The Spring Festival, that is, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar every year, refers to the Chinese character cultural circle traditionally on the lunar new year, but also at home and abroad Chinese **** the same holiday, cohesion of the Chinese people's pursuit of life and emotional support, is very much valued by the people of China.
Customs of the Spring Festival are:Preparing for the New Year's goods, sticking the New Year's red, sacrificing to the stove, dusting, hanging New Year's paintings, sticking the windowpane, upside down the word "blessed", New Year's Eve dinner, paying homage to the New Year, letting off firecrackers, putting on the new clothes, eating dumplings, guarding the New Year's Day, dancing with the dragons, hanging the lanterns, taking the New Year's Eve money, eating dumplings, opening the door to the cannons, paying homage to the New Year's Eve, watching the fireworks, stepping on the stilts, the Lanterns and the lion dance.
Every day during the Spring Festival has different customs. Let's take a look with me:
? One of the Chinese New Year customs: preparing New Year's goods?
New Year's goods are some good items bought before the New Year, and the purchasing process is called the New Year's goods, such as expensive abalone, ginseng, shark's fin and maw used to cook a good meal to comfort the hard work of a year's worth of days, to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. In some places, people will buy candy and melon seeds in the New Year's goods in the whole box, relatives and friends come to pay New Year's visit, they are invited to eat candy and melon seeds. Another New Year's goods is to do is to pay a New Year's visit to the gift, urban areas are popular to send chocolates, cookies, etc., this is because to relatives and friends home to pay a New Year's visit, the traditional custom is to bring some gifts.?
Legend has it that in ancient times transportation was inconvenient and supplies were relatively scarce. For the annual joy of the Spring Festival, families prepared New Year's goods about 10 days before the festival. New Year's goods, including chickens, ducks, fish and meat, tea, wine, oil and soy sauce, North and South fried goods, sugar bait fruit, are to buy enough, but also to prepare some of the New Year's Eve when visiting friends and relatives to give gifts. Children to buy new clothes and hats, ready to wear on New Year's Day.
Anciently, people called the New Year's Eve to catch up with the set, that is, we agreed on a fixed time, fixed place for trade activities commonly known as the annual set is the largest in the year, the largest number of participants in the largest one, generally in the old calendar New Year's Eve Lunar New Year twenty-three. The Chinese people have been treating the New Year as a big event for thousands of years. Before the New Year, we have to make a lot of preparations, to buy a lot of things to eat, use, wear, wear, play, for the dry, fresh, raw, cooked, collectively known as the day of the "New Year's goods".
? The second custom of the Spring Festival: dusting?
Lunar New Year's Eve 24, dust: this day every family will clean the house, clean clothes and tents, clean the roof corners, wash the stools, tables and chairs of the dirt, so-called "dust", dust is the New Year's Day in addition to one of the old and new customsThe first is to make sure that you have a good understanding of what you are doing and how you are doing it. Proverbs say "waxing twenty-four, dust sweeping house". At the end of the year, on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, preparations for the New Year officially begin. Dusting is the year-end cleaning, known as "house sweeping" in the north and "house sweeping" in the south of Guangdong. Whenever the Chinese New Year comes, every household has to clean the environment, wash all kinds of utensils, dismantle the bedding curtains, sprinkle six villages and courtyards, dusting dust cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with joy to engage in health, clean and welcome the new year's happy atmosphere.
According to folklore: because the "dust" and "Chen" consonant, dust sweeping in the New Year, "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin". Sweeping the dust is intended to be all "poor luck", "bad luck" all sweep out the door to pray for the next year Qingji; this custom sends people to ward off evils and disasters, the old and the new, and welcome the prayers and aspirations of the auspicious and blessed.
? Spring Festival custom of the third: shine field silkworms?
Shine the field silkworms, also known as "burnt silkworms", "burnt field wealth", is popular in the south of the folk prayers for the New Year custom. The day of the 25th day of the waxing moon will be tied to the torch long pole in the field, with the flame to divine the new year, the flame is a good omen of the next year's harvest. In some places, this event is held on the 30th day of the lunar month.
About the formation of the custom of lighting silkworms, Wang Lihua believes that the fire originated from the burning of the remnants of the field ligustrum grass, in order to facilitate the fertilizer and kill pests and improve the efficiency of plowing the field. In the Tang Dynasty after the development of the area east of Taihu Lake, the fire plowing gradually abolished, but due to the accumulation of habits, although the field fire burning in the production schedule of the project list gradually be erased, but in the form of a yearly festival entertainment activities remain, and gradually transformed into a fixed yearly folklore activities.
Ming and Qing dynasties, according to the field silkworms are mainly popular in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, other regions also, such as Daoguang Hunan "Yongzhou Prefecture", Guangxu "Jingzhou Prefecture" are "according to the field silkworms" records. "Field silkworms" is also written "Tian Cai", or directly against pests, such as Hongzhi "Shanghai Zhi" said: "the townspeople Bing high torch, said to illuminate the hemp worm." In addition to the time to shine the silkworms on the 25th day of the waxing moon, there are also New Year's Day and on the first day of the New Year's Day. The activities of the silkworms were also expanded, in addition to the pole burning torches, but also enshrined Liu Mangzhong, Tianzu, silkworms, and even ask the sorcerer to sing songs of praise to the gods.
? Chinese New Year Custom No. 4: Cutting New Year's meat?
Cutting New Year's meat is one of the Han Chinese New Year customs. This day to kill the pig to cut the meat, began to buy new year's goods. It is believed that this day is a festival for all the children, who can finally eat the "New Year's meat".
On this day, every family prepares pork, beef and mutton for New Year's treats, and people cut the meat into large pieces and slowly stew it in large pots. In ancient times, there was no refrigerator, and the stewed meat could be kept until the 15th day of the first lunar month or so, which was a day of fragrant smells in every house.
In the past, the average citizen was poorer and had more people in their families, so they often ate a lot of food, and the ones who were a little better could only eat a little bit of wild food. It is not easy to look forward to the New Year, the family laborers have begun to kill the pig, no pig family, go to the market to cut a piece of meat home, therefore, Lunar New Year's Eve stew meat is also known as "Lunar New Year's Eve, kill the pig cut the annual meat".
? Chinese New Year custom No. 5: put the noodle hair?
Lunar New Year's Eve is one of the traditional Chinese New Year customs. The Chinese folk songs of Lunar New Year 28 include "Lunar New Year 28, put the noodle hair", "Lunar New Year 28, hit the cake steamed buns sticking flowers". Chinese folk customs and traditions to the Lunar New Year on the twenty-eighth day of the Lunar New Year, whether it is to send the noodles or to do the bread, each family should start to prepare the staple food for the New Year. Because in the past, from the first day of the first month to the first fifteen days of the first month, the stores are not open for business, so we must prepare enough meals before.
Traditionally, on the twenty-eighth day, it is time to prepare pasta. In the past, low social development, there is no modern more convenient baking powder, ordinary noodles a few days in advance to do a good job easy to bad, only the hair of the noodles do not love bad, so twenty-eight this day on the hair of the noodles, ready to the first day of the first month of the first five staple food, at the same time, this is also because of the old custom of the first day of the first five can not be moved to the fire during the steaming of steamed buns for the sake of the cause.
? Spring Festival custom No. 6: steamed buns?
In China's Spring Festival folklore, on the twenty-ninth day of the Lunar New Year to steam steamed buns , who steamed steamed steamed buns, steamed good, in the new year, whose family will be prosperous, to get a good luck. People play to their imagination, the steamed buns into a birthday peach, small animals and other various shapes.
Lunar New Year's Eve buns must be steamed, which is the "face" of the family. In the past, well-prepared buns to be placed on the table, until the first day of the year when someone to pay homage to the buns, it will be on the buns "taste", therefore, Lunar New Year 29 buns must be done and good-looking and delicious, this is face, but also auspicious, more will be valued by the people.
? Chinese New Year customs of the seventh: paste the year red?
Twenty-nine or thirty days of the family "sticker red" (red is the Spring Festival couplets, door god, New Year's paintings, Fukuzi, crossword, window, etc. collectively, because these are the New Year's Eve sticker red festive elements, so collectively referred to as "red")
The Chinese New Year customs of the seventh: sticker red? (Nianhong) . The red is a traditional Chinese New Year's custom, which reflects the customs and beliefs of the people, adds a festive atmosphere, and sends people to the new year of the new life of the good hope.
Posting Spring Festival Couplets: According to the Jade Candle Treasure Tree, Yanjing Yearly Record and other literary works, the original form of Spring Festival Couplets is what people call "Peach Symbols". Another source of spring couplets is spring stickers, the ancients in the spring day more stickers "Yichun" two words, and then gradually developed into spring couplets. Spring Festival couplets, also known as the posting of door pairs, spring stickers, couplets, pairs, peach symbols, etc., which is a unique form of literature in China, with neat, couplets, concise, sophisticated text depicting the background of the times, expressing the best wishes. Every Spring Festival, whether in the city or in the countryside, every family has to choose a big red spring couplets to paste on the door, for the festival to increase the festive atmosphere.
Pasted New Year's paintings: the Spring Festival hanging pasted New Year's paintings in urban and rural areas is also very common, heavy ink and colorful New Year's paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. New Year's paintings are an ancient folk art of China, reflecting the people's simple customs and beliefs, and entrusting their hopes for the future. With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of New Year's paintings has not only been limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become colorful.
Window and "Fu" characters: In folklore, people also like to put all kinds of paper cuttings on the windows - window. Window flowers not only set a festive atmosphere, but also decorative, appreciative and practical in one. At the same time, some people want to stick large and small "Fu" characters on the door, wall and lintel of the house. Folk will also be "Fu" word fine as a variety of patterns, patterns of longevity, longevity peach, carp jump Dragon Gate, the five valleys, the dragon and phoenix, and so on.
? Chinese New Year customs of the eight: New Year's Eve dinner?
The end of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the New Year's Eve, also known as "New Year's Eve", and there is the custom of eating New Year's Eve dinner. New Year's Eve dinner dishes in addition to enjoying the "mouthful of good fortune", to discuss the "mouthful of color" is particularly important. That is, Ningbo people like to put the hope of the coming year in the dishes. Such as "chicken" and "Ji" homophonic, said auspicious; "eel" means "full of jar jar, Beng Beng full", "full of food". The meaning of food and clothing; Ningbo merchants seem to be "red paste choking crab" love, red paste choking crab means "business is red-hot, across the world, the eight sides of the wealth"; lotus root section means "high, high, road passes The Lotus Root Section is a symbol of "high and smooth road". In Ningbo people's New Year's Eve dinner, the whole fish is an essential dish, and then gradually turned into smoked fish, meaning "good luck"; "caper spring rolls" in the past queue supply, "caper" and "gather wealth". and "gather wealth" sound close, "eat a spring roll to welcome spring to" is to welcome the arrival of spring. Soybean sprouts shaped like a wishful thinking, known as "Ruyi vegetable", meaning "life as a wishful thinking", "everything is as good as it can be"; gold cake as "gold brick "; leeks take" leek "" long "harmony; sausage, harmony" incense, long ",
Eat New Year's Eve dinner to the whole family on the table, can not be left behind which person, meaning that the reunion of the family, the family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family, the whole family. Can not be left behind which person, means the reunion. If a family member can not make it to New Year's Eve or do not go home for New Year's Eve, the table should be prepared for him bowls and chopsticks, wine cups, and pour full of wine, full of rice, as a person Qi Qi, the family reunion. On this day, the sons and daughters who are out of town have to come back home for the reunion. In the past, after the New Year's Eve dinner, children carrying lanterns, to the ancestral temple to watch the opera. 1983 after the general in the home to watch CCTV "Spring Festival Gala" program.
? The Chinese New Year is a time of great joy for the people of China.
Bai Da Nian is one of the oldest traditional customs of Chinese folklore, and it is the activity of exchanging feelings between relatives during the Spring Festival, and it is a way for people to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, and to express their good wishes to each other. The first day of the New Year is the first day of the New Year to visit friends and relatives to pay tribute to each other. The origin of the custom of paying homage to the New Year: In ancient times, the original meaning of the word "pay homage" was to greet the elders for the New Year, including kowtowing to the elders, congratulating them on the New Year as they wish, and greeting them for a good life. When there are friends and relatives of the same generation, they should also bow to congratulate them. On the first day of the New Year, people get up early, put on new clothes, go out to visit friends and relatives, pay respects to each other, wishing good luck for the coming year. Worship a variety of ways, some of the patriarch led a number of people to go door to door to pay tribute to the New Year; some colleagues invited a few people to pay tribute to the New Year; there is also a get together to congratulate each other, known as the "reunion worship".
To the Song Dynasty, friends and relatives will send each other posters to congratulate, which is the early New Year's card. In the Ming Dynasty, the design of the New Year's card is more perfect, exquisite, the post is not only printed with the sender's name, address, but also written on the "Happy New Year", blessings. With the development of the times, the custom of paying New Year's greetings has been adding new contents and forms. Now people in addition to the inheritance of the previous way to pay tribute to the New Year, and the rise of ritual SMS to pay tribute to the New Year and telephone to pay tribute to the New Year and so on.
? Chinese New Year custom of ten: open the door to set off firecrackers?
Chinese folk "open door firecrackers" said. That is, the arrival of the new year, the first thing that families open the door is to set off firecrackers, to beeping firecrackers to get rid of the old and welcome the new. Firecrackers is a Chinese specialty, also known as "firecrackers", "cannonballs", "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, so far has a history of more than two thousand years. Firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, is a kind of festival entertainment, can bring people joy and good luck.
Talking about the origin of firecrackers, it is necessary to mention the animal called "mountain bashfulness". When people were sleeping in the wild in the deep forest, they had to set up bonfires, and in order to prevent the invasion of the mountain bashfulness, they lit bamboos in the bonfires, and scared away the mountain bashfulness with the cracking sound of the bamboos. Later, the emergence of gunpowder, so that people began to saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal filled with bamboo tubes to burn, so the "firecrackers" came into being. Since the Song Dynasty, people have been using paper tubes and hemp stems wrapped in gunpowder to make strings instead of bamboo tubes, which became "firecrackers".
The morning of the Spring Festival, open the door, the first firecrackers, called "open the door cannonball". After the sound of firecrackers, broken red all over the ground, brilliant as a cloud of brocade, known as the "full red". At this time, the street is full of gas, joyful.
? Chinese New Year custom of eleven: pick up the God of Fortune?
Picking up the God of Fortune is an ancient traditional Chinese New Year custom. Because Chinese folklore says that the fifth day of the first month of the lunar calendar is the birthday of the God of Wealth, the next most important activity after the first day of the lunar calendar is to receive the God of Wealth, and on the night before the God of Wealth's birthday, each family organizes a banquet for the God of Wealth to celebrate his birthday. The custom of "receiving the God of Fortune" varies a lot across China, with some places receiving the God of Fortune on the first day of the first month and others on the fourth and fifth days of the first month.
Since ancient times, Chinese people have believed in many gods of wealth, including the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth," and the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth," the "God of Wealth" of the Chinese people, There are also the "Five Gods of Wealth", "Quasi-God of Wealth" and "Partial God of Wealth". On the fourth day of the first month of the lunar calendar (there is also the fifth day of the first month of the lunar calendar) to receive the origin of the God of Wealth, the God of Wealth or the God of Wealth of the Five Roads: Legend has it that there are five brothers, the first word of the seal is "obvious", so it is called "the God of Wealth of the Five Appearances". In his lifetime, he robbed the rich to help the poor, and after his death, he still punished the evil and promoted the good, blessing the poor people. There is a temple to the God of Wealth outside the Andingmen Gate in Beijing.
The custom of "receiving the God of Fortune" has many differences in different parts of China. Some places receive the God of Fortune on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, and some places receive it on the fourth and fifth days of the first month of the lunar calendar. In the Qing Dynasty, Suzhou, Shanghai and other places, early in the morning on the fifth, people will beat the gongs and drums burning firecrackers, sacrifices to prepare to meet the God of Fortune, the folk believe that who first received the God of Fortune, who will get more benefits, and then meet the God of God are scrambling to be the first, lest they receive the late, causing the God of Fortune is not happy, and thus derive from the "grab the head of the road," the custom.
? The Chinese New Year custom of twelve: worship Zigu?
On the eleventh day of the first month, the sacrifice to the Purple Nun is one of the old traditional Chinese Spring Festival customs.
The Purple Nun, the name of a legendary goddess. In the southwestern part of China, especially in the western part of Hunan Province, folklore says that it is the god of toilet, also known as Zigu, toilet, Maogu, Pit Aunt, Pit Three Girls, etc. The world says that it can foretell the future. The world said it can foretell, more welcome to worship in the home, divining things. The earliest record of the "purple nun" literature is the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Jingshu's "different court". Roughly speaking, Zigu was a concubine of someone who was envied by her original wife and was killed in the toilet on the 15th day of the first lunar month, and the Emperor of Heaven took pity on her and appointed her as the god of toilet.
But the folk worship the Purple Nun not because she is the god of toilet, but the Purple Nun represents the women who are y oppressed in the feudal society, and that's why she is worshipped by women, and worshipped as the protection god of the weak women.
? Chinese New Year Customs No. 13: Lantern Festival?
The 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar is the traditional Lantern Festival, also known as the Lantern Festival. "The old Beijingers preferred to call the "Lantern Festival" the "Lantern Festival". Why is this? It turns out that in ancient times, this "Lantern Festival" and "New Year's Eve", people attach the most importance to it, always make it a lively and bustling, the most typical is "haunted flower fair", also known as the "walk". The most typical is the "flower party", also called the "walking party".
The Lantern Festival is also known as the Festival of Lights, Lantern Lantern custom from the Han Dynasty, to the Tang Dynasty, the more prosperous activities to enjoy the lights, the palace, hanging lights everywhere on the street, but also to establish a tall lamp wheel, lamps, lamps, and lamps, the Tang Dynasty, the great poet Lu Zhaolian was in the "fifteenth night to watch the lights" in this way, describing the Lantern Festival Lantern Festival, "the Han suspected that the stars fall, according to the building seems to be hanging moon.
The Song Dynasty attached more importance to the Lantern Festival, more lively lantern-appreciation activities, lantern-appreciation activities to be carried out for five days, the style of the lamp is also more abundant. Ming Dynasty to 10 days of continuous lantern viewing, which is China's longest lantern festival. Qing Dynasty lantern appreciation activities, although only 3 days, but the lantern appreciation activities on a large scale, unprecedented, in addition to burning lights, but also fireworks to help.
The Lantern Festival period and festival activities, is with the development of history and extend, expand. In terms of the length of the festival, the Han Dynasty only one day, to the Tang Dynasty has been three days, the Song Dynasty is up to five days, the Ming Dynasty is from the eighth light, until the night of the seventeenth day of the first month of the light, the whole ten days. With the Spring Festival, the daytime for the city, bustling, night lights, spectacular. Especially the delicate, colorful lights, making it the climax of the entertainment activities during the Spring Festival, but also the last custom of the Spring Festival.
The customs and activities of the Spring Festival vary from north to south, but one thing is basically the same, that is, the family reunion, visiting friends and relatives, visiting elders, etc. May we keep these customs, which are full of affection and good wishes, in our hearts and pass them on from generation to generation.