Folk customs of the Spring Festival

The Spring Festival, also known as Yuanri, New Year's Day, the Reform Movement of 1898, Chen Yuan, Yuanshuo, Nian Egg, Sui Nian, Nianchao, Xinzheng, Shouzuo, Sanyuan or Nian and New Year, is the first day of the summer calendar. Due to the different calendars, the first day of the first month of each generation is different: the first day of the first month of Xia Dynasty, the first day of December of Shang Dynasty, the first day of November of Zhou Dynasty, the first day of October of Qin Dynasty and the first day of the first month of Han Dynasty, which have continued to this day.

"Spring Festival" has different meanings from generation to generation. The Han Dynasty refers to the day of beginning of spring, the Southern and Northern Dynasties refers to the whole spring, and only modern times refers to the first day of the first month. It is a traditional festival with the longest history, the richest activities, the grandest etiquette, the most spectacular scenes and the most exquisite food in China. Among the 56 ethnic groups in China, 53 ethnic groups (except Tibetans, Bai people and Dai people) have to hold a grand family banquet or ethnic banquet to celebrate, so it is also called "Daqing Banquet on January 1st".

The Origin of the Spring Festival

According to historical records, the Spring Festival was celebrated in Tang Yu, Sui in Xia Dynasty, Si in Shang Dynasty and Nian in Zhou Dynasty. The original meaning of "nian" refers to the growth cycle of grain, which is hot every year, so the Spring Festival is once a year, which means cool breeze. It is also said that the Spring Festival originated in "La Worship" at the end of primitive society. At that time, whenever the twelfth lunar month in spring came to an end, the ancestors slaughtered pigs and sheep, sacrificed ghosts and gods and ancestors, and prayed for good weather in the new year to avoid disasters. Their faces were painted with vermilion and bird feathers, and they sang, danced, ate and drank, which was very lively. about

Mutual New Year greetings began in the early Han Dynasty and were recorded in Tongdian.

Dietary Customs of Spring Festival in Past Dynasties

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, ancestor worship was an important activity and custom during the Spring Festival. According to Cui Ti's Four-person Monthly Order, "the first day of the first month is the day. ※. Bow to your wife and worship your ancestors. On the day of worship, when drinking wine, the family members are humble, regardless of size, ranking second in the ancestors. Children and daughters-in-law all serve Chili wine to their parents, saying that they are beaming. "

During the Southern Dynasties, families visited each other during the Spring Festival and held banquets and entertainment activities. According to the Chronicle of Jingchu written by Zong Ba of Liang Chao, "On the first day of the first month, ... young people and old people learned to dress up and pay tribute to them. ※. Pepper and cypress wine, peach soup Into the Tu Su wine, rubber teeth, and five spicy dishes. " There are also games such as drawing chickens, burning firecrackers, hanging ropes and making wishes.

During the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the etiquette elements in the Spring Festival diet custom gradually increased. According to the Southern Song Dynasty-Shou's Liang Lumeng, "Doctors everywhere congratulate each other, fine men and women wear new clothes and pay New Year greetings to each other", and Brahma Lu Conglu records that "men and women take turns to pay homage to their elders, and the master leads their children out to visit relatives and friends, or stops sending their children to pay New Year greetings"; Qingbo Magazine said: "During the reign of Song Yuanyou, servants were often used to stab people in their name during the New Year". When relatives and friends pay New Year's greetings, the host family must hold a banquet, and the wine and meat are extremely rich. According to the "Jia Tai Hui Ji" records: "On New Year's Day, both men and women are happy, and it is a grand thing for lay people to set up wine and fruit drinks, and men and women worship in order. In order to congratulate their loved ones, they buy wine and food and take a vacation every five days. " In the Qing Dynasty, Ji Sheng said at the age of Emperor Jing: "The house of the gentry, add clothes, wear them, worship the gods and ancestors;" After burning silks, the family got together, offered pepper plates, poured cypress wine, helped steam cakes and sipped noodle soup. It was delicious. Go out to greet the relatives, go to the medicine temple, visit the cinema and celebrate Cambodia's birthday. Lu Yu's relatives and friends, then fell to, and wish "New Year's Day is the Spring of New Year", even if you don't kiss, you will have three glasses of wine. If you are forgetful, why don't you get drunk! As the saying goes, it is better to go to a thousand than to sit in one. And the horses and chariots are noisy, and chasing the sun is a very temporary victory. "

Dietary customs around the Spring Festival

Generally speaking, Chinese people eat rice cakes, jiaozi, Ciba, glutinous rice balls, poached eggs, big meat, whole fish, wine, oranges, apples, peanuts, melon seeds, sweets, fragrant tea and dishes. Accompanied by dusting, washing bedding, preparing new year's goods, pasting Spring Festival couplets, pasting New Year pictures, pasting paper-cuts, pasting blessings, lighting candles, lighting fires, setting off firecrackers, keeping old, giving lucky money, paying New Year greetings, visiting relatives and friends,

Many activities, such as visiting ancestral graves, visiting flower markets and raising social fires, are extremely enjoyable. For example, the New Year's Eve is particularly important: first, the whole family should get together, and those who have not returned for some reason should leave a seat and a set of tableware to show their reunion; Second, the food is rich, pay attention to "oral color", call the rice cake "step by step", jiaozi "Wanshun", wine "running water", eggs "big gold ingot" and goldfish "more than a year"; This kind of fish is not allowed to eat. It is called "Kanyu" and must be eaten until the first day of school. In areas where there are no fish in the north, carved wooden fish are mostly used instead; Third, the seats are orderly, mostly for ancestors. Grandchildren are in the middle, and their parents are in a lower position. Men, women and children should drink. Close the door when eating, and the excitement will be gone.

The home-cooked dishes of New Year's Eve have their own characteristics in different places. In the past, in Beijing and Tianjin, people usually cooked rice, stewed pork, beef and mutton, stewed chicken and cooked several dishes. Shaanxi family banquets are generally four or eight bowls. Four bowls are stir-fried dishes and cold dishes, and eight bowls are mainly stewed dishes and cooked food. Only meat dishes in southern Anhui include braised pork, tiger skin, meatballs, moo Shu pork, steamed pork, braised pork, pork liver, pork heart and pork belly products, as well as all kinds of fried pork slices and shredded pork. Eastern Hubei is "three steamed", "three cakes" and "three pills". "Three steaming" means steaming whole fish, whole duck and whole chicken; The "three cakes" are fish cakes, meat pies and sheep cakes;

"Three pills" are fish pills, meatballs and lotus root pills. Generally, people in Harbin fry eight dishes, 10 or 12 or 16. The main ingredients are nothing more than chicken, duck, fish and vegetables. The New Year's Eve dinner in Gannan is usually 12 dish. Some places in Zhejiang are generally the "top ten bowls", seeking the color of "complete happiness", mainly chicken, duck, fish and various vegetables. Nanchang, Jiangxi generally has more than a dozen dishes, paying attention to four cold dishes, four hot dishes, eight big dishes and two soups.

All over the country, there are one or several indispensable dishes on New Year's Eve, and these dishes often have some auspicious meanings. For example, in Suzhou, there must be vegetables (then happy dishes), bean sprouts (Italian food) and celery (hard-working) on the table. There must be a carp weighing about 1 kg in central and southern Hunan, called "Tuannian Fish", and a pig elbow weighing about 3 kg, called "Tuannian Elbow". There are two fish on the dining table in central and southern Anhui. One is the whole carp, which can only be seen but not eaten. It shows respect for ancestors, and it also means more than one year. The other is silver carp, which is edible and symbolizes the prosperity of children and grandchildren. The first bowl of Lai in Qimen family banquet is "Zhonghe", which is made of tofu, mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, shrimp skin and fresh meat, meaning "harmony is precious".

There is a bowl of "chicken catches beans" on the dining table in Hefei, which means "grab money and get rich". The housekeeper wants to eat a chicken leg, which is called "grasping the money claw", which means making a fortune in the coming year. Anqing's head should eat a bowl of noodles before meals, which is called "money standard" Nanchang area must eat rice cakes, braised fish, fried rice noodles, eight-treasure rice and boiled thick soup, which in turn means annual rise, fish every year, abundant crops, string rice, eight-treasure rice and prosperity every year.

Northern areas like to eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival, which means unity, good luck and welcoming the New Year. In order to increase the atmosphere and fun of the festival, people in the past dynasties have put a lot of effort into dumpling stuffing. People keep their wallets in jiaozi. Whoever eats them will make a fortune next year. Wrap honey in jiaozi, and whoever eats it will represent the sweetness of life in the coming year and so on.

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The Spring Festival, as its name implies, is the Spring Festival. Spring has come, Vientiane is renewed, and a new round of sowing and harvesting season is about to begin again. People have enough reasons to welcome this festival by singing and dancing. So, before the festival, a New Year message with red paper and yellow characters was posted on the frontispiece. When Miss Chun comes to the door, she will read a sentence to express her best wishes for the New Year. With this idea, good luck really came. The same moral things are hanging red lanterns, sticking the word "Fu" and sticking the statue of the God of Wealth. The word "Fu" must be posted backwards, and passers-by will say "Fu has fallen", which means "Fu has arrived".

Another name for the Spring Festival is China New Year. What is "year"? It is a fictional animal, which will bring bad luck to people. "Year" came, the trees withered and the grass stopped growing; A year later, everything grew and flowers were everywhere. How to spend the year? Firecrackers are needed, so there is a custom of setting off firecrackers. 1993, the Beijing Municipal People's Government promulgated a law prohibiting the setting off of fireworks and firecrackers, making this centuries-old custom a thing of the past.

The Spring Festival is a family reunion festival, which is very similar to Christmas in the West. Children who leave home will have to travel thousands of miles back to their parents' home at this time. The night before the real Chinese New Year is called Reunion Night, and the whole family will sit around and wrap up jiaozi. Jiaozi's practice is to mix dough first, and the word "harmony" means "combination"; Jiaozi in jiaozi is homophonic with "dumpling", and "harmony" and "dumpling" have the meaning of reunion, so jiaozi is used to symbolize reunion.

The festive atmosphere will last for a month. There are ceremonies such as offering sacrifices to stoves and ancestors before the first day of the first month; In festivals, there are ceremonies to give lucky money to children and to pay New Year greetings to relatives and friends. Half a month after the festival is the Lantern Festival. At that time, lanterns were all over the city and tourists were all over the streets. After the Lantern Festival, the Spring Festival is over.

Spring Festival: Modern folk custom calls Spring Festival China New Year. In fact, the origin of Chinese New Year and Spring Festival is very different.

So how did the year come from? There are two main folk sayings:

One way of saying this is:

According to legend, there was a monster named Nian in ancient China, with long tentacles and a ferocious face. Nian lived on the seabed for many years, and climbed ashore every New Year's Eve, devouring livestock and killing people.

Therefore, every New Year's Eve, people in the village fled to the deep mountains to avoid the harm of the "Nian" beast.

On New Year's Eve this year, people in Taohua Village were taking refuge in the mountains when an old beggar came from outside the village. He was leaning on crutches, carrying a bag on his arm, with elegant silver whiskers and staring at Matthew.

Some villagers sealed windows and locked doors, some packed their bags, some herded cattle and drove sheep, and people shouted hisses everywhere, which was a scene of panic. At this time, who still has the mind to take care of this begging old man?

Only an old woman in the east of the village gave the old man some food and suggested that he go up the mountain quickly to avoid Nian beast. The old man smiled and said, "If my mother-in-law lets me stay at home for one night, I will definitely drive Nian beast away.

The old woman looked at him carefully in surprise and found that he was handsome, energetic and different. But she continued to persuade and begged the old man to laugh without saying a word. My mother-in-law had no choice but to leave home and take refuge in the mountains.

At midnight, Nian beast broke into the village. It found that the atmosphere in the village was different from previous years: the old woman's house at the east end of the village had red paper on the door and a fire lit in the house. The beast Nian trembled and let out a long whistle.

Nian stared at her mother-in-law's house for a while, then screamed and rushed over. As we approached the door, there was a sudden explosion in the yard, and Nian trembled and dared not go any further. It turns out that Nian was most afraid of red, fire and explosion. At this time, my mother-in-law's door was wide open, and I saw an old man in a red robe laughing in the hospital. "Nian" was frightened to disgrace and fled in confusion.

The next day was the first day of the first month, and the people who came back from refuge were very surprised to see that the village was safe and sound. At this time, the old woman suddenly realized and quickly told the villagers the promise of begging for the elderly.

The villagers flocked to the old woman's house together, only to find red paper on her mother-in-law's door, a pile of unburned bamboo still exploding in the yard, and several red candles still glowing in the house. ...

In order to celebrate the arrival of Youxiang, ecstatic villagers put on new clothes and hats one after another and went to their relatives and friends' homes to congratulate and say hello. The story soon spread in the surrounding villages, and people all knew the way to drive away the "Nian" beast.

Since then, every year on New Year's Eve, every family has posted red couplets and set off firecrackers. Every household has a bright candlelight, so it is better to wait for the New Year. In the early morning of the first day, I want to say hello to my relatives and friends.

This custom has spread more and more widely, and has become the most solemn traditional festival among the people in China.

Another way of saying it is:

In ancient China calligraphy, the word "Nian" was placed in the Grain Department, indicating that the weather was favorable and the crops were plentiful. Because cereal crops are usually harvested once a year. "Year" is extended to the name of the year.

Although there was a custom of Spring Festival in ancient China, it was not called Spring Festival at that time. Because the Spring Festival referred to at that time refers to the "beginning of spring" among the 24 solar terms.

The Northern and Southern Dynasties generally referred to the Spring Festival as the whole spring. It is said that the Lunar New Year was officially named Spring Festival after the Revolution of 1911. Because the solar calendar was used at that time, the first day of the first lunar month had to be renamed as "Spring Festival" in order to distinguish between farmers and farmers.

Lantern Festival: It is a big festival among the traditional festivals in China, which is quite prominent. Lantern Festival is named because its festival activities are held on the fifteenth night of the first month of each year.

Lantern Festival is also called "Lantern Festival" and "Lantern Festival", because the main activity of this festival is to light lights at night, hence the name. In addition, the Lantern Festival is also called "Shangyuan" and "Shangyuan Festival", which is borrowed from Taoism.

There are different opinions about the formation of the Lantern Festival custom, but it was roughly formed in the Han Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty offered sacrifices to a god named Taiyi. It is said that Taiyi was a very prominent god at that time, ranking above the five emperors and owing to the Han emperor, so he was greatly worshipped. According to legend, another Emperor Wendi of the Han Dynasty was also related to the Lantern Festival.

Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty was a general, Zhou Bo. He succeeded to the throne and quelled the "Zhu Lu rebellion". The day when the rebellion was quelled was the fifteenth day of the first month. Therefore, every night on the fifteenth day of the first month, Emperor Wen of Han would go out to play in the palace and have fun with the people. This day was designated as the Lantern Festival. But there is no record of lighting or setting fire on the fifteenth night of the first month, which is related to these two Han emperors. Another Han Emperor, Emperor Hanming, ordered the Lantern Festival to be lit, thus forming the custom of lighting and watching lanterns in later generations.

Taboos for Spring Festival (for reference only, not superstition)

China people have many taboos in some places in the past and now during the Spring Festival, mainly for peace, and everything will go well in the coming year. The first day to the tenth day taboo is:

The first day: rooster day. In the old days, chickens were posted to ward off evil spirits and pray for blessings (chicken homophonic auspicious).

The next day: dog day, go out to pay New Year greetings or worship ancestors.

The third day: sheep day, easy to quarrel, not suitable for Chinese New Year.

The fourth day: pig day, offering sacrifices to the god of wealth.

The fifth day: ox day, "breaking the fifth day", can break many taboos: "sending garbage from the first day to the fourth day of poverty" and avoid dumping money. The garbage from the fifth day is regarded as barren soil, and if dumped, it will be sent out to the poor.

The sixth day: Horse Day, the day to send the gods, burned the paper horse of the God of Wealth sent on New Year's Eve, and the shop began to resume business.

The seventh day: People's Day, people's birthday, is also the custom of having dinner, eating and drinking, and setting off fireworks, which is the birthday of fire.

The eighth day: Valley Day, when the stars are in the lower bound, the temple often sets up an altar to worship the sky.

The ninth day: the birthday of God, the birthday of the Jade Emperor, and the ceremony of offering sacrifices to heaven.

Day 10: On the birthday of the stone, all stone tools such as grinding, chiseling and grinding should be avoided, so that the stone will not move or even burn incense to worship the stone tools.