There is a folk saying in China called "Open the door and set off firecrackers". That is to say, 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.
Firecrackers are a specialty of China, also known as "firecrackers", "firecrackers" and "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years.
Nowadays, most of us think that setting off firecrackers can create a festive atmosphere, which is an entertainment activity in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. However, if we trace the origin of firecrackers, we will understand the original intention and evolution history of ancient people setting off firecrackers.
The Chronicle of Jingchu says, "On the first day of the first month, chickens crow, and firecrackers are set off in front of the court to ward off evil spirits." This record shows that firecrackers were an acoustic tool to drive away plagues and evil spirits in ancient times, which made the custom of setting off firecrackers have a certain superstitious color from the beginning. In fact, this is entirely caused by the misunderstanding of the ancients.
According to this sacred classic, in ancient times, people camped in the deep mountains and lit bonfires at night, one for cooking and heating, and the other for preventing wild animals from invading. However, there is an animal in the mountains that is neither afraid of people nor fire, and often steals food while people are unprepared.
In order to deal with this animal, people thought of burning firecrackers in the fire and using the crackling sound of bamboo to drive it away. The animal mentioned here is called "Shan Sao". The ancients said that it can make people hot and cold, and it is a ghost that makes people suffer from hot and cold diseases, scaring away mountains, that is, expelling evil souls and enabling them to get good luck and peace.
In the early Tang Dynasty, there were plagues everywhere. A man named Li Tian put saltpeter in a bamboo tube and lit it to make it emit louder sound and stronger smoke. As a result, the miasma in Shan Lan was dispelled and the epidemic was stopped. This is the earliest prototype of firecrackers.
Later, when gunpowder appeared, people filled bamboo tubes with saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal and burned it, thus creating an "explosion war." In the Song Dynasty, people began to make "firecrackers" by wrapping gunpowder with paper tubes and hemp stalks.
As for the evolution of firecrackers, excellent popular arrangement records: "There were firecrackers in ancient times. They are all popular with real bamboo, so Tang poetry is also called explosive pole. Later people roll paper for it. It's called firecrackers.
With the passage of time, firecrackers are more and more widely used, and there are more and more varieties and colors. Liuyang in Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao in Guangdong, Yichun and Pingxiang in Jiangxi, and Wenzhou in Zhejiang are the famous "hometown of fireworks" in China. The firecrackers they produce are not only sold well all over the country, but also exported to other countries and regions in the world.
Setting off firecrackers has become an entertainment activity with national characteristics. People not only set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year in the Spring Festival, but also set off firecrackers to celebrate major festivals and happy events, such as Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, marriage, building and opening.
dragon dance
Playing Dragon Lantern, also known as "Dragon Dance" and "Dragon Lantern Dance", is a unique folk entertainment activity in China. From the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival, China has the custom of playing dragon lanterns in both urban and rural areas. After thousands of years of inheritance and development, playing dragon lantern has become a kind of folk dance with lively form, beautiful performance and romantic color. Playing with dragon lanterns originated from people's superstition about dragons and has a history of more than two thousand years. In ancient times, people used dragon dancing to pray for the dragon's blessing, so as to achieve good weather and abundant crops.
The main prop for playing dragon lanterns is "dragon". Dragons are made of grass, bamboo, wood, paper and cloth. The number of dragons is singular and auspicious, mostly nine-section dragons, eleven-section dragons and thirteen-section dragons, up to 29. Dragons with more than fifteen knots are too big to dance. They are mainly used for viewing. This kind of dragon pays special attention to decoration and has high technological value. There is also a kind of "fire dragon", which is woven into a cylindrical shape with bamboo sticks to form a cage, affixed with a transparent and beautiful dragon coat, and lit with candles or oil lamps. The performance in the evening was spectacular.
There are many ways to play the dragon lantern, among which the trick within nine knots is the key. The common moves are: Youlong, dragon stamping drill, head and tail drill, dragon wagging tail and snake molting. The dragons in sections 1 1 and 13 focus on action performances. Jinlong chased the orb and jumped, sometimes flying into the clouds and sometimes breaking the waves into the sea. Very good.
The custom of dragon dancing is carried forward by overseas Chinese. Whenever people in China have traditional festivals and major celebrations, they will dance lions and play dragon lanterns, showing a strong oriental spirit.
lucky money
When visiting the New Year during the Spring Festival, the elders should distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can suppress evil souls, 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 the colored rope in the shape of a dragon at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in "Yanjing Year"; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. The lucky money can be distributed in public after the younger generation pays New Year greetings, or it can be put under the child's pillow by parents when the child is asleep on New Year's Eve.
Folk believe that giving children lucky money, when evil spirits or "Nian" hurt children, children can use this money to bribe them and turn evil into good luck. A Qing Wu Manyun's poem "Lucky Money" said: "One hundred yuan grows in colored lines, and then it is collected from pillows and the price of firecrackers is discussed, which keeps Joule busy all night." From this point of view, lucky money is tied to children's hearts, and children's lucky money is mainly used to buy firecrackers, toys and candy and other things needed for festivals.
At present, the custom of giving lucky money from elders to younger generations is still prevalent, and the amount ranges from tens to hundreds. Most of these lucky money are used by children to buy books and school supplies, and the new fashion gives new content to the lucky money.
Stick the word "Fu" backwards.
During the Spring Festival, every household should put the word "Fu" on doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. According to Liang Lu's Dream, "When you are young, you will go shopping in department stores, draw a door god peach symbol and celebrate the Spring Festival ..."; "Scholars, big or small, will sweep the floor, clean the family, replace the keeper, hang Zhong Xu, nail peaches, stick spring cards, and offer sacrifices to ancestors. "In this article," Tiechun Card "is the word" Fu "written on red paper.
The word "fu" is now interpreted as "happiness", but in the past it meant "good luck" and "good luck". No matter now or in the past, posting the word "Fu" in the Spring Festival has pinned people's yearning for a happy life and wishes for a better future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, the people simply turn the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "Fu has fallen" and "Fu has arrived". There is also a legend that the word "fu" is posted upside down among the people. Ming Taizu Zhang Zhu used the word "Fu" as a code word to prepare for murder. In order to eliminate this disaster, kind Ma Huanghou asked all the families in the city to put the word "Fu" on their doors before dawn. Naturally, no one dared to go against Ma Huanghou's will, so the word "Fu" was posted on every door. One of the families can't read, so they write the word "fu" upside down. The next day, the emperor sent people to the streets to check and found that every household had posted the word "Fu", and another family had posted the word "Fu" upside down. The emperor was very angry when he heard the report and immediately ordered the body guard to cut down the house. Seeing that the situation was not good, Ma Huanghou quickly said to Zhu Yuanzhang, "The family knew that you were visiting today, and deliberately posted the word' Fu' backwards. Isn't this the meaning of "blessed road"? " As soon as the emperor heard the truth, he ordered his release, and a great disaster was finally eliminated. Since then, people have turned the word "Fu" upside down to seek good luck and commemorate Ma Huanghou.
Others elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp yue longmen, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on. In the past, there was a folk saying that "twenty-four families in the twelfth lunar month wrote big characters". The word "Fu" used to be handwritten, but now it is sold in markets and shops.
Eat rice cake
During the Spring Festival, many areas in China pay attention to eating rice cakes. Rice cakes, also known as "rice cakes", are homophonic with "getting taller every year", meaning that people's work and life are getting better every year.
As a kind of food, rice cakes have a long history in China. 1974, archaeologists discovered rice seeds in the Hemudu matriarchal clan social site in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, which shows that our ancestors began to grow rice as early as 7000 years ago. People in Han Dynasty called rice cakes "rice cakes", "fish bait" and "glutinous rice cakes". The ancients also had a development process from rice cakes to rice cakes. In the 6th century A.D., the cookbook Historical Records contained the method of making "white cocoon candy" for rice cakes, which said: "If the rice is cooked and cooked, and it is hotter than that in Chu Jiu, it must be cooked very well to avoid rice grains ..." In other words, after the glutinous rice is steamed, it is boiled into rice and then cut into peach pits of different sizes.
The method of grinding rice into cakes is also very early. The Book of Qi Yaomin written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty can prove this point. The production method is to screen glutinous rice flour with silk, then add water and honey to make hard dough, attach dates and chestnuts to the dough, and then wrap it with bamboo leaves and steam it. This glutinous rice cake has the characteristics of the Central Plains.
Most rice cakes are made of glutinous rice flour, which is a specialty of Jiangnan. In the north, there are sticky grains like glutinous rice, and sticky millet (commonly known as millet) was first introduced in ancient times. This kind of millet hulled powder is yellow, sticky and sweet after being steamed with water, and it is a delicious food for people in the Yellow River valley to celebrate the harvest. The article "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of Jingshi" published during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty recorded that Beijingers at that time would "eat millet cakes on the first day of the first month to celebrate the rice cakes". It is not difficult to see that "rice cake" is a homonym of "sticky cake" in the north.
There are many kinds of rice cakes, such as the white rice cakes in the north, the yellow rice cakes of farmers in Saibei, the Shuimo rice cakes in the south of the Yangtze River, and the red turtle rice cakes in Taiwan Province Province. Rice cakes have different tastes from north to south.
There are steamed rice cakes and fried rice cakes in the north, both of which are sweet; In addition to steaming and frying, southern rice cakes will also be sliced and fried and boiled in soup, which is both sweet and salty.
It is said that the earliest rice cakes were used to worship gods and ancestors on New Year's Eve, and later became food for the Spring Festival.
The rice cake is not only a kind of holiday food, but also brings people new hope with the passing of a year. As a poem in the late Qing Dynasty said: "People's hearts are high, and food is harmonious, so that the year is better than the year to pray for the year."