The custom of Hakka people celebrating the Spring Festival in Meizhou

Enter the New Year, celebrate the New Year, take a bath with grapefruit leaves, observe the old age, respect ancestors, open the door, pay a New Year call, visit relatives, have a New Year's Eve dinner and leave the New Year.

On December 25th of the lunar calendar, Hakka people in Meizhou step up their preparations for the New Year, and everyone who is away from home has to rush home for the New Year. After entering the new year, we should educate our children not to swear or say unlucky things. Before and after entering the new year, we should choose an auspicious day to clean the dust and clean the house. To clean tables and chairs, wash bedding, wash mosquito nets, clean the New Year. At this time, some service industries began to charge.

New Year's Eve, that is, New Year's Eve, is the warmest and happiest day of Chinese New Year. On this morning, every family should worship bodhisattva and god. On New Year's Eve, portraits of ancestors should be hung in each hall, and red Spring Festival couplets should be posted at the gate. Red notes should be posted on barn doors, in front of livestock fences, on furniture beds and beside water tanks, which are called "sealing the year" or "becoming popular".

Adults and children should take a bath, put on new clothes and celebrate the New Year cleanly. Each hall will also be decorated with tables, incense tables, chickens, fish, meat, fruits and so on. To worship their ancestors. On New Year's Eve, we have a family reunion dinner with rich dishes. Put more bowls and chopsticks on the table to invite our ancestors back for the New Year. Before meals, sift the wine for your ancestors, sprinkle it on the ground, and then start eating. During the dinner, the old people and children eat chicken legs to show respect for the old people and young people.

Picking pomelo leaves in the morning, after noon, every household puts pomelo leaves in a pot to cook, and everyone should take a hot bath with pomelo leaves, which means washing away filth, "poverty" and "decay" and entering the new year cleanly. After washing pomelo leaves, put on new clothes, hats, socks and shoes, and look brand-new from head to toe. Wash dirty clothes on the same day. Therefore, washing pomelo leaves and taking a bath contains the meaning of old cloth and new one. This custom is getting weaker every year.