In China, Xiaonian does not specifically refer to a festival. Due to different customs in different places, the days called Xiaonian are also different. In most areas in the north, the Stove Worship Festival on the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month is called the Xiaonian; many areas in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai call the fifth day of the first lunar month the Xiaonian; there are also many areas in China that call the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month the Xiaonian. There are also places where the winter solstice is called Xiaonian. In some places (such as Shanghai), people customarily call the day before New Year's Eve as Little New Year's Eve.
Generally, in most parts of China, the 23rd or 24th day of the twelfth lunar month is the off year. The Little New Year is often considered to be the beginning of the Big New Year (Spring Festival). There are only six or seven days left before the Spring Festival after the Little New Year, which means that people start to prepare New Year's goods and at the same time thoroughly sweep the dust to get rid of the old and welcome the new.
It is said that the day of Xiaonian is the day when the Kitchen God in traditional Chinese mythology goes to heaven, so many customs of Xiaonian are related to the Kitchen God. There are still many stories about Xiaonian, among which there are many versions of the legend about the Stove Lord. The most widely spread version is the story about the Stove Lord being a "secret agent". According to legend, Zao Lord was a little immortal sent by the Jade Emperor to the human world to supervise all aspects of life. He often went to report to the Jade Emperor. If you commit a minor crime, your life span will be shortened by 100 days; if you commit a major crime, your life span will be shortened by 300 days. Below are the legends and legends collected by Lao Liu during his childhood. Please enjoy them.
Legend 1
According to folklore, Lord Zao went to heaven to accuse the world of evil. Once accused, major crimes will shorten one's life by 300 days, and small crimes will shorten one's life by 100 days. In the "Tai Shang Ying Pian", there is another description of "the commander's orders follow their importance and their records are taken away". Si Ming refers to Zao Lord, which counts as one hundred days, and Ji refers to twelve years. Here, the penalty for serious crimes was increased to twelve years of life shortened. Therefore, when offering sacrifices to the Kitchen God, you should pay attention to the Kitchen Lord and ask him to show his noble hand
Legend 2
There is an interesting story among the people. It is said that in ancient times there was a family named Zhang, two brothers, the elder brother was a plasterer and the younger brother was a painter. My brother's specialty is cooking pots. He invites guests from East Street and West Street, and they all praise him for his skill in setting up the stove. He became famous for a long time, and people from thousands of miles around called him "King Zhang Zao". It's strange that Zhang Zaowang, no matter whose house he goes to build a stove, if there is a dispute in other people's house, he likes to meddle in other people's affairs.
When he meets a noisy daughter-in-law, he tries to persuade her, and when he meets a fierce mother-in-law, he also tries to persuade her. He seems to be an elder. From now on, the neighbors would come to him if anything happened, and everyone respected him. King Zhang Zao lived for seventy years and died late at night on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. After the death of King Zhang Zao, the Zhang family was in chaos. It turned out that King Zhang Zao was the head of the family, and everything in the house was obeyed by his orders. Now that the eldest brother has passed away, the younger brother only knows poetry, calligraphy and painting. Although he is already sixty years old, he has never taken care of it. housework. The daughters-in-law of several houses were clamoring for separation, and the painter was helpless and looked sad all day long. One day, he finally came up with a good idea.
On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the first anniversary of the death of King Zhang Zao, late at night, the painter suddenly called out to wake up the whole family, saying that the eldest brother had appeared. He led his son, daughter-in-law, and the whole family to the kitchen, where they saw the faces of Stove King Zhang and his late wife looming on the dark stove wall, and the flickering candlelight. The family were shocked. The painter said, "When I was sleeping, I dreamed that my eldest brother and sister-in-law had become immortals, and the Jade Emperor named him "Jiutian East Chef, Mingzao Wangfu Jun". You usually eat well and are lazy in cooking, so your sisters-in-law are at odds with each other, you are disrespectful and unfilial, and you make the family gods uneasy. The eldest brother is very angry when he knows that you are splitting up your family. He plans to go to heaven to report to the Jade Emperor, and to punish you from the lower world on the night of New Year's Eve. After hearing these words, the children, nieces, and nephews were horrified. They immediately knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly. They hurriedly took the sweets that the Stove King loved to eat and offered them on the stove, begging the Stove Lord for his forgiveness.
From then on, the often noisy uncles, brothers and wives no longer dared to act out, the whole family lived in peace, and young and old lived peacefully. After this incident was known to the neighbors, they spread the news to tens of thousands, and they all came to Zhang's house to find out the truth. In fact, the Stove King on the kitchen wall on the night of the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month was drawn in advance by the painter. He pretended that his eldest brother appeared as a ghost to scare his children, niece and daughter-in-law. Unexpectedly, this method was really effective. So when the villagers came to the painter to inquire about the situation, he had no choice but to fake it and give the painted Stove King portraits to his neighbors. In this way, it spreads along the countryside and reaches every household.
Legend Three
Legend has it that there is a three-corpse god attached to every human being. He often reports to the Jade Emperor and speaks ill of the world. In a very short period of time, the Jade Emperor received many secret reports from him, saying that the human world was planning to rebel against heaven.
The Jade Emperor was furious after seeing this, and immediately summoned the Three Corpse Gods and ordered them to write their crimes on the walls of the houses of those who spoke ill of the Jade Emperor, and then let spiders build large webs and hang them under the eaves. The Jade Emperor also ordered Wang Lingguan to go down to the realm on New Year's Eve. Anyone who saw the mark of the Three Corpse Gods would be killed. Seeing that the conspiracy was about to succeed and that they could monopolize the beautiful world, the three corpse gods quickly descended to earth and marked the walls of every house. The Kitchen Lord discovered the conspiracy of the Three Corpse Gods, and hurriedly found the Kitchen Lords of each house to discuss countermeasures: starting from the day when the stove was delivered, every house should be cleaned before New Year's Eve. When Wang Lingguan went down to inspect the area on New Year's Eve, he found that every household was clean without any markings. The people were law-abiding and working hard. The Jade Emperor learned from Wang Lingguan and Zao Lord that the Three Corpse Gods had wronged a good man, and was furious, so he imprisoned the Three Corpse Gods forever. From then on, the kind-hearted Kitchen Lord was supported by everyone. Every year on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people would sacrifice to the Kitchen God, and sweeping the dust on the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month became a folk custom.
Legend 4
The custom of worshiping the stove on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month in Henan is accompanied by a desolate folk legend. In ancient times, an old couple had only one son. They regarded their son as the apple of their eyes and loved him very much. However, due to poverty at home and no way to get to Hukou, he had no choice but to let his son dig coal in the coal mine. His son has not returned for a long time, and the old man misses him very much. On this day, the old woman asked the old man to take a look at the coal mine. On the way, the old man met a fellow traveler who was barefooted. The two became more familiar with each other and got along very harmoniously. During the chat, the old man learned that Barefoot was ordered by the King of Hell to come to the mine to take back a hundred miners. The old man was distraught and begged barefoot to keep his son. Barefoot agreed generously and asked him not to tell anyone. When he saw his son, the old man pretended to be ill. The son was waiting around and could not go down into the well.
Soon, there was an accident in the coal mine, and the old man hurriedly took his son home. Three years passed in the blink of an eye. On the night of the 22nd of the twelfth lunar month of this year, the old man thought of the risk he had taken and couldn't help but tell his wife. Unexpectedly, Zao Lord heard what he said. On the night of the 23rd, after Zao Lord went to heaven, he told the Jade Emperor about it. The Jade Emperor became so angry that he immediately punished the barefooted man and took away the old man's son. For this reason, every year on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people worship the Stove Lord and eat Stove Candies, hoping that he will stop stirring up trouble in the world after arriving in the Heavenly Palace. Over time, people began to worship the stove on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month.
Since the Yongzheng period, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty have worshiped gods in Kunning Palace on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month every year. In order to save money, the emperor also worshiped the Kitchen God. Later, the royal family and Baylor followed suit and offered sacrifices to the stove on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month. From then on, there began to be distinctions between the officials and the people celebrating the New Year on different days.
In the folk, there is a tradition of "officials, three people, four boats and five". That is to say, the off-year for official families is on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, for common people, it is on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, and for people on the water, it is the twelfth lunar month. It is the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth lunar month.
The north was the political center before the Southern Song Dynasty and was heavily influenced by officialdom, so the small year was usually on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month; on the contrary, the south was far away from the political center, and the small year was on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month; Residents along the lake and sea retain the tradition of boatmen, and the small year is celebrated on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month.
Festival customs
Sacrificing stoves
The Xiaonian Festival is a day for people to worship stoves. Since Chinese people basically consume rice, cooked food is generally not easy to preserve and must be cooked at any time. Unlike Western bread, many can be baked at once and preserved for consumption. So for the Chinese, "firewood" (fuel) is the first important thing among the "seven things" in life (firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea). Without fuel, even if there is basic food, there is no way to eat it, so it is necessary in China Every house has a stove.
Since every house has a stove, a legend has arisen that the Jade Emperor stationed a supervisor in each house - the Kitchen God (Si Ming Zao Lord, Kitchen Lord, Kitchen Lord, Kitchen King) to Supervise and inspect what the family has done throughout the year. On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the Kitchen God will go to heaven and report to the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor will decide based on the report whether to reward or punish the family in the next year. The Kitchen God will return in the next New Year. Continue to monitor what this company does. This day is actually a festival for families to send off the Kitchen God to heaven.
When offering sacrifices to the Stove, Guandong sugar should be melted with fire and smeared on the mouth of the Stove Lord so that he cannot say bad things in front of the Jade Emperor. There is also a folk custom that men do not worship the moon and women do not worship the stove prince. Therefore, worshiping the stove prince is limited to men.
Sweeping dust
Sweeping the New Year is actually cleaning up the household environment. People in the north call it "house sweeper"; people in the south call it "dust duster".
Traditionally, on this day, every household gets up at dawn to clean the house, clean the windows, wash the clothes, scrub the pots and pans, and carry out a thorough cleaning. According to records in "Shiyi Ji", this custom can be traced back to more than 3,000 years ago. At that time, it was a religious ceremony to ward off epidemic ghosts and pray for health. The word “hou”chen” is homophonic to “chen”, so sweeping the dust means sweeping away the old things. This refers to both the old dirt in the courtyard and the unhappiness encountered in the old years.
Writing Spring Festival couplets
After the New Year, every household must write Spring Festival couplets. Folks pay attention to the fact that if there are gods, every door must be posted, and every object must be posted, so the Spring Festival couplets have the largest number and the most comprehensive content. The couplets in front of the gods are particularly particular, and they are mostly words of admiration and blessing. The couplets on the door are the facade of a family, which is particularly important. They are either lyrical or depicting scenes.
Cutting window grilles
Among all preparations, cutting and pasting window grilles is the most popular folk activity. The content contains anecdotes of various animals and plants, such as magpies climbing plum blossoms, swallows piercing peach willows, peacocks playing with peonies, lions rolling hydrangea, three sheep (yang) Kaitai, two dragons playing with beads, deer, crane and tongchun (sixth year of spring) , five bats (blessings) holding longevity, rhinoceros looking at the moon, lotus (continuous) fish (remaining), mandarin ducks playing in the water, bangs playing with golden cicadas, two immortals in harmony, etc.
Bathing
Both adults and children should take a bath and have their hair cut. There is a folk saying that if you have money or not, you can shave your head to celebrate the New Year.
Marriage
After the 23rd, people believe that the gods go to heaven and there are no taboos. There is no need to choose a date to marry a daughter-in-law or a daughter-in-law, which is called a random marriage. Until the end of the year, many wedding ceremonies are held. There is a folk saying that "Suiyan is busy getting married in the countryside, and Yichun posts are amusing the spring scenery. Sisters whisper to each other in front of the lamp, staying up late this year is the bridal chamber."