What's so particular about the fifteenth day of the first month?

Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in China, so it is celebrated all over the country. The customs in most areas are similar, but each area still has its own characteristics.

eat yuanxiao

Eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month, as a kind of food, has a long history in China. In the Song Dynasty, a novel Lantern Festival food was popular among the people. This kind of food was originally called "Floating Zi Yuan", later called "Yuanxiao", and merchants also called it "Yuanbao". Yuanxiao, or "Tangyuan", contains sugar, roses, sesame seeds, red bean paste, cinnamon bark, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste and so on. And wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a circle, you can be vegetarian and have different flavors. It can be boiled, fried and steamed, which means happy reunion. Jiaozi, Shaanxi is not wrapped, but "rolled" in glutinous rice flour, or boiled or fried, warm and round.

Look at the lights.

During the Yong Ping period of Han Dynasty (AD 58-75), when Ming Chengzu advocated Buddhism, it happened that Cai Cheng returned from India to seek Buddhism, saying that it was the fifteenth day of the first month of Mohato, India, and the monks gathered to pay tribute to the relics, which was an auspicious day to participate in Buddhism. In order to promote Buddhism, Emperor Hanming ordered "burning lamps to show Buddha" in palaces and temples on the fifteenth night of the first month. Since then, the custom of putting lights on the Lantern Festival has spread from being held only in the court to the people. That is, on the fifteenth day of the first month, both the gentry and the people hang up lights, and the urban and rural areas are brightly lit all night.

The custom of setting off lanterns during the Lantern Festival developed into an unprecedented lantern market in the Tang Dynasty. Chang 'an, the capital at that time, was already the largest city with a population of one million in the world, and its society was rich. Under the personal initiative of the emperor, the Lantern Festival became more and more luxurious. After the middle Tang Dynasty, it has developed into a national carnival. In the prosperous period of the Tang Xuanzong Kaiyuan (685-762 AD), the lantern market in Chang 'an was very large, with 50,000 lanterns and all kinds of lanterns. The emperor ordered 20 giant lantern buildings with a height of 150 feet, resplendent and magnificent.

The Lantern Festival in Song Dynasty is superior to that in Tang Dynasty in scale and dreamy lighting, with more folk activities and stronger national characteristics. Since then, the Lantern Festival has continued to develop and the time of the Lantern Festival has become longer and longer. The Lantern Festival in Tang Dynasty is "the day before and after Shangyuan". In the Song Dynasty, two days were added after the 16th, and in the Ming Dynasty, it was extended from the 8th to 18th to ten days.

In the Qing Dynasty, Manchu entered the Central Plains, and the court no longer held lantern festivals, but the folk lantern festivals were still spectacular. The date was shortened to five days and continues to this day.

In Taiwan Province Province, lanterns have the meaning of light and elegance, and lighting them means lighting up the future. The homonym of Taiwan Province Lantern and En stands for having a boy. So in the past, women would deliberately wander under lanterns, hoping to "drill under lanterns to lay eggs" (that is, swim under lanterns to give birth to boys).

Qixi Festival

Lantern Festival is also a romantic festival. In the feudal traditional society, Lantern Festival also provides unmarried men and women with opportunities to get to know each other. In traditional society, young girls are not allowed to go out freely, but they can go out to play together on holidays. Lantern Festival lanterns are just an opportunity to make friends, and unmarried men and women can also find their own partners by the way. During the Lantern Festival, it is also the time for young men and women to meet their lovers.

In Taiwan Province Province, there is also a traditional custom that unmarried women who steal onions or vegetables at midnight will marry a good husband, commonly known as "stealing onions and marrying a good wife" and "stealing vegetables and marrying a good husband". I hope that a girl with a happy marriage will steal onions or vegetables in the garden at midnight snack, hoping to have a happy family in the future. There are hundreds of dances and performances in the Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty, and there are thousands of maids.

Ouyang Xiu (health inspector) said: Last year's Lantern Festival, the flower market was lit like a book; The moon rose to the willow tree, and he met me at dusk. Xin Qiji (jade case) wrote: Many people looked for it and suddenly looked back, and that person was in the dim light. It is a scene describing midnight snack, while the traditional opera Chen San and Wu Niang met at the Lantern Festival and fell in love at first sight. In the second episode of "Nightingale", Lechang official and Xu Deyan made love at the Lantern Festival, and in "Spring Lantern Enigma", they made love with ying niang at the Lantern Festival. So the Lantern Festival is also China's "Valentine's Day".

Walking sickness

Besides celebrating the Lantern Festival, there are also religious activities. That is to say, most of the participants in "taking all kinds of diseases", also known as "baking all kinds of diseases" and "spreading all kinds of diseases" are women. They walk together or against the wall, or cross the bridge through the suburbs, with the aim of driving away diseases and eliminating disasters.

As time goes by, there are more and more activities for the Lantern Festival. In many places, activities such as playing dragon lanterns, playing lions, walking on stilts, rowing dry boats, dancing yangko and playing Taiping drums were also added during the festival.

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lantern Festival, some little-known folk activities have been lost. Here are two or three.

In ancient times, there were "seven sacrifices" at the sacrificial gate and the sacrificial households, which were two of them. The method of sacrifice is very simple. Put poplar branches above the door, put a pair of chopsticks in a bowl filled with bean porridge, or put wine and meat directly in front of the door.

Mouse chase

This activity is mainly aimed at sericulture families. Because mice often eat silkworms in large areas at night, it is said that they can stop eating silkworms by feeding them rice porridge on the fifteenth day of the first month. As a result, these people cooked a large pot of sticky porridge on the fifteenth day of the first month, and some even covered it with a layer of meat. They put porridge in a bowl and put it on the ceiling, corner and mouth where mice haunt, cursing that mice will not die a natural death if they eat silkworm babies again.

Yingzigu

Zi Gu is a kind and poor girl in folklore. On the fifteenth day of the first month, Zi Gu died of poverty. People sympathize with her and miss her. In some places, it is convenient to have the custom of "welcoming the daughter-in-law on the fifteenth day of the first month". Every night, people tie a life-size portrait of purple aunt with straw and cloth heads. Women have stood beside the toilet, pigsty and kitchen where Zigu often works to meet her, holding her hand like sisters, telling her sweet words and comforting her with tears. This scene is very vivid and truly reflects the thoughts and feelings of the working people who are kind, honest and sympathetic to the weak.

Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in China, which began in the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Lantern Festival viewing began in the period of Emperor Han Ming in the East. Ming Di advocates Buddhism. He heard that on the fifteenth day of the first month, monks watched the Buddhist relics and lit lanterns to worship the Buddha, so that all the gentry and ordinary people hung lanterns. Later, this Buddhist ceremonial festival gradually formed a grand folk festival. This festival has experienced the development process from the court to the people, and from the Central Plains to the whole country.

Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty ordered the 15th day of the first month to be designated as the Lantern Festival. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the sacrificial activities of "Taiyi God" were scheduled for the 15th day of the first month. Taiyi: the God who rules the universe. When Sima Qian created the taichu calendar Law, he had already identified the Lantern Festival as a major festival.

Another way of saying it is that the custom of burning lanterns in Lantern Festival originated from the "ternary theory" of Taoism; The fifteenth day of the first month is Shangyuan Festival, the fifteenth day of July is Zhongyuan Festival, and the fifteenth day of October is Xiayuan Festival. The officials in charge of the upper, middle and lower elements are heaven, earth and man respectively. The celestial officials are happy and the Lantern Festival should be lit.

The festivals and customs of Lantern Festival have been extended and expanded with the development of history. As far as the length of festivals is concerned, there is only one day in Han Dynasty, three days in Tang Dynasty and five days in Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, lights were lit from the eighth day of August until the seventeenth night of the first month, a total of ten days. Connected with the Spring Festival, it is a city during the day, full of excitement, and brightly lit at night, which is spectacular. Especially the exquisite and colorful lights make it the climax of entertainment activities during the Spring Festival. In the Qing Dynasty, there were more "hundred operas" such as dragon dancing, lion dancing, dry boating, walking on stilts and yangko dancing, but the festival period was shortened to four to five days.