The main traditional festivals in China are Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Qixi Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Chongyang Festival, Winter Solstice and Laba.
1. The Spring Festival is the biggest and most lively ancient traditional festival in China. Commonly known as "Chinese New Year". According to the Chinese lunar calendar, the first day of the first month is "the yuan of the year, the yuan of the month, and the yuan of the time", which is the beginning of a year. Traditional celebrations last from New Year's Eve to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month. Every New Year's Eve, every family gets together and eats New Year's Eve together, which is called "Year of the League". In the meantime, I talked and laughed, and I was happy. Then we will celebrate the old age together, catch up with the old and talk about the new, and congratulate and encourage each other. When the new year comes, firecrackers and fireworks push the festive atmosphere of the festival to a climax. In northern China, there is a custom of eating jiaozi at this time, which means "having sex at a younger age". The south has the habit of eating rice cakes, which symbolizes a better life. Celebrating the Spring Festival couplets, beating gongs and drums, decorating the old and welcoming the new are very lively. In addition, there are customs of visiting each other to pay New Year greetings, dancing lions, playing dragon lanterns, performing social fires, visiting flower markets and enjoying lantern festivals.
2. The fifteenth night of the first lunar month is the traditional Lantern Festival in China, also known as Shangyuan Festival and Lantern Festival. On the fifteenth day of the first month, Lantern Festival will be held, which will push the celebration activities that began on New Year's Eve to another climax. On the night of Lantern Festival, the streets are decorated with lanterns, and people enjoy lanterns. solve riddles on the lanterns and eating Lantern Festival have become the customs of generations.
The custom of enjoying lanterns on the Lantern Festival began in the Han Dynasty. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it developed into a grand lantern market. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Kyoto lantern market often stretched for dozens of miles. The time of the Lantern Festival was limited to the eleventh night of the first month in the Han Dynasty, extended to three nights in the Tang Xuanzong, and lasted from the eighth day of the first month to the seventeenth day of the first month in the Ming Dynasty. Acrobatics appeared in the Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty, and lantern riddles began to appear in the Song Dynasty. Opera performances were added in the Ming Dynasty. The colored lanterns used in the lantern market are also interpreted as "orange lanterns", "silk lanterns", "multicolored sheepskin lanterns", "boneless wheat straw lanterns", "lantern lanterns" and "Kongming lanterns". Lantern riddles, which began in the Southern Song Dynasty, are lively and interesting. After the development and creation of past dynasties, there are more than 111 kinds of puzzles still in use today, such as foundation grid, swing grid, rolling grid, white grid, Xu Feige and Qiu Feng grid, most of which have limited formats and ingenious requirements, and are full of wonderful meanings.
The custom of eating Yuanxiao on the Lantern Festival began in the Song Dynasty. It is intended to wish the whole family reunion and harmony and happiness in the new year. Yuanxiao is divided into solid and stuffing. There are five flavors of spicy, sweet, sour and salty. Can be boiled, fried, fried or steamed. Sweet-scented osmanthus wine makes Yuanxiao, five-flavor Yuanxiao made of meat stuffing, red bean paste, sesame, sweet-scented osmanthus and nuts, and five-spice Yuanxiao made of onion, mustard, garlic, leek and ginger, all have their own characteristics.
3. Qingming Festival is not only one of the 24 solar terms, but also a traditional festival with a long history. The day before Qingming Festival is called Cold Food Festival. The two festivals coincide with the spring of March, with bright spring, pink and green, and a thriving atmosphere. The establishment of the Cold Food Festival is to commemorate the intermediary push of the Jin Dynasty in the Spring and Autumn Period that "it is unfair to burn people to death". During the Qingming cold food period, there were folk customs such as forbidding fire and cold food, worshipping ancestors and sweeping graves, and going out for an outing. There are also traditional activities such as swinging, flying kites, tug-of-war, cockfighting, wearing willows, fighting grass and playing ball games. Make Qingming a poetic festival.
4. The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is the traditional Dragon Boat Festival in China, also known as Duanyang, Chongwu and Duanwu. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, there was a custom of "storing orchids and bathing on May 5th". But many activities of Dragon Boat Festival today are related to commemorating Qu Yuan, a great Chinese writer. On this day, every household will eat zongzi, and dragon boat races will be held all over the south, all of which are related to mourning Qu Yuan. At the same time, the Dragon Boat Festival is also a "health festival" handed down from ancient times. On this day, people sweep the courtyard, hang mugwort branches, hang calamus, sprinkle realgar water and drink realgar wine to eliminate rot, sterilize and prevent diseases. These activities also reflect the fine traditions of our nation.
5. The Milky Way, composed of countless stars, stretches across the night sky like a milky way. It is said that it separates the passionate cowherd from the weaver girl, and they can only meet each other when the magpies in the world build a magpie bridge on the seventh day of July every year. This wonderful legend began in the Han Dynasty and has been passed down from generation to generation for more than a thousand years. On this day, the people have the custom of begging the weaver girl for cleverness. Generally, it is a game to see who is more ingenious. Therefore, Tanabata is also called Beggar's Day or Daughter's Day. Every Tanabata is approaching, both Petunia and Weaver Girl go through the night and retire until the sun rises. Therefore, it is also called the meeting of husband and wife who leave the world. On this night, there is also the custom of watching the Tianhe River and praying for a bumper harvest. In some places, a "young crop meeting" is also held.
6. The 15th day of the eighth lunar month is the middle of autumn, so it is called Mid-Autumn Festival. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, in addition to enjoying the moon, offering sacrifices to the moon and eating moon cakes, there are activities such as dancing grass dragons and building pagodas in some places. In addition to moon cakes, all kinds of seasonal fresh fruits and dried fruits are also delicious food on Mid-Autumn Festival. On this night, people look up at the bright moon like jade, and naturally look forward to family reunion. Wanderers who are far away from home also take this opportunity to pin their thoughts on their hometown and relatives. Therefore, Mid-Autumn Festival is also called "Reunion Festival".
7. Autumn is refreshing and osmanthus is fragrant. The activities of the Double Ninth Festival on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month are extremely rich, including climbing mountains, enjoying chrysanthemums, drinking chrysanthemum wine, eating Chongyang cake and inserting dogwood. The Double Ninth Festival is also the "Festival for the Elderly". On this day, old people either admire chrysanthemums to cultivate their sentiments or climb mountains to exercise their bodies, which adds infinite fun to the evening scenery in Sang Yu.
8. The winter solstice is a very grand festival in ancient China. Up to now, the tradition of worshipping ancestors with nine-layer cakes on the winter solstice has been preserved in Taiwan Province, China, to show that we will not forget to change our books and wish the whole family a reunion. There is a custom of slaughtering sheep and eating jiaozi in the winter solstice in the north, and traditional foods in the south include rice balls and long noodles in the winter solstice.
9. Laba Festival is a Buddhist festival. This day is the day when Sakyamuni became a Buddha, also known as the "Daoism Festival". The most important activity on this day is to eat Laba porridge. The earliest Laba porridge only added adzuki beans to rice porridge, and later it evolved into a very complicated and elegant one. The main ingredients are dozens of kinds of white rice, yellow rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut rice, etc., and walnuts, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, pine nuts, raisins, longan meat, lilies, lotus seeds, etc. are added, and the fragrance floats for miles. In addition to Laba porridge, there are Laba noodles, Laba garlic and other flavor foods. They can not only nourish the body, but also be a form of festive harvest, which opens the prelude to the Spring Festival.