Eight festivals in a year.

There is a proverb in Chaoshan area: "Don't forget the eighth festival of the year when you are alive." The activities of "Chinese New Year" in Chaoshan area have been handed down from generation to generation and are well known. Or commemoration, or implication, or blessing, the folk customs are rich. Chaoshan people go home to reunite with relatives and friends more than these festivals, and enhance the emotion and cohesion of each other's big gongs and drums.

the Spring Festival; Chinese New Year

On the first day of the first lunar month, January is the first day of the New Year. In Chaoshan area, Chinese New Year is usually busy for four or five days. On the evening of the Spring Festival, in the streets and alleys, families put up Spring Festival couplets and decorate themselves with lanterns. Have a reunion dinner. On the morning of the Spring Festival, adults and children take one or two pairs of raw oranges (called "Daji") to visit relatives and friends and pay a New Year call. Cultural and recreational activities during the Spring Festival include singing and dancing, camp gongs and drums, raising flags, buma dancing, dragon dancing, lion dancing and carp dancing.

the Lantern Festival

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival, which was called Shangyuan Festival in ancient times. Commonly known as "Lantern Festival", Chaoshan people call it "the first half of the first month", and there has always been a saying of "the first day and the fifth day". On that day, banyan leaves and bamboo branches should be inserted on the lintel of every household to ensure peace; The programs to celebrate the Lantern Festival mainly include: camp owners, flower viewing lanterns, adding lanterns, solve riddles on the lanterns, and throwing money at Maitreya Buddha.

Qingming Festival

The custom of sweeping graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day is very popular in Chaoshan, and the custom of sweeping graves is "passing paper". In the old days, it was necessary to fill ancestral graves, sweep away dust and weeds, paint new stone tablets with red lacquer oil, hang yellow and white notes on tombstones and graves, and hold sacrificial ceremonies.

Dragon Boat Festival

People in Chaoshan call the Dragon Boat Festival "May Festival", and the dragon boat races in Chaoshan are divided into "real dragon" and "fake dragon". There is a weather proverb, "May Zongzi is eaten only when it is broken". In Chaoshan people, during the Dragon Boat Festival, wormwood, calamus, pomegranate, garlic and dragon boat flowers tied with "red rope" are hung under the lintel, knocker and even eaves, which is called "five pistils".

Ghosts'Festival

The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is the Mid-Autumn Festival. Commonly known as "July and a half", "Shigu" and "Ghost Festival", also known as "Yulan Victory Club". On the day of "Stone Drum", hipsters set up "Stone Drum" in the village as a unit, or put sacrifices and money paper at the door of his house, burn money paper after the sacrifice, sprinkle white rice on the ground, burn incense and pray, and insert incense on the ground in front of and behind the house.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Commonly known as "August and a half", the main programs are: 1. Taro for ancestor worship. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "Rivers and streams talk, and taro tastes terrible." ; Thanks to the moon, most people will make handicrafts for Yue Bai one month before the Mid-Autumn Festival. In Yue Bai, there are also some essential things, such as Eight Immortals, Eight Immortals steamed buns, elephants, various fruits and pies. In Yue Bai, most people are women and children, so there is a saying that "men don't have a full moon, and women don't offer sacrifices to stoves". 3. Burn the tower. Almost every element of these programs is related to the anti-meta-history of Chaoshan people (transmitting information)

Winter solstice

Winter Festival is the winter solstice among the 24 solar terms. When there is a gap in farming, a whole year will be over, so it is also called off-year. In the old winter festival, the whole family ate sweet dumplings to show their happy reunion. On the solstice of winter, there are ancestor worship, eating sweet pills (taking "Winter Festival Pills" will make you one year older) and going to the grave to sweep the grave ("Spring Paper" in Tomb-Sweeping Day and "Winter Paper" in the solstice of winter).

New Year's Eve

Chaoshan people call it "New Year's Eve" or "New Year's Eve". In the afternoon, the whole family went to have their hair cut, washed new clothes, and then began to worship their ancestors. Sacrifice to the ancestors, tear off the old couplets at the gate, hall and doorway and paste new Spring Festival couplets. Then there is "eating a reunion dinner around the stove" and giving lucky money (also called "waist pressing"). And keep old.

Rauge

The folk custom of "Old Fever" originated from chaozhou people's incomparable worship of land, which led to the emergence of "Land God". The land god was called "She" by the ancients and "Land God" by chaozhou people (it is worth mentioning that chaozhou people worships the land god in shops, homes and factories, and can also be seen in Ming Weng Teahouse). "Old fever", a folk activity, has been passed down in Chaozhou for thousands of years.

Chandelier customization

From the 11th to 18th of the first month, especially the Lantern Festival, every household in Chaoshan has the custom of playing lanterns and hanging chandeliers. Because "Deng" and "Ding" are homophonic in Chaozhou dialect, lighting and Gading are close sounds, so chaozhou people thinks that lighting is a good omen for Gading. On the Lantern Festival, people carry lanterns, prepare paper and silver incense one after another, light them in temples in the countryside, and hang them on shrines at home and bedside, which is called "hanging happy lanterns".

Chandelier customization

Walk out of the garden

"Going out of the garden": Going out of the garden is a unique adult ceremony in Chaoshan area. 15 (nominal age) children have to leave the garden. All families of boys and girls aged 15 should prepare three kinds of fruits (chicken, duck and pork) for their children to bid farewell to their in-laws (commonly known as in-laws) on the seventh day of the seventh month and the Mid-Autumn Festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, indicating that their children have grown up and can leave the garden from now on, and are no longer children who play in the garden all day.

Kung fu tea porcelain lantern

Legend has it that the custom of "going out of the garden" wearing red leather shoes and eating a chicken's head was related to Lin Daqin, the champion of Chaozhou House in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty.