What are the traditional Hakka Spring Festival customs?

Hakka traditional Spring Festival custom not only inherits the tradition of China traditional festival culture, but also embodies the characteristics of local traditional culture. Hakka people celebrate the Spring Festival in three stages. The first stage is1February 24th to New Year's Eve. The first day of the first month to the fifth day of the first month is the New Year; Lunar New Year's Day to Lantern Festival is the afterglow stage. 1February 23rd. After dinner on the 23rd, the kitchen stove should be cleaned, and the old kitchen stove should be removed and burned. On the morning of 30th, you should post a new photo. When you get a free one, you should put wine, meat, candy, sugar cane, rice fruit and so on. Burn incense, light candles and set off paper cannons in front of the stove.

Click to view

Entering the New Year's Eve and the 25th of the twelfth lunar month, people who go out should hurry home for the New Year. After entering the fixed number of years, we should educate our children not to scold each other and not to say unlucky things. Before and after entering the new year, we should choose an auspicious day to clean the dust and clean the house. We should clean the tables and benches in the kitchen, clean the bedding and mosquito nets, and celebrate the New Year cleanly.

Click to view

Send Kitchen God to buy back the statue of Kitchen God from the town in advance, write down the kitchen space (write down the names and ages of family members), prepare offerings such as gold ingots, incense sticks, three sacrifices, wine and vegetarian fruits, set up an "Eight Immortals Table" next to the kitchen, and put the offerings on the table. The whole family, old and young, gathered in front of the statue of Kitchen God to salute, sincerely sent Kitchen God back to heaven to report his work, and prayed that Kitchen God would put in a good word in front of the Jade Emperor, so as to bless and eliminate disasters, prosper in the coming year and keep the family safe.

Click to view

After breakfast on the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, anyone who added men in those days would send someone to the ancestral temple to clean and paint the walls of the ancestral temple. In the afternoon, people went to the ancestral temple with gifts such as gift boxes, three sacrifices, firecrackers and gold ingots. After the salute, firecrackers and some spears were set off. Every New Year's Eve afternoon, the ancestral hall is filled with incense and firecrackers continue until dusk. This custom has gradually disappeared in recent years.

Click to view

Put up Spring Festival couplets and New Year pictures, hang lanterns on the gates and small doors, put red Spring Festival couplets on the lintels, and put the words "profit" or "happiness" and "luck" on the door panels. Kitchen, cowshed, pigsty, henhouse, toilet, etc. It should also be affixed with a "peach symbol" on red paper, and the words "Prosperous fortune, prosperous Ding" and "prosperous six animals" are written on the red paper. New Year pictures are posted in the hall, bedroom and guest room, and red lanterns are hung on the door, symbolizing a prosperous year and a happy scene.

Click to view

Have a reunion dinner at the end of the year and clean the stove to prevent vegetarianism on the first day of the first month or all day. At night, we should keep the old year, say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. Every room should be brightly lit all night. This is called "lighting the old fire". In some places, cowshed and pigsty should also be illuminated. Parents should give their children lucky money, and some places give old people lucky money. about

Click to view

On the morning of the first day of the first lunar month, people are vegetarian. After dinner, people greet each other with auspicious words. On the second day of the first month, visiting relatives and friends to pay New Year's greetings, especially the newly-married son-in-law (the Yue family will post a book invitation) will go to her parents' home to pay New Year's greetings. When you go, you should take a little hen, rice fruit, candy, incense sticks and firecrackers, and then burn incense, light candles and set off firecrackers in front of the ancestors of the Yue family. At noon, the Yues treat, and the son-in-law should be drunk, not drunk or enthusiastic.