What are the customs during the Spring Festival?

Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. For thousands of years, the Chinese nation has formed many customs to celebrate the Spring Festival. These customs have been accompanied by China people year after year, many of which have died out and many new customs have been born. In this evolution, the most traditional folk culture of Spring Festival in China has been formed.

In the traditional sense, the Spring Festival refers to the period from La Worship on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month (commonly known as Laba Festival) or the stove on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month (commonly known as Kitchen God Festival) to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month as the climax. During the Spring Festival, a traditional festival, the Han nationality and most ethnic minorities in China will hold various celebrations. Most of these activities are mainly about offering sacrifices to gods and buddhas, paying homage to ancestors, saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, and praying for the new. The activities are rich in forms and rich in ethnic customs.

King of the people. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, that is, the first day of the Spring Festival, the kitchen god will be sacrificed. According to legend, the kitchen god is the god in charge of human harvest. The main reason to worship him is to pray for a bumper harvest and a better life. In addition, we must also fight hoarding on this day. It is to draw one or several circles on the ground (usually where food is stored) with flour, just like hoarding. Hoarding is the main tool for storing grain in rural areas. The main reason for this custom is that people prayed to the gods to protect crops when productivity was underdeveloped in the past. The main purpose of hoarding goods is to pray for a bumper harvest of crops and fill up all the hoarding goods at home.

Sweep the dust "On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lv Chunqiu, China had the custom of sweeping the dust during the Spring Festival in ancient Yao and Shun times. The folk saying goes like this: Because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not getting new", and its original intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. This custom has placed people's desire to break the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, every household should clean the house, clean all kinds of utensils, tear down and wash bedding curtains, dust off cobwebs and dredge culverts in open channels. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.

Post Spring Festival couplets. Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and delicate words, which are unique literary forms in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of bright red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph Poetry of Spring Festival couplets discusses the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works. There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door heart, frame pair, cross string, spring strip and bucket square according to the place of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "door frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is posted on the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also known as "door leaf", is a square diamond, often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Turn the word "fu" upside down While putting up Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. The word "Fu" symbolizes good luck and wishes for a happy life and a bright future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply put the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "Fu has arrived" and "Fu has arrived". Others elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp yue longmen, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on.

Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods". With the rise of block printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. Some New Year pictures workshops have produced classic color New Year pictures, such as Fu Lushou's Samsung, God bless the people, abundant crops, prosperous livestock and welcoming the New Year, to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the New Year. There are three important producing areas of Chinese New Year pictures: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; Three schools of New Year pictures have been formed, each with its own characteristics.