Chuxi
New Year's Eve, or "New Year's Eve". This day is a day for people to eat, drink and be merry. Northerners make jiaozi and southerners make rice cakes. The shape of jiaozi is like an "ingot" and the sound of rice cakes is like "rice cakes", which are good signs of good luck.
On New Year's Eve, the whole family eats a "reunion dinner" together, which smells like a family reunion in the New Year. When having a reunion dinner, the "fish" on the table can't be moved, because this fish represents "more than one year" and "more than one year", symbolizing "wealth and good luck" in the coming year. It belongs to a decoration and can't be touched.
There is another legend about the origin of Nian. According to legend, in ancient times, our ancestors were threatened by one of the fiercest beasts. This beast is called Nian. It catches all kinds of animals as food. In winter, when food is scarce in the mountains, it will break into villages and hunt people and animals, and the people will be in a state of panic all day. People have struggled with Nian for many years and found that Nian is afraid of three things, red color, fire and noise. So in winter, people hang red boards on their doors, light a fire at the door, stay up all night and knock at the door. That night, "Nian" broke into the village, saw that every household had a red fire, heard a deafening noise, and was so scared that he ran back to the mountains and never dared to come out again. As the night passed, people congratulated each other and celebrated the victory by decorating, drinking and feasting.
To commemorate this victory, every family will stick red paper couplets on their doors, light lanterns, bang gongs and drums, and set off firecrackers and fireworks at this time of winter. At night, vigil all night; The next day, I congratulated each other early in the morning. This has been passed down from generation to generation, and it has become a "New Year".
The climax of New Year's Eve is that elders give out "lucky money" after the New Year's Eve. Next, post Spring Festival couplets and door gods and close the door. I didn't open the door until the morning of the first grade. Then the whole family stayed up until the early hours of the morning.
The lights on New Year's Eve never go out all night, commonly known as "light years".
The customs of New Year's Eve dinner in different places are roughly the same, but some places have their own characteristics, such as Suzhou, Peking and Taiwan Province Province. On New Year's Eve in Suzhou, everyone has to wait for the bell from Hanshan Temple in Qiao Feng. When the bell passes through the dark night and reaches thousands of households, it marks the arrival of the new year. Hanshan Temple rings at midnight every day, regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter, which is called "minute by minute" by the people. This clock has become the time information of people's lives dozens of miles away in Fiona Fang, Suzhou. The bells of Hanshan Temple still appear in poems, and the most popular one is a night-mooring near maple bridge written by Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ji:
Crows fell on the moon, crowed coldly, slept on maple trees, and slept in fishing lanes by the river.
In the lonely Hanshan Temple outside Suzhou, the bell that rang in the middle of the night reached the passenger ship.
Now, every year on New Year's Eve, Hanshan Temple in Suzhou still follows the eternal custom, and the bell rings every minute. In the urban and rural areas of Gusu, at the last moment of the year, the bells of Hanshan Temple will be heard on the radio to report the beginning of the year. Thousands of families, hearing the bells and firecrackers, regard the bells of the ancient Hanshan Temple as a symbol of the times.
Beijing's new year's eve dinner is busier, offering sacrifices to ancestors, receiving gods and receiving stoves. At the beginning of the ceremony to worship the gods and ancestors, the whole city of Beijing was drowned in deafening firecrackers. People also scatter sesame stalks in their own yards, and the whole family steps on them, which is called "stepping on the old", which means longevity. Lights were brightly lit all night, and people resigned and stayed old. When the New Year bell rings, jiaozi of all families also cooks and people enjoy it.
New Year's Eve is not called New Year's Eve in Taiwan Province Province, but "China New Year's Day". In the afternoon, sacrifice in front of the shrine in the hall. In the evening, the family burned incense and bowed down, and then said goodbye to their elders. Then there is "around the stove", which is a rich New Year's Eve dinner. The family is sitting around a table, which is full of dishes, and there is a brazier under the table. "Around the Furnace" brought a climax to New Year's Eve. Wanderers who are far away from home, no matter how busy they are, should go home for reunion unless absolutely necessary. After New Year's Eve, they light candles to watch the New Year. Daughter-in-law adds longevity to elders. They can't go to bed early. The longer they sit, the longer their elders will live. This shows filial piety.