An essay describing the culture, customs and history of the Spring Festival in China.

What year? Year is the image of drooping ears of grain and a symbol of bumper harvest. The so-called "bumper harvest year".

What year? Nian is a monster. It stays in the deep sea all year round and only climbs ashore on New Year's Eve. As soon as it landed, there were floods everywhere. Later, people put red paper on their doorsteps, lit firewood in the yard, and chopped vegetables and meat with kitchen knives, making a thunderous sound. Scared nian back and fled back to the sea. So on New Year's Eve, there are couplets, lanterns, new clothes, jiaozi and jiaozi, bonfires and firewood at night-this is the New Year.

So how did the ancients celebrate the New Year? Let's listen to this "festival song" first—

23 days of furnace sacrifice,

Twenty-four couplets,

25 make tofu,

Twenty-six years of cutting meat,

…………

The second day kowtows,

Play ball in grade three and grade four,

Jumping monkeys on the fifth and sixth days,

…………

"New Year, and busy for half a year". The ancients were busy celebrating the Year from the twelfth lunar month until Yuan Xiao passed, and the year passed. Then we can trace back to the "year step" of the ancients, and come to worship the stove first-

Kitchen God is the most exposed one among the gods who worship on New Year's Day. The custom of offering sacrifices to stoves has a long history, and it is an expression of ancestors' gratitude and reverence for fire and stoves. According to legend, Huangdi, Yan Di and Zhu Rong are all kitchen gods. The list of popular kitchen god Zhang looks like a beautiful woman. He has a wife named "Qing Ji", six daughters named "Chucky" and several soldiers. In addition to being in charge of fire, he should also examine the actions of the world and report to God. People also use distiller's grains, maltose and sticky cakes to "bribe" the kitchen god. At the same time, they murmured prayers and begged him to say yes in heaven. This custom has been passed down to this day, but the time is the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, and the sacrificial food is simplified as "stove candy stove cake". But if you pay attention, you will certainly hear grandma and mom saying to the kitchen god: Heaven is easy to talk about, don't speak ill of it. ...

Besides firecrackers, the spring breeze also brings warmth to Tu Su.

Thousands of families always trade new peaches for old ones.

-Wang Anshi

Firecrackers were originally a tool of witchcraft, used to drive away monsters. Unlike today's firecrackers, the original firecrackers are real bamboo, that is, burning bamboo, making a crackling sound and scaring ghosts. Tu Su is Tu Su wine, which means to kill something congenial and awaken people's souls. It is said that drinking this wine in the morning of January can keep you from getting sick for a year, and then the wine you drink during the Spring Festival will be collectively called "Tu Su wine".

Fu Tao, also known as "pottery board", is the predecessor of Spring Festival couplets. The ancients thought that peach wood was the essence of five trees, which could make a hundred ghosts. Therefore, since the Han Dynasty, peach wood has been used as a tool to ward off evil spirits, such as peach man, peach seal, peach board, peach symbol and so on. It is said that Fu Tao became the Spring Festival couplets because of Meng Chang, the master of Shu after the Five Dynasties. Paper Spring Festival couplets were only popular in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Today's Spring Festival couplets are intended to highlight the atmosphere of the New Year. Good luck. They have lost the driving role of the old Spring Festival couplets, which are rich in content and diverse in forms.

I wrote couplets, and then it's time to prepare food for the New Year. There are many foods in the New Year, such as rice cakes, New Year's Eve dinners and jiaozi. There are also diets with strong witchcraft flavor, such as peach soup, cypress wine, pepper wine, five coriander and so on. Peach soup is made of peaches, white wine is made of cypress leaves, and cellar wine is made of pepper seeds. The ancients drank it on the first day of the first month, meaning to ward off evil spirits and pray for blessings. Spiced board is made of five kinds of spicy food, such as onion and ginger, also called spring board. It is said that it can eliminate evil spirits, plague, and enlighten the five internal organs, and it also means to congratulate the new students.

The cold light in the hotel stayed alone and didn't sleep, and the guest turned sad.

My hometown is thinking thousands of miles tonight, and it is another year of the Ming Dynasty.

New Year's Eve is a night of reunion, and it is difficult for China people to have a happy knot. Even if people are in the end of the world, they should go home for New Year's Eve dinner and New Year's Eve dinner. The home on New Year's Eve is a particularly warm and sweet space. Historically, even prisoners in prisons have been released and reunited. The family sat around the table and began the process of "group year" and "keeping the age". The first is the "reunion dinner", and then the whole family will sit together and watch the New Year.

At this time, the younger generation saluted their parents and resigned, and the old people had to share the lucky money. Lucky money, also known as "lucky money", "lucky money" and "lucky money", was originally used to ward off evil spirits and help children celebrate the New Year, but later generations used it to express affection and love. After the reunion dinner, we will also eat "midnight snack", and the whole family will eat snacks together, or laugh and play, or talk about everything and wait for dawn. This is shou sui. In addition, on New Year's Eve, there are customs such as listening to a mirror, raising silkworms, selling dementia, making ash piles, etc., so as to predict the good or bad of the year and pray for children's wisdom and all the best in the new year.

"In the rural New Year, from the twelfth lunar month to the first half of the first month, the sound of gongs and drums lasted for one and a half months. The monotonous voice touched the hearts of every one of us in China. Just then, ... I found that the winter jasmine was in bloom. "

Yes, the winter jasmine is in bloom, and the new year has come!

The ancients compared the first eight days of the new rectification with six kinds of animals, people and valleys respectively. The first day of the first month is the Year of the Rooster, which is an auspicious day. The ancients used chickens to ward off evil spirits by killing chickens or sticking them on doors. People have been busy celebrating the New Year since New Year's Day. In the Han Dynasty, it was popular to pay New Year greetings. On the first day of the first month, the ministers went to the palace to worship, and the monarch and the minister enjoyed each other. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the official New Year greeting developed into an empty etiquette, which was often "stabbing at the door", whether you know it or not. There are poems as evidence:

I don't want to meet, but I want to talk about it. The famous papers are all us.

I also throw some paper at people. The world is too simple and empty.

In folk beliefs, the first day to the fourth day is the carnival day of the New Year, and it is not until the fifth day that normal life is resumed. The fifth day is also called "breaking the fifth day". The custom activity on this day is to "send the poor", but for businesses, businesses open their doors on the fifth day. The first month's activities did not gradually calm down until 15. ...