating New Year's dinner, and paying New Year's call, etc. However, due to the different local customs, each of them has its own characteristics in the subtle ways. Spring Festival folklore in various forms, rich in content, is the essence of the Chinese people's life and culture of the concentrated display.
1, posting the door god
The initial door god is carved mahogany as a human figure, hanging next to the person, and later is painted into the door god portrait posted on the door. Legend has it that the two brothers, Shentian and Yubi, specialize in controlling ghosts, and with them guarding the gateway, evil spirits of all sizes would not dare to enter the door to do harm. After the Tang Dynasty, there are painted fierce general Qin Qiong, Yuchi Jingde two people like the door god, there are painted Guan Yu, Zhang Fei like the door god. Door god image of the left and right households each one. Later generations often painted a pair of door god as a Wen and a Wu, sent the Han working people a kind of good wishes to ward off evils and disasters, and to welcome auspiciousness and good fortune.
2, posting Spring Festival
Spring Festival couplets, also known as the "door to", "couplets", "Peach Charms", etc., is a kind of couplets, because in the Spring Festival, a pair of door gods are often painted as a Wen and a Wu. A kind of couplets, because in the Spring Festival when posted, and named. It is a unique form of literature in China, which depicts the background of the times and expresses the good wishes in neat, pairwise, concise and exquisite words. Every Spring Festival, no matter in the city or in the countryside, every family has to choose a big red Spring Festival couplet to paste on the door, to increase the festive atmosphere for the festival. This custom began in the song dynasty, in the ming dynasty began to prevail, to the qing dynasty, the spring couplets of ideology and artistry have been greatly improved, liang zhang toru prepared by the spring couplets of the monograph "sillian series of words" on the origin of the couplets and all kinds of works of the characteristics of the discourse. There are many kinds of spring couplets, according to its use place, can be divided into door heart, frame pair, horizontal phi, spring strip, bucket square and so on. The "door heart" is attached to the center of the upper part of the door panel; the "frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; the "horizontal phi" is attached to the horizontal wood of the lintel; the "spring strip" is attached to the lintel according to different contents. "according to different contents, pasted in the corresponding place;" Doufang "also known as" door leaf ", for the square diamond-shaped, more pasted in the furniture, shadow wall.
3, stickers
The Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, thick black colorful paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. These have the folklore function of praying for blessings and decorating the residence. New Year's paintings are an ancient folk art in China, reflecting the customs and beliefs of the people and holding out hope for the future.
Like the Spring Festival couplets, they originated as "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of the New Year's paintings has not only limited to monotonous themes such as the God of the Door, become colorful, in some of the New Year's paintings in the workshop produced the "Three Stars of Fortune and Longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "Five Valleys of Abundance," "Six Animals Prosperity," "Welcome to the Spring to receive the blessing of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's joyful praying for the year's best wishes. There are three important production areas of Chinese New Year paintings in China: Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong Province; three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings have been formed, each with its own characteristics.
China's earliest collection of Chinese New Year paintings is the Southern Song Dynasty "with the fairness of the country's face" woodcut New Year paintings, the painting is Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Banji and green beads of the four ancient beauties. The most widely circulated folk painting is the one of "The Mouse Marrying Her Marriage". It depicts an interesting scene of a mouse marrying a bride in accordance with the customs of the earth. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng Mantuo of Shanghai combined the lunar calendar and New Year's paintings. This is a new form of New Year's paintings. This combination of two and one of the New Year's paintings, later developed into a calendar, and is still popular throughout the country.
4, the New Year's Eve
Chinese folk in the New Year's Eve has the custom of the New Year's Eve, commonly known as "boiled years". The New Year's Eve vigil begins with the New Year's Eve dinner, which is eaten slowly, from the time of the lamp, some people have to eat late into the night.
New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities, and the custom of observing the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty, Zhou Zhi's "Land and Customs": New Year's Eve, each with the gift, known as "feed the year"; wine and food invited, known as the "other year"; young and old get together to drink, wishing to complete, known as the "sub-year"; all night long, we have to keep the year-keeping activities. "
Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese people have been waiting for the daybreak to come, so it is called "keeping the New Year's Eve".
Since the Han Dynasty, the moment of transition between the old and the new year is usually the middle of the night.