Unified festival. Since the first year of Emperor Taizhu of the Han Dynasty, the first day of the first month of the summer year (lunar calendar) has been regarded as the "year of the year", and the date of the annual festival has been fixed and continues to this day. New Year's Day is called "New Year's Day" in ancient times. 19 1 1 After the Revolution of 1911, the Gregorian calendar (solar calendar) was adopted to calculate the year, so it was called 1 month 1 day as "New Year's Day" and the first day of the first lunar month as "Spring Festival". Festivals at the age of 20 are also called "traditional festivals". They have a long history, spread widely, and have the characteristics of great popularity, mass and even the whole people. New Year's Day is a new day to get rid of old cloth. Although the festival is scheduled on the first day of the first lunar month, its activities are not limited to the first day of the first lunar month. From the Lunar New Year's Day on the 23rd (or 24th) of the twelfth lunar month, people began to "busy the year": sweeping houses, washing their hair and bathing, preparing new year's utensils and so on. All these activities have a common theme, that is, "saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new". People greet the new year and spring with grand ceremony and enthusiasm. New Year's Day is also a day to pray for the New Year. The ancients said that a ripe millet was a "year" and a bumper harvest of grains was a "great year". In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was an annual celebration of harvest. Later, praying to heaven for the New Year became one of the main contents of the annual custom. Moreover, gods such as Kitchen God, Door God, God of Wealth, XiShen, Well God, etc. all enjoy human incense during the festival. People take this opportunity to thank the gods for their care in the past and pray for more blessings in the new year. The New Year's Day is also a time for family reunion, family worship and ancestor worship. On New Year's Eve, the whole family got together and had a "reunion dinner". The elders distributed "lucky money" to the children, and the whole family sat in a "vigil". At the turn of the New Year's Day, firecrackers rang, and the activities to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year reached a climax. Families burn incense and pay tribute to heaven and earth and ancestors, and then pay tribute to their elders in turn, and then congratulate their relatives and friends. After Yuan Dynasty, we began to visit relatives and friends and exchange gifts to celebrate the New Year. The New Year's Festival is a festival for people's entertainment and carnival. After the January Day, all kinds of colorful entertainment activities were carried out in competition, such as playing lions, dancing dragon lanterns, dancing yangko, walking on stilts, juggling and so on, which added a rich celebration to the Spring Festival.

A festive atmosphere. At this time, just before and after the "beginning of spring", a grand welcoming ceremony was held in ancient times to whip the cows to welcome the spring and pray for good weather and good harvest. All kinds of social fire activities reached their climax again on the fifteenth day of the first month. Therefore, the grand annual festival, which integrates praying for the new year, celebrating and entertaining, has become the most solemn festival of the Chinese nation. Today, except for activities such as offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, the main customs of the festival have been inherited and developed in good condition. The Spring Festival is an important carrier of the excellent tradition of Chinese culture, which contains the wisdom and crystallization of Chinese culture, embodies the life pursuit and emotional sustenance of the Chinese people, and inherits the family ethics and social ethics of China people. After thousands of years of accumulation, colorful folk customs of the Spring Festival have formed a profound and unique Spring Festival culture. In recent years, with the improvement of material living standards, people's demand for spiritual and cultural life has increased rapidly, and their desire for family, friendship, harmony and happiness has become stronger. Traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival have attracted more and more attention from all walks of life. We should vigorously carry forward the excellent traditional culture condensed by the Spring Festival, highlight the theme of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, wishing reunion, peace and prosperity, and strive to create a festive atmosphere of family harmony, stability and unity, joy and peace, so as to promote the enduring and continuous development and growth of Chinese culture. [ 1]

history

The beginning of the lunar year in China is called the Spring Festival. It is the most solemn traditional festival for the people of China, and it also symbolizes unity, prosperity and new hope for the future. According to records, the people of China have celebrated the Spring Festival for more than 4,000 years. There are many theories about the origin of the Spring Festival, but the one generally accepted by the public is that the Spring Festival started in Yu Shun. One day more than 2000 BC, Shun was the emperor, leading his subordinates to worship heaven and earth. Since then, people have regarded this day as the beginning of the year. It is said that this is the origin of the Lunar New Year, which was later called the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival used to be called New Year's Day. The month in which the Spring Festival is held is called January. The dates of New Year's Day in China are different: the Xia Dynasty used January in Meng Chun as the first month, the Shang Dynasty used the twelfth month (December) as the first month, and after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, October was the first month. In the early Han Dynasty, Sun Yat-sen, an oil painting from Qin Dynasty, became the interim president.

Calendar Liu Che, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, felt that the calendar was too chaotic, so he ordered his ministers Gongsunqing and Sima Qian to make a "solar calendar", which stipulated that the first month of the lunar calendar was the first year, and the first day of the first month was the first day of the year, which was New Year's Day. Since then, China has been using the Gregorian calendar (lunar calendar, also known as the lunar calendar) to date until the end of the Qing Dynasty, which lasted for 2080. Spring Festival has different names in different times. In the pre-Qin period, it was called "going to Japan", "Yuanri", "changing the year" and "offering the year". In the Han Dynasty, it was also called "Three Dynasties", "Sui Dan", "Zhengdan" and "Zhengri". During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was called Yuan Chen, Yuan Ri, Fuehrer and Sui Dynasty. In the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it was called "New Year's Day", "Yuan", "New Year's Day" and "Singapore dollar". In the Qing dynasty, it was always called "New Year's Day" or "Yuan Day". 19 12 When Sun Yat-sen took office as the interim president of the Republic of China in Nanjing, he announced that he would abolish the old calendar and use the Gregorian calendar (that is, the Gregorian calendar) to mark the year of the Republic of China. And decided to take the year 19 12 1 month 1 day as the first year of the Republic of China 1 month 1 day. January 1st is called New Year's Day, but it is not called New Year's Day. However, the people still follow the old calendar, that is, the summer calendar, and still celebrate the traditional New Year on February 18 of that year (the first day of the first month of the year of Renzi), and other traditional festivals remain the same. In view of this, 19 13 (in the second year of the Republic of China), in July, the then Beijing government served as the chief of the interior department and submitted a report on the four seasons holiday to President Yuan Shikai, saying: "It is an old custom in our country to celebrate the four seasons holiday every year, that is, it should be expressly stipulated that New Year's Day in the lunar calendar should be designated as the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival as the Summer Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival as the Autumn Festival and Winter Solstice as the Winter Solstice. However, Yuan Shikai only approved the first day of the first month as the Spring Festival, and agreed to have a routine holiday during the Spring Festival, which will be implemented from the following year (19 14). Since then, the beginning of the summer calendar has been called "Spring Festival". 1On September 27th, 949, the first plenary session of China People's Political Consultative Conference decided to adopt the world-wide calendar year while establishing the People's Republic of China. In order to distinguish the two "years" of the solar calendar and the lunar calendar, and because the "beginning of spring" in 24 solar terms is just around the lunar year, the first day of the solar calendar is called "New Year's Day" and the first day of the first lunar month is officially renamed "Spring Festival". The earth goes around the sun once, which is called a year in the calendar, and it goes back and forth endlessly. However, according to the different weather in spring, summer, autumn and winter, people take the first plenary session of the China People's Political Consultative Conference on the first day of the first month of the first lunar month in the summer calendar.

For the beginning of the year. Every year after midnight (12 o'clock) on December 30 (the 29th day of the second lunar month), the Spring Festival is officially here. Near the Spring Festival, people buy new year's goods, and on New Year's Eve, the whole family get together for dinner. New Year pictures and Spring Festival couplets; Welcome the new year. With the establishment of New China, the Spring Festival celebrations are more colorful. It not only retains the past folk customs and excludes some activities with feudal superstitions, but also adds many new contents. Give the Spring Festival a new flavor of the times. 19491On February 23rd, the People's Republic of China stipulated that the Spring Festival would be closed for three days every year. China is a multi-ethnic country, and each ethnic group has different ways to celebrate the New Year. The customs and habits of the Han, Manchu and Korean people for the Spring Festival are similar. The whole family is reunited. People eat rice cakes, dumplings and all kinds of sumptuous meals, set off firecrackers and wish each other well. Celebrations during the Spring Festival are extremely rich and varied, including lion dancing and dragon playing, as well as walking on stilts and running dry boats. In some areas, people follow the past activities of worshipping ancestors and gods, and pray for good weather, peace and good harvest in the new year. The ancient Mongolians called the Spring Festival "White Festival" and the first month called Bai Yue, which means good luck. Tibetans celebrate the Tibetan calendar year. Hui, Uygur, Kazak, etc. have celebrated the "Eid al-Adha". The Spring Festival is also a grand festival for Miao, Yi and Yao people. [2]

one?legend?goes?that?...

Hold out for the rest of the year

stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve

Keeping the old year is the custom of staying up late to welcome the new year on the last night of the old year. It is also called keeping the old year on New Year's Eve, and its common name is "endure the new year". Exploring the origin of this custom, there is an interesting story circulating among the people: in Archaean times, there was a fierce monster scattered in the mountains and forests, and people called them "Nian". Its appearance is ferocious, its nature is ferocious, and it specializes in eating birds and animals and insects. It changes its taste every day, from kowtowing insects to living people, which makes people talk about "Nian". Later, people gradually mastered the activity law of "Nian", which is to go to places where people live in concentrated communities every 365 days to taste fresh food, and the haunting time is after dark, and when the cock crows at dawn, they return to the mountains. Having determined the date when the Year of the Year raged, the people regarded this terrible night as a gateway, which was called the Year of the Year, and came up with a whole set of ways to close the New Year's Day: every household cooked dinner in advance on this night, turned off the fire and cleaned the stove, then tied up all the cowpens, sealed the front and rear doors of the house, and hid in the house to eat the "New Year's Eve", because this dinner was uncertain. In addition to asking the whole family to dine together to show harmony and reunion, it is also necessary to offer sacrifices to ancestors before eating, pray for the blessing of ancestors, and spend the night safely. After dinner, no one dares to sleep and sit together to chat and be courageous. It gradually formed the habit of staying up on New Year's Eve. The custom of observing the age rose in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and many scholars in the Liang Dynasty had poems about observing the age. "One night is even two years old, and the five hours are divided into two years." People light candles or oil lamps and keep vigil all night, symbolizing driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and looking forward to good luck in the new year. This custom has been passed down from generation to generation.

Theory of calendar creation in ten thousand years

According to legend, in ancient times, there was a young man named Wan Nian, who saw that the festivals were chaotic at that time and had a plan to set them accurately. But he couldn't find a way to calculate the time. One day, he was tired of chopping wood on the mountain and sat in the shade of a tree. The movement of the shadow inspired him. He designed a sundial to measure the time of the day. Later, the dripping spring on the cliff inspired him, and he began to make a five-layer leaky pot to calculate the time. Over time, he found that every three hundred and sixty days, the four seasons would cycle once, and the length of the weather would be repeated. longevity star picture

At that time, the monarch was called Zu Yi, and he was often troubled by the unpredictable weather. After ten thousand years of knowing it, he took the sundial and the clepsydra to see the emperor and explained to Zu Yi the truth of the movement of the sun and the moon. After hearing this, Zu Yi was very happy and felt reasonable. So I left Wannian, built the Sun Moon Pavilion in front of the Temple of Heaven, and built a sundial platform and a leaky pot pavilion. I hope that I can accurately measure the laws of the sun and the moon, calculate the exact time of the morning and evening, and create a calendar to benefit the people of the world. On one occasion, Zu Yi went to learn about the progress of the calendar for ten thousand years. When he boarded the Sun and Moon Altar, he saw a poem engraved on the stone wall beside the Temple of Heaven: 360 at sunrise and 360 at sunset, starting all over again. The vegetation is divided into four seasons, and there are twelve circles in a year. Knowing that the calendar has been created in ten thousand years, I personally boarded the Sun Moon Pavilion to visit ten thousand years. Wannian pointed to the astronomical phenomena and said to Zu Yi, "Now it is twelve months old, the old year is over, and the new year begins again. Please make a festival for the monarch." Zu Yi said, "Spring is the first year of the year, so let's call it Spring Festival". It is said that this is the origin of the Spring Festival. Winter went to spring, year after year, and after years of long-term observation and careful calculation, he worked out an accurate solar calendar. When he presented the solar calendar to his successor, he was covered with silver whiskers. The monarch was deeply moved. In order to commemorate the achievements of ten thousand years, he named the solar calendar "perpetual calendar" and named it the birthday star of the sun, moon and moon. In the future, people hang up Shou Xingtu during the Chinese New Year, which is said to commemorate the venerable ten thousand years.

Sticking Spring Festival couplets and door gods

It is said that the custom of pasting Spring Festival couplets began about 1000 years ago in the post-Shu period, which is proved by history. In addition, according to the Jade Candle Collection, Yanjing's Chronicle of Years Old and other works, the original form of Spring Festival couplets is what people call "Taofu". In the ancient mythology of China, it is said that there is a ghost world, in which there is a mountain, a big peach tree covering 3,000 miles, and a golden rooster at the top of the tree. Whenever the golden rooster crows in the morning, ghosts who wander at night will rush back to the ghost domain. The gate of Ghost Domain is located in the northeast of peach tree. There are two gods standing by the door, named shentu and Yu Lei. If the ghost does something unnatural at night, shentu and Yu Lei will immediately find it and catch it, tie it up with a rope made of awn reed and send it to the tiger. So all the ghosts in the world are afraid of shentu and Yu Lei. So the people carved them into peach wood and put them at their doorsteps to ward off evil spirits and prevent harm. Later, people simply carved the names of shentu and Yu Lei on the mahogany board, thinking that doing so could also eliminate evil. This kind of mahogany board was later called "Taofu". Qin Shubao and Weichi Gong.

In the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on the mahogany board, one of which did not lose the meaning of killing evil spirits, the other expressed their good wishes, and the third decorated the portal for beauty. They also write couplets on red paper symbolizing happiness and good luck, and stick them on both sides of doors and windows during the Spring Festival to express people's good wishes for good luck in the coming year. In order to pray for the longevity of the family, people in some places still keep the habit of sticking to the door. It is said that two door gods are pasted on the gate, and all monsters will be afraid. In the folk, the door god is a symbol of righteousness and force. The ancients believed that people with strange looks often had magical temperament and extraordinary skills. They are honest and kind-hearted, and it is their nature and responsibility to catch ghosts and capture demons. Zhong Kui, the ghost hunter admired by people, is such a strange look. Therefore, the folk door gods are always glaring and ugly, with all kinds of traditional weapons in their hands, ready to fight against ghosts who dare to come to the door. Because the doors of Chinese houses are usually two opposite, the door gods are always in pairs. After the Tang Dynasty, in addition to shentu and Yu Lei, people regarded Qin Shubao and Weichi Gong, two military commanders in the Tang Dynasty, as gatekeepers. According to legend, Emperor Taizong was ill, and when he heard the ghosts calling outside, he was restless all night. So he asked the two generals to stand by the door with weapons in their hands, and there was no ghost harassment the next night. Later, Emperor Taizong had the images of these two generals painted and pasted on the door, and this custom began to spread widely among the people.

The Legend of Taofu

Taofu

In the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi wrote in the poem "January Day": "Every day, new peaches are always replaced with old ones." , describe the light of the first day. The "peach" and "symbol" in the poem are intertextual, which means that the new peach symbol is always replaced by the old one-the old one is replaced by the new one. There is a beautiful legend about Taofu. A long time ago, Dushuo Mountain in the East China Sea had beautiful scenery, and there was a peach forest on the mountain. Among them, there was a huge peach tree, which was flourishing and curled for three thousand miles. The peaches were big and sweet, and people could become immortals if they ate the peaches on this tree. One dark night, a ghost with blue face and fangs, red hair and green eyes tried to steal Xiantao. Shentu and Yu Lei, the owners of Taolin, beat the ghosts with peach branches and tied them with straw ropes to feed the tigers watching the mountains. Since then, the names of the two brothers have frightened ghosts, and after their death, they have become immortals dedicated to punishing evil spirits. Later generations painted two immortals, shentu and Yu Lei, on a mahogany board one inch wide and seven or eight inches long to drive away ghosts and evil spirits. This kind of mahogany board is called "Taofu". With the change of the times, the Taofu itself is also changing. Later, people wrote the names of two immortals on the Taofu instead of portraits. Later, it developed into "inscribed Taofu", that is, short poems with equal words, symmetrical structure and corresponding meanings were inscribed on the Taofu, which is the predecessor of the Spring Festival couplets.

Ancient New Year cards

New Year cards, which are popular in modern society, have been implemented in ancient China. As early as the Song Dynasty, new year card, a special New Year greeting, was used between the families and relatives of imperial nobles and literati, and it was called "name thorn" or "name sticker". It is to cut plum blossom stationery into cards about two inches wide and three inches long, and write your name and address on them. A red paper bag called "door book" is stuck on each door, on which the owner's name is written to receive the name thorn (name sticker). The worshippers put their names on the door book, which means to pay New Year's greetings. Its meaning is the same as that of modern New Year cards. [3]

process

Twenty-three and twenty-four of the twelfth lunar month

Off-year sacrifice to the kitchen god (16) The 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month, also known as "off-year", is a day for folk sacrifice to the kitchen. The folk song "Twenty-three, Sweet Melon Sticks" refers to the sacrificial stove on the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month every year. There is a saying that "officials, three people, four boatmen and five", that is, the government holds a sacrifice to the kitchen on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the general public on the 24th and house boat on the 25th. Off-year is the beginning and foreshadowing of the whole Spring Festival celebration, and there are two main activities: sweeping the New Year and offering sacrifices to stoves. In addition, there is the custom of eating stove candy. In some places, we also eat fire, sugar cakes, oil cakes and tofu soup. Offering sacrifices to a stove is a very popular custom in China. In the old days, almost every kitchen had a "kitchen god" god. People call this god "the Bodhisattva who commands the life" or "the kitchen master commands the life". It is said that he is the "Nine-day East Chef who commands the kitchen palace" sealed by the Jade Emperor, who is responsible for managing the kitchen fires of various families and is worshipped as the protector of a family. Kitchen God niches are mostly located in the north or east of the kitchen, with the gods of Kitchen God in the middle. Some people who don't have a niche for the kitchen king also paste the gods directly on the wall. Some gods only draw one kitchen god, while others have two men and women. The goddess is called "Grandma Kitchen King". The sacrificial stove on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month is closely related to the Chinese New Year. Because, a week later, on New Year's Eve, the Kitchen God came to the world with the good and bad luck that the family should get, and steamed steamed steamed buns with other gods (19). The Kitchen God is considered to guide the gods in the sky. Other gods ascended to heaven again after the new year, and only the kitchen god will stay in other people's kitchens for a long time. The ceremony to greet the gods is called "receiving the gods", which is called "receiving the stove" for the kitchen god. It is usually on New Year's Eve to pick up the stove, and the ceremony is much simpler. At that time, just put on a new stove lamp and burn incense in front of the stove niche. As the saying goes, "Men don't Yue Bai, and women don't sacrifice stoves". In some places, women don't sacrifice stoves. It is said that the kitchen god looks like a small white face, afraid of women's sacrifice stoves, and has "suspicion of men and women." People pay attention to eating jiaozi on the Festival of Sacrificing Stove, which means "seeing off the windward side of jiaozi". Eat more cakes and buckwheat noodles in mountainous areas. In southeastern Shanxi, the custom of eating fried corn is popular. There is a saying in the folk proverb that "Twenty-three, don't eat fried corn, pour it in one pot at the beginning of the New Year". People like to bond fried corn with maltose, freeze it into chunks, and it tastes crisp and sweet. After the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, every household should steam steamed buns. Generally speaking, it can be divided into two types: worshipping God and visiting relatives. The former is solemn, while the latter is flowery. In particular, it is necessary to make a jujube mountain to be dedicated to the kitchen god. "A steamed bun, neighbors come to help". This is often a great opportunity for folk women to show their dexterity. A steamed bun is a handicraft. After writing Spring Festival couplets on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, every household should write Spring Festival couplets. Folks pay attention to the fact that God must post it, every door must post it, and everything must post it, so the Spring Festival couplets have the largest number and the most complete content. The couplets in front of the gods are particularly particular, and most of them are words of admiration and blessing. The common gods are the gods of heaven and earth, "Heaven's grace is as deep as the sea, and the virtue of posting Spring Festival couplets (20 pieces) is as heavy as mountains"; Land gods "white jade is born in the soil, and gold is born in the ground"; God of Wealth "God of Wealth in Heaven, God of Wealth on Earth"; Jingshenlian "the well can reach the four seas, and the home can reach the three rivers". The Spring Festival couplets in granaries and barns all express warm congratulations and hopes, such as "five grains are abundant and six animals are prosperous"; "The rice surface is as thick as a mountain and the oil and salt are as deep as the sea"; "Cows are like tigers in the South Mountain and horses are like dragons in the North Sea"; "Big sheep are flourishing every year, and little lambs are increasing every month" and so on. There are also some single couplets, such as "Looking up to see happiness" in every room, "Going out to see happiness" on the opposite side of the door, "Prosperous spirit soaring to the sky" on the fire, "Full courtyard is full of gold" on the tree, "Deep roots and lush foliage" on the stone mill and so on. The couplets on the gate are the facade of a family, which are paid special attention to, or lyrical, or writing scenery, with rich content and witty remarks. Eating stove candy is a kind of maltose, which is very sticky. It is called "Guandong sugar" when it is drawn into a long candy stick, and it is called "sugar melon" when it is drawn into a flat round shape. Put it outside the house in winter, because the weather is cold, the candied melon solidifies firmly and there are some tiny bubbles inside, which tastes crisp, sweet and crisp and has a special flavor. True Guandong sugar is so hard that it can't be broken when it falls.