Spring Festival Customs and Taboos Chapter 1 Spring Festival Customs: Sacrifice to the Kitchen God (the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month) Sacrifice to the Kitchen God: The 23rd or 24th day of the twelfth lunar month Also known as: Xiaonian The Spring Festival custom of worshiping the stove - a traditional Chinese custom.

Folk proverb says: "Twenty-three, sacrifice to the Kitchen God." In the old custom, the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month was the day to worship the Kitchen God.

Most of the statues of the Kitchen God also have a calendar for that year printed on them, with words such as "Master of the East Chef", "Supervisor God of the World", "Head of the Family" and so on, to indicate the status of the Kitchen God.

A couplet is affixed on both sides: "Sacrificing the stove above will bring good things, and the lower world will ensure peace." to protect the safety of the whole family. Sacrifice to the stove on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month is closely related to the Chinese New Year.

Because, on the eve of the New Year’s Eve a week later, the Kitchen God came to the world together with other gods with the good and bad luck that the family should receive.

The Kitchen God is believed to lead the way for the gods in the sky.

The other gods ascend to heaven again after the New Year, but only the Kitchen God will stay in people's kitchens for a long time.

The ceremony to welcome the gods is called receiving the gods, and for the Kitchen God, it is called receiving the stove.

The ceremony of taking over the stove is usually on New Year's Eve, and the ceremony is much simpler. At that time, you only need to put on a new stove lamp and burn incense in front of the stove niche.

Stove worship activities in central Hebei: Local people offer sacrifices to the stove, also known as "sending the Stove Lord to heaven".

Generally, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, after dinner, housewives would first offer incense to the Stove Lord, place offerings, such as flower cakes, sugar melons, etc., prepare red dates and miscellaneous grains as gifts for meeting the Jade Emperor, and also provide fodder and water for the Stove Lord.

It is for feeding and drinking horses.

In the dead of night, the statue of Kitchen God was gently removed, and the yellow paper and paper money were burned at the gate. The housewife led the whole family to pray again, "God has said good things, and you will see good luck when you return to the palace."

Please speak kindly to the Lord Zao in front of the Jade Emperor.

Then, the whole family shares flower cakes, red dates, etc.

Spring Festival customs: Sweeping the Dust Day (Twenty-fourth of the twelfth lunar month) "The 24th, Sweeping the Dust Day".

To welcome the new, we must first get rid of the old.

Sweeping dust is the year-end cleaning. It is called "house sweeping" in the north and "dust dusting" in the south.

Sweeping dust before the Spring Festival is a traditional custom among Chinese people.

On the day of sweeping, the whole family works together to clean the house and courtyard, scrub pots and dishes, unpack and wash bedding, and welcome the new year cleanly.

In fact, people use the homophonic pronunciation of "chen" and "chen" to express their desire to get rid of the old.

The 24th day of the twelfth lunar month is the "dust sweeping day" for every household.

Folk belief believes that from this day on, the gods will ignore human affairs and return to heaven to report their duties.

According to folklore, this is the day when gods return to heaven, and there are only some minor gods such as day-duty gods and landowners to keep order in the world. Folks also believe that after gods go to heaven, they have to wait until the fourth night of the next year before returning to the mortal world. So there is a legend.

, during this time, you don’t have to worry about any details even if you flip the house. You don’t have to worry about offending the gods at home when moving objects or flying dust on this day.

Spring Festival custom: Receive the Jade Emperor (on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month). The Han folk proverb says: On the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, grinding mills and making tofu.

According to research by Jie Yuhuang, tofu was invented by Liu An, King of Huainan in the Western Han Dynasty.

Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty wrote in his poem "Tofu": The bean seedlings are sparse, and the heart is rotten after exhaustion. If I had known the art of Huainan, I would have settled down and harvested the spring cloth.

Interestingly, some places still have the custom of eating tofu dregs before New Year’s Eve.

The reason is that local legend said that after the Kitchen King reported to heaven, the Jade Emperor would visit the lower world to see if each household was as the Kitchen King had said. So each household would eat tofu dregs to express their poverty and hide it from the Jade Emperor.

punishment.

Legend belongs to legend. Eating tofu dregs is actually a sign of low productivity in ancient times and not so much delicious food. It is also a reflection of the virtues of diligence and frugality of the Han ancestors. Spring Festival customs: cutting off new year's meat (the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month). As the saying goes: "The twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month"

"Killing pigs and cutting New Year's meat" refers to the main preparation of meat for the New Year on this day.

The so-called killing of pigs, of course, means killing the pigs raised by oneself; the so-called cutting of meat means that poor families who do not raise pigs go to the market to buy meat for the New Year.

The reason why "cutting new year's meat" is included in the New Year's folk songs is because the farming and social economy are underdeveloped, and people can only eat meat during the annual New Year's Day, so it is called "new year's meat".

Starting from the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, sumptuous New Year’s Eve dinners will be served one after another.

People go to the streets to buy goods for the New Year. Fresh and dried fruits, large fish and meat are all the targets of intensive purchasing.

Pot meat is definitely a luxury wish for the poor people in the old days, but during the Chinese New Year, the wish finally came true.

Spring Festival Customs: Washing Guilt Diseases (Twenty-seventh Day of the Twelfth Lunar Month) During the Chinese New Year, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, we still continue the work of yesterday, washing clothes and taking a bath. There is a custom of washing guilt diseases and old mud on the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month to prepare for the coming New Year.

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It is said that bathing on this day can remove a year's bad luck and wash away a year's diseases. In fact, it is to pray for good health and no disease in the coming year!

According to traditional folk customs, people should bathe and wash clothes intensively during these two days to get rid of a year's bad luck and wash away the diseases of the year. In fact, it is to pray for good health and no disease in the coming year!

To prepare for the coming New Year, there is a proverb in the capital that washes away guilt in twenty-seven and washes away sloppiness in twenty-eight.

Taking a bath on the 26th of the twelfth lunar month is "washing fortune and fortune".