sweep the dust
"On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lv Chunqiu, China had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the Yao and Shun era. According to the folk saying: Because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not being new", and its original intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. This custom has placed people's desire to break the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean the environment, clean all kinds of electrical appliances, remove and wash bedding curtains, sweep six yards, dust cobwebs and dredge culverts in open channels. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.
paste up Spring Festival couplets
Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and delicate words, which are unique literary forms in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph Poetry of Spring Festival couplets discusses the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works.
There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door heart, frame pair, cross string, spring strip and bucket square according to the place of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "door frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is posted on the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also known as "door leaf", is a square diamond, often attached to furniture and screen walls.
Stick the window grilles and the word "fu" upside down.
In the folk, people also like to stick various paper-cuts on the windows-window grilles. Window grilles not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in China, which has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is often pasted on the window, it is also called "window grilles". With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window grilles show auspicious things and good wishes incisively and vividly, and decorate festivals with colorful colors.
While putting up Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. The word "Fu" symbolizes good luck and wishes for a happy life and a bright future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply put the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "Fu has arrived" and "Fu has arrived". Others elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp yue longmen, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on.
New Year picture
Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods". With the rise of block printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. Some New Year pictures workshops have produced classic color New Year pictures, such as Fu Lushou's Samsung, God bless the people, abundant crops, prosperous livestock and welcoming the New Year, to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the New Year. There are three important producing areas of Chinese New Year pictures: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; Three schools of New Year pictures have been formed, each with its own characteristics.
The earliest existing collection of New Year pictures in China is the woodcut New Year pictures of the Southern Song Dynasty, which depict four ancient beauties: Wang Zhaojun, Zhao, Ban Ji and Lvzhu. The most popular folk painting is the Year of Marrying the Rat. It depicts an interesting scene in which a mouse marries a bride according to human custom. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng of Shanghai combined the monthly calendar with the New Year pictures. This is a new form of New Year pictures. This new year's picture, which was combined into one, later developed into a calendar and has been popular all over the country.
stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve
Keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve is one of the most important activities, and the custom of keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record can be found in the Local Records of the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties give gifts to each other, which is called "the year of giving back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "not old"; Young and old get together to drink and wish a complete song called "age division"; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for dawn. This is the so-called "shou sui".
On New Year's Eve, the whole family get together, eat New Year's Eve, light candles or oil lamps, sit around the stove and chat, wait for the time to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year, and keep vigil all night, which symbolizes driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and expecting good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, wrote a poem "Shou Sui": "Cold words and winter snow, warm with spring breeze". To this day, people are used to celebrating the New Year's Eve.
In ancient times, observing the age has two meanings: the old man's observing the age means "resigning from the old", which means cherishing time; Young people keep their age in order to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the time for the alternation of the old and new years is generally at midnight.
firecracker
There is a folk saying in China that "open the door and set off firecrackers". That is, when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Firecracker is a specialty of China, also known as "Firecracker", "Firecracker" and "Firecracker". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. With the passage of time, firecrackers are more and more widely used, and there are more and more varieties and colors. Every major festival and happy celebration, as well as marriage, building, opening, etc. We should set off firecrackers to celebrate and make good luck. At present, Liuyang, Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao, Yichun and Pingxiang, Jiangxi, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other regions are famous fireworks towns in China. The firecrackers produced have many colors and high quality, which are not only sold well all over the country, but also exported to all parts of the world.
Pay new year's call
On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same patriarch from door to door. Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings; Others get together to congratulate each other. This is called "group worship". Because it takes time and effort to pay New Year greetings at home, some elites and scholars later congratulated each other with stickers, thus developing the later "New Year cards".
When paying New Year greetings during the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders and wish them health and longevity. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can kill evil spirits, because "old" and "special" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to put colored rope in the shape of Jackie Chan at the foot of the bed, which was recorded in Yanjing year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. Lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly put under the child's pillow by parents when the child falls asleep on New Year's Eve. It is still very popular for elders to give lucky money to younger generations.
Eating custom in Spring Festival
In ancient agricultural society, housewives began to prepare food for the New Year from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Because curing bacon takes a long time, it must be prepared as soon as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of curing bacon, among which Guangdong is the most famous.
Steamed rice cake, because of its homophonic "high year" and diverse tastes, has almost become a must-have food for every household. The styles of rice cakes are square yellow and white rice cakes, which symbolize gold and silver and express the meaning of making a fortune in the New Year.
The taste of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers like to eat jujube rice cakes, 100-fruit rice cakes and white rice cakes made of glutinous rice or yellow rice. Hebei people like to add jujube, red beans and mung beans to rice cakes and steam them together. In northern Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places, it is customary to eat yellow wheat fried rice cakes during the New Year, and some people will also stuff them with bean paste and jujube paste, while Shandong people steam rice cakes with yellow rice and red dates. The rice cakes in the north are mainly sweet, steamed or fried, and some people simply eat them with sugar. There are sweet and salty rice cakes in the south, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of japonica rice and have a light taste. In addition to steaming and frying, you can also slice and fry or cook soup. Sweet rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, rose, osmanthus, mint, vegetable paste and other ingredients. They are fine in workmanship and can be steamed directly or fried with egg white.
The night before the real Chinese New Year is called Reunion Night. A wanderer who has left his hometown has to go home from thousands of miles away. During the Spring Festival, the whole family will sit around and wrap jiaozi. Jiaozi's practice is to use flour to make dumpling wrappers first, and then use leather bags to fill them. The contents of stuffing are varied, and all kinds of meat, eggs, seafood and seasonal vegetables can be stuffed. The orthodox practice in jiaozi is to cook it with clear water, remove it and mix it with vinegar, minced garlic and vegetables. There are also methods of frying jiaozi and baking jiaozi (fried dumpling). Because the word "he" in dough mixing means "he"; Jiaozi's "jiao" and "glue" are homophonic, and "harmony" and "glue" have the meaning of reunion, so jiaozi is used to symbolize the reunion of acacia; It is very auspicious to make friends with older people; In addition, jiaozi, which is shaped like an ingot, has the auspicious meaning of "making a fortune" when eating jiaozi in the New Year. The whole family get together to make a package for jiaozi, so it is happy to celebrate the Spring Festival. Agree with 0| Comment 2012-1-2617: 59 Wandering alone | Level 5.
I am from the countryside. Simply put, when I was a child, I had to stew meat and clean the house. It's light now. Some people also steam big dates and steamed buns, while others buy them. In the afternoon, we put meat, peanuts, sugar and other tributes, light candles, burn incense, burn paper and paste Spring Festival couplets. Men in the whole family went to the grave to invite their ancestors home for the New Year and set off firecrackers in the cemetery. Go home and set off firecrackers to say goodbye. Then I went to sleep, set off firecrackers, continued to burn incense and paper, had a good meal, went to my parents' house to pay New Year greetings on the second day, and until the fifth day, all businesses started to operate as usual, and after the New Year ... I agreed with 0| comment 2012-1:65438.
First of all, we have a New Year's Eve dinner.
After entering the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, they gradually started steaming steamed buns, killing pigs, selling meat, cleaning houses, buying firecrackers and making new clothes. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the main activity is to send Grandpa Zao to heaven, usually in the evening. He and Zhao Jun spilled wine and lit a fire together, talking in their mouths, and asked him to put in a good word and offer a tribute in heaven. The couplets next to the statue of Kitchen God are usually: Heaven says yes, descending to earth to ensure peace. Horizontal batch: the head of the family. Put up Spring Festival couplets at noon on New Year's Eve, and invite people (the elders who died at home) to go home and spend the New Year in the forest (cemetery). At night, every household will light lanterns, and adults will wrap jiaozi together. After the children have packed their luggage, the old people usually go to bed, while the young people watch TV and get together to drink and stay up late.
On the first day of New Year's Day, parents will wake up the whole family at about four o'clock in the morning, put on new clothes, offer sacrifices to grandpa and door gods, set off firecrackers and eat jiaozi for breakfast (this is our "New Year's Eve"). After eating jiaozi, if the host family usually leaves a middle-aged person to take care of the elderly and pay New Year greetings. Others will go out to pay New Year greetings. Generally, they will go to the nearest family home to pay New Year greetings to their elders, and then get together to pay New Year greetings to others' homes. From the village west to the village east, no matter what the surname is, as long as there are old people at home, they all worship again. All these activities were finished before dawn. When the east is red, it has already finished the year of worship. Then, someone may go to other villages to pay New Year greetings to people with the same surname.
Second, posting Spring Festival couplets has the saying "pay attention everywhere"
On the morning of New Year's Eve, every household is busy putting up Spring Festival couplets. If you put up couplets, you can't come to the door again if you want to pay. In addition to all the couplets at the door, we should also write all kinds of blessings and spring characters and stick them in all the corners where we can paste them: "Five Grains are abundant" should be posted in the grain store; In places such as sheepfolds and pig pens, it is necessary to post "cattle and sheep are full of columns and six livestock are prosperous"; Cowpea, etc. should be labeled as "the head of the trough is prosperous"; Bicycles should be labeled as "Wan Li on a daily trip and 8,000 at night"; Motor vehicles should be affixed with auspicious couplets such as "safe passage". As soon as the couplets were posted, the festive atmosphere of the New Year came out immediately. The task of posting Spring Festival couplets every year is on me. Because there are many yards at home, before dawn, I began to get busy, taking out the Spring Festival couplets my father bought, cutting, sorting and pasting them. I have been busy all morning. A few years ago, I still couldn't tell the upper and lower couplets of Spring Festival couplets, and then I slowly summed up the rules.
Third, jiaozi was given a coin, jiaozi, to show his blessing.
On the afternoon of New Year's Eve every year, the whole family starts to get busy, some pressing dumpling wrappers, some wrapping jiaozi, and the division of labor is very clear. Mother and aunt pressed the dumpling skin early, and eldest sister-in-law and second sister-in-law wrapped jiaozi neatly. In our place, jiaozi usually contains meat, sugar and coins. Here, let's talk about the jiaozi stuffed with this coin. Because there are many people in the family, every family will pack a coin jiaozi every year, and whoever can eat it means he is blessed. Someone will definitely ask, the shape of the jiaozi of the coin is definitely different from that of ordinary jiaozi. Yes, it is different when you look closely. However, we should also know that our jiaozi rice was eaten at four o'clock in the morning of the first day of junior high school, and both parents casually put it in a big pot with spoons. Therefore, it is difficult and impossible to eat jiaozi with coins.
Fourth, please let your ancestors go home for the New Year.
On the evening of 30, it's time to invite your family. Please come to the family hall, mainly to go to the grave, burn incense and paper, set off some firecrackers and kowtow, and invite the dead relatives home for the New Year. When inviting family members, they usually hold incense and say something like "Grandpa, Grandma, it's the New Year, now let's go home for the New Year" in front of the graves of the older generation. People who invite family members will set a table in the center of the hall with offerings (chicken, duck, fish, etc.). ) On it, there are two chairs next to it for ancestors to sit on. Usually the next night, the memorial tablet is sent to the family hall, burned, and then burned incense and paper, and the old people return to the cemetery. I have never been invited to a family. My brothers go there every year. On the evening of the 30th, firecrackers could be heard in the fields, mostly from people in the family.
Five, kowtowing is an essential etiquette for the New Year.
Chinese New Year kowtowing may not be a custom in many places, but it has always been preserved here. After eating jiaozi at four o'clock in the morning of the first day, it's time for the younger generation to kowtow to the elders and the young people to pay New Year greetings to the elderly. Go door to door and kowtow to senior people. Sometimes senior people will kneel all over the yard, and the scene is spectacular. I only followed this kowtow in recent years. I used to kowtow to my parents every year, and it was my big brother and second brother who kowtowed to other families. In recent years, my parents have gradually let me follow. In the past two years, I also realized the significance of kowtowing, that is, it is necessary for the younger generation to kowtow to the elders and the younger generation to kowtow to the elders in the new year, no matter where. There are rules for kowtowing, and most of them follow the law from near to far. After kowtowing at the door, go to the other side of the village to kowtow. There is a uniform standard for kowtowing. Men generally kowtow four times in front of their elders' homes, kowtow to their elders once and knock the whole village through. Because it was still dark, I could meet many people in the street, but most of them couldn't see each other. Just listening to the familiar voice, they pay New Year greetings to each other. In the street, I only heard "Uncle, you hit your head here". Grandpa, Happy New Year "and other greetings.
The bigger the cake, the more sincere it is.
The newly married husband's family must ask the bride to bring the flower cake back to her family before the fifteenth day of the first month. I also asked the old people why they had such a custom, but they couldn't say anything specific. They only knew that it was a reunion celebration, which made her family feel her husband's love for the bride. There are two kinds of raw materials for flower cake, one is jujube and the other is flour. I remember when I was a child, when my brother got married, I steamed flower cakes at home. At that time, my family had several neighbors to help, some kneading dough and some making flowers, and they were very busy. In the past, a flower cake weighed about 10 kg and could be steamed on its own stove. But now, you have to go to a store that specializes in steaming steamed buns, because the size and shape of flower cakes are higher than before, reaching more than 60 kilograms. According to neighbors, the bigger the cake, the more it can represent the sincerity to the bride's husband's family.
Sixth, visiting relatives and friends, drinking is essential.
On the third day of the first month, I visited my relatives at home. In the evening, we will pack jiaozi, cook jiaozi, set off firecrackers, send immortals to heaven and earth, and send ancestors. This is called "annual ring", which means that the climax of China New Year has ended. From the first day to the fifteenth day (usually visiting relatives before the fifth day, because some migrant workers leave on the sixth day), people will visit relatives and friends with each other to strengthen emotional exchanges. "If you want to have deep feelings, you have to be bored", and the banquet during this period is essential. Relatives and friends can meet once a year to talk about the gains and losses in the past year and think about the work in the new year. Most of this is done on the wine table. Parents prepare food and drinks for visitors. They can only eat together once a year, and it is inevitable that they will drink too much.
Every place has different Chinese New Year customs, and I have never spent the New Year outside. But I think it's really fun to spend the New Year in the countryside. Some people think that the taste of Chinese New Year is getting weaker and weaker. If some city people can go to the countryside to feel the atmosphere and traditions of the New Year, stick couplets, wrap jiaozi, kowtow to the New Year, and feel the simple words of the rural people, maybe there will be another experience of the New Year. It's quite interesting to go back to my hometown for the New Year. The country is full of flavor. I wish you a happy New Year, a smooth the Year of the Loong, good health and all the best! Agree with 0| Comment 20 12-2-8 13:36 Enthusiastic users.
Spring Festival is an ancient festival in China, and it is also the most important festival in a year. How to celebrate this festival has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits in the course of thousands of years of historical development, many of which have been passed down from generation to generation and remain basically unchanged.
sweep the dust
"On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lv Chunqiu, China had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the Yao and Shun era. According to the folk saying: Because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not being new", and its original intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. This custom has placed people's desire to break the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean the environment, clean all kinds of electrical appliances, remove and wash bedding curtains, sweep six yards, dust cobwebs and dredge culverts in open channels. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.
paste up Spring Festival couplets
Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and delicate words, which are unique literary forms in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph Poetry of Spring Festival couplets discusses the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works.
There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door heart, frame pair, cross string, spring strip and bucket square according to the place of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "door frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is posted on the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also known as "door leaf", is a square diamond, often attached to furniture and screen walls.
Stick the window grilles and the word "fu" upside down.
In the folk, people also like to stick various paper-cuts on the windows-window grilles. Window grilles not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in China, which has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is often pasted on the window, it is also called "window grilles". With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window grilles show auspicious things and good wishes incisively and vividly, and decorate festivals with colorful colors.
While putting up Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. The word "Fu" symbolizes good luck and wishes for a happy life and a bright future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply put the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "Fu has arrived" and "Fu has arrived". Others elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp yue longmen, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on.
New Year picture
Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods". With the rise of block printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. Some New Year pictures workshops have produced classic color New Year pictures, such as Fu Lushou's Samsung, God bless the people, abundant crops, prosperous livestock and welcoming the New Year, to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the New Year. There are three important producing areas of Chinese New Year pictures: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; Three schools of New Year pictures have been formed, each with its own characteristics.
The earliest existing collection of New Year pictures in China is the woodcut New Year pictures of the Southern Song Dynasty, which depict four ancient beauties: Wang Zhaojun, Zhao, Ban Ji and Lvzhu. The most popular folk painting is the Year of Marrying the Rat. It depicts an interesting scene in which a mouse marries a bride according to human custom. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng of Shanghai combined the monthly calendar with the New Year pictures. This is a new form of New Year pictures. This new year's picture, which was combined into one, later developed into a calendar and has been popular all over the country.
stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve
Keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve is one of the most important activities, and the custom of keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record can be found in the Local Records of the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties give gifts to each other, which is called "the year of giving back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "not old"; Young and old get together to drink and wish a complete song called "age division"; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for dawn. This is the so-called "shou sui".
On New Year's Eve, the whole family get together, eat New Year's Eve, light candles or oil lamps, sit around the stove and chat, wait for the time to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year, and keep vigil all night, which symbolizes driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and expecting good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, wrote a poem "Shou Sui": "Cold words and winter snow, warm with spring breeze". To this day, people are used to celebrating the New Year's Eve.
In ancient times, observing the age has two meanings: the old man's observing the age means "resigning from the old", which means cherishing time; Young people keep their age in order to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the time for the alternation of the old and new years is generally at midnight.
firecracker
There is a folk saying in China that "open the door and set off firecrackers". That is, when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Firecracker is a specialty of China, also known as "Firecracker", "Firecracker" and "Firecracker". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. With the passage of time, firecrackers are more and more widely used, and there are more and more varieties and colors. Every major festival and happy celebration, as well as marriage, building, opening, etc. We should set off firecrackers to celebrate and make good luck. At present, Liuyang, Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao, Yichun and Pingxiang, Jiangxi, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other regions are famous fireworks towns in China. The firecrackers produced have many colors and high quality, which are not only sold well all over the country, but also exported to all parts of the world.
Pay new year's call
On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same patriarch from door to door. Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings; Others get together to congratulate each other. This is called "group worship". Because it takes time and effort to pay New Year greetings at home, some elites and scholars later congratulated each other with stickers, thus developing the later "New Year cards".
When paying New Year greetings during the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders and wish them health and longevity. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can kill evil spirits, because "old" and "special" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to put colored rope in the shape of Jackie Chan at the foot of the bed, which was recorded in Yanjing year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. Lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly put under the child's pillow by parents when the child falls asleep on New Year's Eve. It is still very popular for elders to give lucky money to younger generations.
Eating custom in Spring Festival
In ancient agricultural society, housewives began to prepare food for the New Year from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Because curing bacon takes a long time, it must be prepared as soon as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of curing bacon, among which Guangdong is the most famous.
Steamed rice cake, because of its homophonic "high year" and diverse tastes, has almost become a must-have food for every household. The styles of rice cakes are square yellow and white rice cakes, which symbolize gold and silver and express the meaning of making a fortune in the New Year.
The taste of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers like to eat jujube rice cakes, 100-fruit rice cakes and white rice cakes made of glutinous rice or yellow rice. Hebei people like to add jujube, red beans and mung beans to rice cakes and steam them together. In northern Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places, it is customary to eat yellow wheat fried rice cakes during the New Year, and some people will also stuff them with bean paste and jujube paste, while Shandong people steam rice cakes with yellow rice and red dates. The rice cakes in the north are mainly sweet, steamed or fried, and some people simply eat them with sugar. There are sweet and salty rice cakes in the south, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of japonica rice and have a light taste. In addition to steaming and frying, you can also slice and fry or cook soup. Sweet rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, rose, osmanthus, mint, vegetable paste and other ingredients. They are fine in workmanship and can be steamed directly or fried with egg white.
The night before the real Chinese New Year is called Reunion Night. A wanderer who has left his hometown has to go home from thousands of miles away. During the Spring Festival, the whole family will sit around and wrap jiaozi. Jiaozi's practice is to use flour to make dumpling wrappers first, and then use leather bags to fill them. The contents of stuffing are varied, and all kinds of meat, eggs, seafood and seasonal vegetables can be stuffed. The orthodox practice in jiaozi is to cook it with clear water, remove it and mix it with vinegar, minced garlic and vegetables. There are also methods of frying jiaozi and baking jiaozi (fried dumpling). Because the word "he" in dough mixing means "he"; Jiaozi's "jiao" and "glue" are homophonic, and "harmony" and "glue" have the meaning of reunion, so jiaozi is used to symbolize the reunion of acacia; It is very auspicious to make friends with older people; In addition, jiaozi, which is shaped like an ingot, has the auspicious meaning of "making a fortune" when eating jiaozi in the New Year. The whole family get together to make a package for jiaozi, so it's fun to celebrate the Spring Festival. We have New Year's Eve dinner.
After entering the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, they gradually started steaming steamed buns, killing pigs, selling meat, cleaning houses, buying firecrackers and making new clothes. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the main activity is to send Grandpa Zao to heaven, usually in the evening. He and Zhao Jun spilled wine and lit a fire together, talking in their mouths, and asked him to put in a good word and offer a tribute in heaven. The couplets next to the statue of Kitchen God are usually: Heaven says yes, descending to earth to ensure peace. Horizontal batch: the head of the family. Put up Spring Festival couplets at noon on New Year's Eve, and invite people (the elders who died at home) to go home and spend the New Year in the forest (cemetery). At night, every household will light lanterns, and adults will wrap jiaozi together. After the children have packed their luggage, the old people usually go to bed, while the young people watch TV and get together to drink and stay up late.
On the first day of New Year's Day, parents will wake up the whole family at about four o'clock in the morning, put on new clothes, offer sacrifices to grandpa and door gods, set off firecrackers and eat jiaozi for breakfast (this is our "New Year's Eve"). After eating jiaozi, if the host family usually leaves a middle-aged person to take care of the elderly and pay New Year greetings. Others will go out to pay New Year greetings. Generally, they will go to the nearest family home to pay New Year greetings to their elders, and then get together to pay New Year greetings to others' homes. From the village west to the village east, no matter what the surname is, as long as there are old people at home, they all worship again. All these activities were finished before dawn. When the east is red, it has already finished the year of worship. Then, someone may go to other villages to pay New Year greetings to people with the same surname.
Second, posting Spring Festival couplets has the saying "pay attention everywhere"
On the morning of New Year's Eve, every household is busy putting up Spring Festival couplets. If you put up couplets, you can't come to the door again if you want to pay. In addition to all the couplets at the door, we should also write all kinds of blessings and spring characters and stick them in all the corners where we can paste them: "Five Grains are abundant" should be posted in the grain store; In places such as sheepfolds and pig pens, it is necessary to post "cattle and sheep are full of columns and six livestock are prosperous"; Cowpea, etc. should be labeled as "the head of the trough is prosperous"; Bicycles should be labeled as "Wan Li on a daily trip and 8,000 at night"; Motor vehicles should be affixed with auspicious couplets such as "safe passage". As soon as the couplets were posted, the festive atmosphere of the New Year came out immediately. The task of posting Spring Festival couplets every year is on me. Because there are many yards at home, before dawn, I began to get busy, taking out the Spring Festival couplets my father bought, cutting, sorting and pasting them. I have been busy all morning. A few years ago, I still couldn't tell the upper and lower couplets of Spring Festival couplets, and then I slowly summed up the rules.