Chinese New Year custom in hometown

Spring Festival is the first day of the first lunar month, also known as Lunar New Year, commonly known as "Chinese New Year". This is the biggest and most lively traditional festival among the people in China. The Spring Festival has a long history, which originated from the activities of offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors in the beginning and end of the Shang Dynasty. According to the lunar calendar, the first day of the first month is called Yuanri, Chen Yuan, Jacky, Yuanshuo and New Year's Day. , commonly known as the New Year's Day. Later it was changed to Gregorian calendar. The first day of the solar calendar is called New Year's Day, and the first day of the lunar calendar is called Spring Festival.

There are many hometown customs in China, and different provincial capitals have different hometown customs:

1. Clean Day

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", which means sweeping 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 and clean all kinds of electrical appliances. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.

Buy new year's goods

Then, every household prepares new year's goods. About ten days before the Spring Festival, people are busy shopping, including chickens, ducks, fish, fruit with sugar bait and so on. And they have to buy enough gifts when they visit relatives and friends during the Spring Festival. Children need to buy new clothes and hats to wear during the Spring Festival.

paste up Spring Festival couplets

Before the Spring Festival, a red paper and yellow (black) New Year message should be posted on the door at home, that is, Spring Festival couplets written in red paper. In the house, brightly colored and auspicious New Year pictures are pasted, beautiful window grilles (red) are cut out and pasted on the windows, and red lanterns are hung in front of the doors or lucky characters, the god of wealth and the door gods are pasted. The word "fu" can also be posted backwards, and passers-by will fall (arrive) when they think about it, which means they are blessed. All these activities are aimed at adding enough festive atmosphere to the festival.

Setting off firecrackers

Another name for the Spring Festival is China New Year. In the past legend, "Nian" is a fictional animal, which will bring bad luck to people. New Year's Eve. When the tree is dead, the grass will not grow; After the New Year, everything grows and flowers are everywhere. How to spend a year? Need to use firecrackers to fry, so there is the custom of setting off firecrackers, which is another way to set off the lively scene.

5. Family reunion

The Spring Festival is a happy and peaceful festival, and it is also a day for family reunion. Children who leave home will go home for reunion during the New Year. The night before the Lunar New Year is the 30th night of the twelfth lunar month, also known as New Year's Eve and Reunion Night. Celebrating the New Year is one of the most important annual custom activities at the turn of the old and the new. On New Year's Eve, the whole family stayed up all night and enjoyed themselves. There is a custom of eating jiaozi on New Year's Eve in northern areas. Jiaozi's practice is to mix noodles first, and the word harmony is the combination; Jiaozi and Jiao Jiao are homophonic, meaning to get together and make friends when they are young. South China has the habit of eating rice cakes, which are sweet and sticky, symbolizing the sweetness of life in the new year and rising step by step.

New year greetings

On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress up neatly and go out to visit relatives and friends. There are also many ways to pay New Year's greetings: some are led by the same patriarch and go 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 is time-consuming and laborious to pay a New Year call at home, someone came up with the idea of sending a letter without running, which led to the later "New Year card".

7. Give red envelopes

During the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders and wish them good health. 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 "expensive" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money: one is to make the shape of Jackie Chan with colored rope and put it at the foot of the bed; The other is the most common, that is, parents use red paper to collect their wallets and distribute them to their children. The lucky money can be given to the younger generation in person after the New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly placed under the child's pillow on New Year's Eve while the child is asleep.

8. Shounian

On the evening of the last day of the Lunar New Year. Except for the old cloth, it is new. The last day of the year is called "New Year's Eve" and that night is called "New Year's Eve". People often stay up all night on New Year's Eve, which is called keeping watch. There is a legend about the origin of New Year's Eve: In ancient times, there was a fierce monster named Xi who came out at the end of the year to hurt people. Later, people found that they were afraid of three things at night, red color, fire and noise. So in winter, people hang red boards on their doors, light a fire at the door, stay up all night and knock at the door. That night, "Xi" broke into the village, saw every household glowing with red light, heard a deafening noise, ran back to the mountains in fear and never came out. As the night passed, people congratulated each other and celebrated the victory by decorating, drinking and feasting. So on New Year's Eve, every household puts up red couplets and sets off firecrackers to drive away the animals on New Year's Eve. In order to have peace in the new year, this custom has been passed down to this day, and New Year's Eve is called New Year's Eve.

9. Paste New Year pictures

There are also many people who hang up New Year pictures during the Spring Festival, adding a lot of prosperous and happy holiday 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". Now, 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 six animals, welcoming the new year and so on, to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the new year.

10. Fenjiu

On New Year's Eve, the whole family will have dinner and drink, or invite relatives and friends to eat and drink to their hearts' content, which is called "Fenjiu". Because New Year's Eve is the dividing line between the new year and the old year, which means that the old year and the new year are divided by this night. Therefore, this meal, rich or poor, should be as rich as possible. "New Year's Eve wine" is also called "New Year's Eve". Eating New Year's Eve wine is very auspicious. In the past, ten kinds of cold dishes were filled in ten vermilion bowls at banquets, which was called "eating all". Besides chicken and meat, there should be peanuts (fruit), oranges (good luck), carp (jumping the dragon gate) and tofu (cleaning the house). After drinking too much wine, people often stay up all night for entertainment, which is called "keeping the old age" or "looking forward to the New Year's Eve".