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Shanxi Lantern Festival custom
The origin of the lantern festival
How do Shanghainese celebrate the Lantern Festival?
Shanxi Lantern Festival custom
Lantern Festival is the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, also known as Shangyuan Festival. Lantern Festival is the oldest night festival in China. According to legend, the Western Han Dynasty pacified Zhu Lu, and Emperor China began to lay the foundation stone on 1 month 15, which was designated as the Lantern Festival. The whole country celebrates festivals with lanterns and colorful decorations. The royal family, ladies and gentlemen in the deep palace can also go to the streets to watch the lights.
On the Lantern Festival, every household makes its own Lantern Festival (now monopolized by professional households). Yuanxiao, known as "floating Zi Yuan" in ancient times, is a kind of folk snack that tastes both elegant and popular, sweet but not greasy, and is popular all over the country. The stars are in the dark clouds and the beads are floating in the turbid water. "Light circles are more delicious than chicken head meat, and crab eye soup is better when you are bored." No wonder ancient poets described the Lantern Festival so much that it has been popular for thousands of years.
Hanging lanterns is an essential form for Shanxi people to celebrate the Lantern Festival. Lantern Festival is coming, and all kinds of lanterns are hung in every household. 14 to 16 are on every night. Seen from a distance, the buildings are decorated with colorful lanterns, making the whole city brilliant. All units are also scrambling to make all kinds of lanterns and hang them on the street for people to enjoy. There are countless styles of lanterns, including animals, zodiac, riddles and palace lanterns. All kinds, colorful.
Setting off fireworks is the most gratifying activity of Shanxi Lantern Festival. Fireworks will be set off in the square on the night of Lantern Festival. At that time, the whole family would go out to see the beautiful fireworks. Fireworks will become more and more beautiful, bigger and bigger, with higher and higher technology content and more and more beautiful colors.
Literature and art stepping on the street can be called a folk culture makeup parade. Dress up stories, adorn jewelry, bells and drums are loud, and a country is crazy. (Qiao Ming Yuan's Min Shu).
From 14 to 16, for three consecutive days, all counties and districts organized various cultural performances to come to our city, including folk art, modern art exhibition, traditional literature and art, ancient music, concerts and costume dramas, with countless patterns.
Hold a large-scale light show. All units want to hold a large-scale colorful light show in the street. Some represent auspiciousness, some represent happiness, some represent ancient legends, and some are of educational significance.
Calm down the fire of Yuanxiao Tower
Pingding Lantern Festival Tower Fire, also known as "wooden stick fire", is a unique custom in Pingding County, Shanxi Province. The Lantern Festival Tower Fire often attracts thousands of people to watch.
Lantern Festival tower fire is directly related to Lantern Festival. Call it "tower fire", it will burn a flame, and it will be built into the shape of a tower.
Putting out the tower fire is generally prepared and carried out three days before the Lantern Festival after the Spring Festival every year. At this time, a tower fire should be set up on the street, in front of shops and inns inside and outside Pingding County, and at the gates of all industries facing the street, such as industry, commerce, military and learning. Even the residents near the market are no exception. In the townships, towns and villages of Pingding County, most families have to build towers to make fires. This kind of tower fire with coal as fuel has a long burning time. The red-hot charcoal fire is bright and the atmosphere is warm.
Tower fire, made of mud and bricks synthesized from loess, is about one and a half meters high. It is made into a round hole with a mallet with a diameter of 50 cm, so it is called "mallet fire". This kind of tower fire needs 200 Jin of charcoal at a time. Once a day. When it is installed and ignited, the burning flame is ejected from these countless round holes. The fire at the top of the tower, with the passage of the zodiac year, yellow mud was made into the shape of rabbits, monkeys, tigers, horses and other zodiac signs. Others cast lions, tigers, pagodas and ingots with pig iron.
Tower fire is usually lit on the 14th, 15th and 16th day of the first month after the Spring Festival every year. With the flourishing street art activities and the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month, they cooperate with each other and set each other off. Sometimes there is a folk proverb in Pingding: "Fight seventeen, make one hundred and eighty-nine, and it will go up in smoke".
Pacify the Lantern Festival fire for many years, which is related to the high-quality anthracite used to pacify the Lantern Festival fire, and also closely related to the folk custom of making Lantern Festival fire on the fifteenth day of the first month. Igniting the tower fire is an integral part of the fire. What makes the people revere even more is the local legend that "a mother snail fills the sky". The locals regard this activity of lighting the tower fire as a supplement to the "goddess mending the sky".
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The origin of the lantern festival
Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in China, which began in the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Lantern Festival viewing began in the period of Emperor Han Ming in the East. Ming Di advocates Buddhism. He heard that on the fifteenth day of the first month, monks watched the Buddhist relics and lit lanterns to worship the Buddha, so that all the gentry and ordinary people hung lanterns. Later, this Buddhist ceremonial festival gradually formed a grand folk festival. This festival has experienced the development process from the court to the people, and from the Central Plains to the whole country.
Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty ordered the 15th day of the first month to be designated as the Lantern Festival. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the sacrificial activities of "Taiyi God" were scheduled for the 15th day of the first month. Taiyi: the God who rules the universe. When Sima Qian created the taichu calendar Law, he had already identified the Lantern Festival as a major festival.
Another way of saying it is that the custom of burning lanterns in Lantern Festival originated from the "ternary theory" of Taoism; The fifteenth day of the first month is Shangyuan Festival, the fifteenth day of July is Zhongyuan Festival, and the fifteenth day of October is Xiayuan Festival. The officials in charge of the upper, middle and lower elements are heaven, earth and man respectively. The celestial officials are happy and the Lantern Festival should be lit.
The festivals and customs of Lantern Festival have been extended and expanded with the development of history. As far as the length of festivals is concerned, there is only one day in Han Dynasty, three days in Tang Dynasty and five days in Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, lights were lit from the eighth day of August until the seventeenth night of the first month, a total of ten days. Connected with the Spring Festival, it is a city during the day, full of excitement, and brightly lit at night, which is spectacular. Especially the exquisite and colorful lights make it the climax of entertainment activities during the Spring Festival. In the Qing Dynasty, there were more "hundred operas" such as dragon dancing, lion dancing, dry boating, walking on stilts and yangko dancing, but the festival period was shortened to four to five days.
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How do Shanghainese celebrate the Lantern Festival?
The first step is to go to an old shop to eat authentic dumplings.
Jiaozi in the south and Yuanxiao in the north have different names and practices. Tangtuan is kneaded, and Yuanxiao is rolled out. Laojie dumplings take a long time to cook, and the key lies in the blending of glutinous rice. If it is too wet, it can't be molded; if it is too dry, it will crack when it is cooked. Grab a white and tender glutinous rice, knead it into a concave shape, and put it into the black crispy dough kneaded in advance; Then rub jiaozi together and roll it in dry glutinous rice flour to prevent the surface of jiaozi from contacting air and drying. In this way, a chubby old street jiaozi is completed. After cooking, take a bite, and the soft glutinous rice is wrapped in black sesame pulp that gushes out, which makes people want to stop.
It should be noted that when you buy raw jiaozi and cook it at home, you must cook it for a long time before you can completely cook jiaozi's skin. In addition, the shelf life of bean paste and fresh meat stuffing is short, so it is recommended to eat it on the same day; Black West Point will be longer and can be kept in the freezer for a period of time.
The second step is to go to the Yu Garden of the Chenghuang Temple to watch the Lantern Festival.
"Thirty fires, fifteen lights", enjoy the beautiful scenery of the lights, and the Lantern Festival is just around the corner. You might as well go to the Yuyuan Shopping Mall in Shencheng, which has the taste of China. It is crowded and happy, and you can pray for good health and good luck for one year. Antique cornices, colorful folk lanterns, and the Yuyuan Spring Festival folk art lantern festival will give you a delicious Lantern Festival.
Step three, pull rabbit lights in the alley.
Rabbit lanterns originated in Ningdu County in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The lights in Ningdu are colorful and varied, and the "rabbit lamp" is one of the lights in Ningdu. It is an annual large-scale activity that every household must participate in "crossing the lamp" to light the "rabbit lamp". "Over the lamp" is a mother-child rabbit-shaped lamp made of colored paper, which is lit and paraded in villages, ancestral temples and families.
The folk custom of "crossing lanterns" originated in the Tang Dynasty. People regard rabbits as auspicious things, and wherever the rabbit lights go, it means good luck and harmony. People use this mascot to greet God and receive blessings, which reflects people's good wishes for God's blessing and the prosperity of man and beast in the coming year.
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