hipsters clean up a few days before New Year's Eve. On New Year's Eve or one or two days in advance, families put up New Year's couplets and prepare all kinds of food, including fish and meat. Poultry is mainly goose and duck-traditionally stewed (boiled in white in a few areas), and some snacks (rice, sweet and glutinous rice) are cooked. On New Year's Eve, the whole family gathered at a table to have a reunion dinner (New Year's Eve). You can call your relatives and friends to pay New Year's greetings on New Year's Eve.
on the first, second and third day of the first month, we worship our ancestors in the morning.
In recent days, relatives and friends have been visiting each other to pay New Year's greetings, exchanging oranges and Chaozhou oranges (meaning exchange of good luck and blessings), sitting and talking and playing games. Far-away relatives and friends call each other to pay New Year greetings. Married elders give lucky money red envelopes to unmarried juniors, married young adults give lucky money red envelopes to red elderly elders, and couples also give each other red envelopes to bless each other.
worship god on the fifth day of the first month.
On the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lantern Festival (Shangyuan Festival, China Valentine's Day), worship gods, light lanterns and dance lanterns to bless lovers. In Chaoshan, many rural villages toured God Tours (different villages may worship different gods) around the 15th day of the first month, setting off firecrackers, performing social dramas (Chaozhou dramas) and singing and dancing, which were quite lively. They worshipped Mazu for peace and invited sugar lions (lions made of sugar, peanuts and white sesame seeds) to explore (make big profits) and worship Guan Gong for wealth.
After the fifteenth day of the first month, the New Year is counted, and then I concentrate on my work and business.
These Spring Festival traditions of hipsters reflect the good wishes of relatives and friends, filial piety, respect for the elderly and love for the young, and harmony and love between husband and wife. However, half (more than 21 million) of the hipsters do not spend the New Year in their hometown, and many of them have a simpler New Year.
People in Chaoshan started to prepare for the New Year after the "Kitchen God went to heaven" on December 24th of the lunar calendar. Every household carries out general cleaning, rearrangement and decoration inside and outside the house; Steamed red peach, rat qu trample and other various products; Buy new year's goods and new clothes; Haircut, beauty. Slaughter the "three birds" early on New Year's Eve and buy sacrificial items. After lunch, the whole family should take a bath, wear new clothes, pay homage to their ancestors, put up Spring Festival couplets, hang lanterns and put up signs on the wall. It is to set up a stove in the hall at night, and the whole family will have a reunion dinner around the stove. No matter how far the family is usually scattered, they must hurry home to reunite. After "surrounding the stove", elders should give "lucky money" to their seniors, and those who can earn money should also give them red envelopes, which is called "waist-pressing pocket". On this day, you can't make noise and break dishes, bowls and other utensils. If you break them, you can make up for your mistakes by saying auspicious words such as "open your mouth and be rich", which symbolizes that the whole family is full from beginning to end. The water tank at home should be filled with water and the rice tank should be filled with rice to symbolize "more than one year". It's all night long, and every family keeps watch for the New Year.
the first day of the first lunar month is the first day of the year, which is called "Spring Festival", which is called "New Year's Day" in ancient times and commonly known as "New Year's Day". Early in the morning, every household wore new clothes, set off firecrackers, and worshipped the ancestors of heaven and earth. When offering sacrifices to ancestors, vegetarian food should be used as a confession, because it is said that Maitreya is seated on this day, so he uses vegetarian meals. This custom has been circulating for a long time, and the Qing Shunzhi's "Chaozhou Fuzhi" says: "Yuan Day, sacrifice and fasting." Qing Qianlong's "Puning County Records" said: In the Yuan Dynasty, the ancestors used vegetarian food, and the ancestors used meat. "Then the whole family had a warm and friendly breakfast, and the next generation wished their elders well, and the elders sent their expectations to the next generation. After breakfast, parents will take their children to visit relatives and friends. Whenever you visit relatives and friends, you should take Chaozhou oranges. Because oranges are bigger than oranges, they are named big oranges, and oranges are homophonic with auspicious words, which makes them "lucky". A big orange means good luck. It doesn't matter much how many oranges you bring, but it must be even, not odd. And the tea table of the host family always has a plate of red and green oranges, banlang (now replaced by olives), plus candy to welcome guests and respect guests. Regarding the custom of using betel nuts in Chaoshan, there are detailed records in the local government records and county records. Qing Qianlong's Chaozhou government records says, "If you don't have betel nuts, you will be called simple and slow." Because Bin Lang and Bin Lang are homophones, which contain the meaning of guests, the homophonic sound of "Bin Lang Da Ju" has become a kind of etiquette to greet each other and exchange good luck. When guests enter the door, they say something auspicious to each other, such as "Happy New Year" and "Congratulations on getting rich". The host should invite guests to eat olives and sweets, drink congou (Jiexi Hakka also respects the custom of "smashing tea and rice"), exchange good luck, and give each other "profit market" (red envelopes). Then the host prepared wine and held a banquet to entertain the guests, which is commonly called congratulations. Qing Jiaqing's "Chenghai County Records" invited each other to drink wine. As the saying goes,' every family has wine in the first month' ".
Spring Festival is a holy day, so there are many taboos in Chaoshan, such as not sweeping the floor or washing clothes, for fear of losing money; Don't use long and short chopsticks when having meals, or you will miss the boat during the transition; Don't eat porridge or rice soup, or it will rain when you go out; Don't say bad words, swear words or fight. If the children of Family A beat or scold the children of Family B, the parents of Family A should take a pair of oranges to apologize and wish others good luck.
Chaoshan people's custom of visiting God Games in the Spring Festival: Chaoshan people who live in the easternmost part of Guangdong Province and border with Jiangxi and Fujian still retain the folk customs of the ancient Central Plains of the motherland. Among them, "paying God" at the end of the year and "wandering God" at the beginning of the year are folk custom and cultural activities that last for a long time. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "It is February to wander the gods." Every year on the first day of the twelfth lunar month, people begin to "thank God", which is to reward God for his "gratitude" to the human world. This activity lasted until December 24th. On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, from the end of the year to the end of February, various "God Touring Games" were held in villages and towns in Chaoshan. The so-called God Touring Tournament is actually a folk carnival in Chaoshan townships. From the end of the twelfth lunar month to the first and second months, the villages choose auspicious days (or fixed time) to visit the gods. The gods you visit are both the gods enshrined in the city corridor and the gods made locally and enshrined in the four gates of the village. In short, they all belong to the gods of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Such as "King of Three Mountains", "Mazu", "Guan Ye", "Zhu Sheng Niang", "Big Master", "Second Master", "Third Master", "Dragon Tail Master" and "City God Master". Wandering God is the most distinctive cultural activity of Chaoshan God and a typical harmonious cultural activity in Chaoshan area.