The fifteenth day of the first month is the Lantern Festival. Because it is the earliest full moon in a year, it is called Shangyuan Festival. 13 is a "light-on night", 18 is a "light-off night", and the period is the Lantern Festival. In some places, the Lantern Festival will be held and the "Lantern Festival" will be performed. Ancestral temples and people hang lanterns, which is called "Lantern Festival". There are many kinds of lanterns, the best is the serial lantern in December, and the most is the rabbit lantern, which means that the Jade Rabbit is accompanied by the Moon Palace (Guanghan Palace) Chang 'e, and the rabbit lantern on the ground echoes the "Jade Rabbit Dongsheng" to comfort its loneliness.
On the night of Lantern Festival, I am happy to eat Luhua soup. On the fourteenth night, there is the custom of "taking photos with snakes and insects". Children hold paper lanterns all over the corner, walls and kitchens, and some hold small gongs, banging and shouting, "Go, go, go to Maoshan (the place name of Yinxian Nanxiang) to feed grass seeds! Go, go, go to the mountains to eat rotten sweet potatoes! " On that day, farmers set fire to weeds in Tiantou, Tiancheng and other places to "drive away evil spirits", commonly known as "drive away bright insects". When tiancheng hay burns, it looks like a fire dragon, so it is also called "Tan Fire Dragon". This is a custom that combines ancient customs with pest control in agricultural production.
Snack, lanterns, firecrackers, jiaozi. Some Lantern Festival is combined with "social fire". Zhenhaixing ate "Shantou soup", similar to the current fruit soup. According to legend, a rich man was tired of eating delicacies, so he asked his maid to cook a new dish every day. A maid made a soup of five kinds of fruits, sweet, sour, bitter and salty, and then followed suit. That night, the girls met with the pigsty in the toilet, greeted Aunt Zi, that is, the aunt in the toilet, and helped her to predict her wisdom and marriage when she grew up. According to legend, this toilet aunt named He Mei, the concubine of Li Jing in Shouyang, Shandong Province, died of grief and indignation because she could not tolerate Li's wife. Later, she was regarded as a toilet aunt, commonly known as "girl in a jar".
After the 1930s, there were fewer and fewer lanterns. Since the late 1970s, some groups have held lantern exhibitions, with children carrying lanterns in the crowd.
Qingming Festival
Agricultural solar terms and customs are integrated. In the old society, willows hung on doors and windows, women had hair and willow tips on their heads, and children wore willow rings on their heads, meaning "thinking about youth (pro)". As the saying goes, "Qingming wears a willow, and there is an uncle in the afterlife."
The custom in Ningbo attaches great importance to sacrifice, especially to sweep graves to worship ancestors and cook clear soup and plain rice. Most of the wanderers at home and abroad go back to their graves. In the old society, the seasonal food for going to the grave was green cakes and mashed (black rice) cakes, and they sacrificed to their ancestors. Rich people also hire trumpeters to play. Weeds are removed when going to the grave, new soil is shoveled to press the top of the grave, and bamboo shoots are inserted with paper balls to show that future generations have done their filial piety to their ancestors, and at the same time, ancestors will bless the whole family for peace and prosperity. After the sacrifice, local farmers will get sesame cakes or cakes to take care of the graves. Because people are scrambling to get it, it is commonly known as "grabbing hemp". Sesame cakes should be cut into diamonds. In addition to tomb offerings and family offerings, there are also ancestral halls (also known as Taigongtian) and ancestor worship, and each room takes turns to worship ancestors. The person in charge bought food according to the menu, and invited the people to eat Qingming soup rice. The main course should be weighed. If it is not ready, put the equivalent money in an empty bowl and divide it among the people who eat it. The head and neck of the goose in the dish are eaten by the heads of families, which means that the "leaders" also divide bowls or pork according to people. Some exclude women, or reduce the number of flagons on the dining table for women (2 for men and 0 for women 1 pot).
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, we still followed the grave-sweeping, cooking soup and burning paper instead of sending flowers to commemorate the martyrs' ancestors.