Shangsi Festival is a festival to commemorate the Yellow Emperor. This day is also called Spring Bath Day and Daughter's Day. It is also the oldest Valentine's Day. Later, it evolved into a festival of drinking by the water and having a spring outing in the suburbs. Shangsi Festival has a profound historical and cultural background. In many dynasties, it was one of the favorite festivals for young people and literati.
The custom of Shangsi Festival
1, baby
Sickness refers to disaster relief, which was given by ancient witches. Hot springs were popular in Tang and Song Dynasties. It used to be a ceremony of bathing by the water and the river, washing with bluegrass and nodding with willow branches dipped in petal water to bless disaster.
2. Sacrifice Gao Qing
Gao Yun is the god who manages marriage and childbirth. Gaoqing, also known as Jiao Qing, is named after its use in the suburbs. Through this witchcraft activity, people avoid evil spirits and pray for fertility. Therefore, Shangsi Festival is also a courtship festival and a fertility festival.
Step 3 take a bath next to you
Side bath means washing away dirt with spring water. The ancients thought it could clear away the diseases accumulated all winter, clean up immunity and be lucky in the new year.
4. Spring outing in the suburbs
Thinking above is not only a festival to exorcise evil spirits and seek happiness, but also a free and happy spring outing. Young men and women go out for an outing, splash water on each other and choose their spouses freely. It is the real Valentine's Day in China, with peony as the theme.
5, eat shepherd's purse boiled eggs
On the third day of the third lunar month, people in China have the custom of eating local dishes and boiling eggs. Shepherd's purse Shepherd's purse, also known as ground vegetables and wild vegetables, is a kind of wild vegetables growing in the corner of the field. Although it is a wild vegetable, it is delicious and nutritious.
6. Shoot geese and silkworms
During Shangsi Festival, there is another activity of shooting geese, that is, shooting wild geese with arrows with silk thread, and taking them down after shooting. This kind of wild goose is not so much prey as the best gift. Working women in the south began to raise silkworms and collect mulberry to feed them.