Off-year, that is, the 23rd or 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, is a festival to worship the Kitchen God. It is the beginning and foreshadowing of the whole Spring Festival celebration, with two main activities: sweeping the New Year and offering sacrifices to stoves.
In addition, the characteristics and customs of off-year include: eating stove candy, making rice cakes, eating rice dumplings, cutting window grilles, taking lotus root clips, bathing and having a haircut, and in some places, eating fire, eating sugar cakes, oil cakes and drinking tofu soup. I think there are five customs worth mentioning in the off-year period. Let's take a look with me:
? One of the characteristics of off-year customs: making rice cakes?
On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people commonly call it "off-year", and people in Wuxuan, Guiping and other places in Guangxi have the custom of making rice cakes. Rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour as the main ingredient, peanuts, sesame seeds and sugar as the ingredients, put into a mold and made into a round shape, and then steamed at high temperature, which has a unique flavor and a meaning of "round and round".
Rice cakes were born in Hakka settlements in Lingnan, and they have been developed in Guangdong and Guangxi, and there is a tradition of making rice cakes in many places in Guangdong and Guangxi. Legend has it that the practice of rice cakes originated in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, many ordinary people were poor and could not afford to buy chicken, duck and fish during the Chinese New Year, so they made rice cakes instead of glutinous rice and sucrose, which were abundant locally. The mold for making rice cakes is called "cake printing" locally. There are many kinds of cake prints, such as blessed, lucky, longevity, happy and so on, as well as flowers, birds, insects and fish, which make this folk snack show the festive mood and interest everywhere. ?
Lingnan in ancient times, especially in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. The migration time route of Hakkas entering Wuxuan was probably in Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, and Wuxuan Sanli was mostly Hakkas, so can we boldly infer that rice cakes were a traditional delicacy brought by the migration of Hakkas in Qing Dynasty? People have improved the technology and materials of making cakes, and gradually formed the tradition of making rice cakes by every household. Beating rice cakes is a job that the whole family can participate in. Adults and children are mobilized by the whole family, and men, women and children are surrounded together, which is fun and full of flavor!
? The second characteristic custom of off-year: the custom of offering sacrifices to stoves?
On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, people pay homage to the kitchen god. This day is what people call a small year. As the name implies, it is the day when the Chinese New Year officially begins.
In ancient times, an old couple had only one son. They regarded their son as the apple of their eye and loved him very much. However, due to poverty at home, there was no way to get around the lake, so I had to reluctantly let my son go to the coal mine to dig coal.
The old man misses his son for a long time. This day, the old woman told the old man to visit the coal mine. On the way, the old man met a barefoot fellow traveler, and the two became more and more familiar and got along very well. During the chat, the old man learned that barefoot film was instructed by Yan Wang to come to the mine to recover 1 miners. The old man was in a hurry and begged barefoot to keep his son. Barefoot agreed generously and told him not to tell anyone. When he saw his son, the old man pretended to be ill, and his son served around and was unable to go down the well. Soon, there was an accident in the coal mine, and the old man quickly took his son home.
Three years have passed in an instant. On the 22nd night of the twelfth lunar month, the old man remembered the risks of that year and couldn't help telling his wife. Who knows, this statement was listened to by Kitchen Jun. On the 23rd night, Kitchen Jun went to heaven and told the Jade Emperor about it. The Jade Emperor became angry from embarrassment, immediately punished the barefoot piece and took away the old man's son.
For this reason, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people respect Zao Jun to eat candy, hoping that he will stop gossiping about human affairs when he arrives in the Heavenly Palace. As time goes by, people sacrifice stoves on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. As a result, the Han people had the ritual stoves on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month to celebrate the "off-year" custom and pray for peace and fortune in the coming year.
? The third feature of off-year customs: eating "Nianzong"?
People in Nanning once had the custom of eating "Nian Zongzi" in their early years. Nian Zongzi is a symbol of good luck in the New Year. As the saying goes, "Nian Zongzi is the year of high school (Zongzi)". Nian Zongzi is different from Liang Zongzi in Dragon Boat Festival. It has stuffing, and its appearance is large and small, long and short, round and flat. After peeling off the leaves, the skin is glutinous rice, and the stuffing is mung bean and pork. Some people put their favorite food as stuffing.
eat zongzi? Festival customs of Zhuang, Han and Yi nationalities. Popular in western Guangxi. It is a hard job to make dumplings for the New Year. Usually we don't eat zongzi on New Year's Eve, but worship our ancestors and gods. The rice cake also takes its homonym "high every year". This moral is the same as eating candied melons in the north. I hope that the kitchen god can say good things in heaven on this day and bring auspicious things and rich financial resources in the coming year.
? The fourth characteristic custom of off-year: the custom of sweeping dust?
Dust removal on the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month: on this day, every household will clean the house, clean the clothes, clean the corner of the roof, and clean the dirt on tables, chairs and tables, which is called "dust removal". Dust removal is one of the new customs of getting rid of old cloth in the off-year period.
It is said that there is a three-corpse god attached to everyone. He often reports to the Jade Emperor and speaks ill of the world. In a very short time, the Jade Emperor received many secret reports from him, saying that the world would rebel against heaven. The jade emperor was furious when he saw it, and immediately summoned the three corpse gods, and ordered him to write their crimes on the walls of people who spoke ill of the jade emperor, and then let the spiders make a big net and hang it under the eaves. The Jade Emperor also ordered Wang Lingguan to go to the lower bound on New Year's Eve, and anyone who saw the family marked by the Three Corpses God would be beheaded.
Seeing that the plot was about to succeed and he could monopolize the beautiful world, the Three Corpse Gods quickly descended to earth and marked the walls of every family. The kitchen god discovered the plot of the three corpse gods, and hurried to find the kitchen gods of various families to discuss countermeasures: from the day when the kitchen was delivered, every family was cleaned up before New Year's Eve. When Wang Lingguan visited the lower boundary on New Year's Eve, he found that every household was clean without any marks, and the people were quiet and hardworking.
The Jade Emperor learned from Wang Lingguan and Zao Jun that the Three Corpses God had wronged a good man, and was furious, so he put the Three Corpses God in prison forever. Since then, the kind-hearted kitchen god has been embraced by everyone. Every year, on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the kitchen is sacrificed, and the twenty-four days of sweeping dust have also become a "small year", praying for peace and fortune in the coming year.
? The fifth characteristic custom of off-year: bathing and getting a haircut?
In the tradition of childhood, adults and children should take a bath and have their hair cut. There is a folk saying that "people who have money but have no money shave their heads for the New Year".
as for the origin, it is also related to the kitchen god. Kitchen God, who reports to the Jade Emperor about his life, is about to leave. If you want to please this "life committee member", you must pay attention to personal hygiene and keep yourself clean.
after the "off-year", adults and children should take a bath and have their hair cut, which includes a health-preserving coup-taking a hot bath. When the water temperature is slightly higher than the body temperature, it can dilate skin blood vessels, promote blood circulation and enhance metabolism.
Off-year is usually regarded as the beginning of a busy year, which means that people should start preparing new year's goods, indicating that the New Year should have a new atmosphere, and expressing a good wish of the working people in China to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year.