Stories of major festivals

Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, also known as Xinzheng, Ruiri, Chenyuan and Yuanri, is one of the three major festivals in China (the other two are Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival).

According to Liang Lumeng, in the Song Dynasty, during the Spring Festival, "philosophers congratulated each other, and men and women all over the country wore new clothes and paid New Year greetings to each other. In the neighborhood, food, messengers, combs, scarves, satin horses, flowers, toys and other things are sung along the door. No matter how rich or poor, they all play in the Kremlin and Fanyu, and every family has a banquet and laughter. " It can be seen that the celebration of the ancient Spring Festival is not far from today.

During the Spring Festival, every household sticks Spring Festival couplets, lights candles at the shrine, and provides rice cakes, fruits, starters, noodles, sweet tea and so on. More exquisite families will also hang eight immortals red and light sandalwood in the stove.

Early in the morning, all the people, old and young, put on new clothes, first incense the Buddha and ancestors, then the younger generation congratulated the elders, and the elders responded with "congratulations" and gave them red envelopes. Then, the family goes to relatives and friends' homes to pay New Year greetings or burn incense in temples. Someone has paid a New Year call. The host and guest congratulated each other and invited the guests to drink sweet tea and eat sweet materials. The guests returned with auspicious words.

Regarding the Spring Festival, there are the following taboos:

1, no swearing, no unlucky words;

2. Don't sweep the floor and throw away the garbage, so as not to sweep away wealth;

3. Don't quarrel, and don't beat and scold children;

4. Knives and scissors shall not be used, and equipment shall not be damaged;

5, do not eat porridge, in case it rains in the future;

6. Never ask for debts from others.

The fifteenth day of the first month is Lantern Festival.

Lantern Festival, also known as Shangyuan, Yuanxiao and Yuanxiao, is also called Lantern Festival. The activities on this night-watching lanterns, carrying lanterns and solving riddles on lanterns-are all related to "lanterns", so this day is also called Lantern Festival.

There is an interesting legend about the origin of the Lantern Festival: "Indian Buddhism was introduced to China during the reign of Emperor Hanming in the East. Then, on the fifteenth day of the full moon, people will vaguely see a group of immortals dancing in the moonlight. One day, a large piece of white snow suddenly floated in the sky, covering Fei Xian. People were so scared that they didn't see the immortal for a while and looked for it with torches. Since then, people have raised torches everywhere.

There is another saying about the origin of the Lantern Festival: after the winter vacation before the Spring Festival, schools in ancient private schools must not open until the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day of school, every student must bring a beautiful lantern to the private school and ask the teacher to light it sporadically. This lighting ceremony is called "lighting", which symbolizes the bright future of the lighted person. The custom of "lighting lamps" has been handed down and gradually evolved into the custom of carrying lanterns.

Tomb-Sweeping Day in early March.

Judging from last year's popular science day, 106 was Qingming. As far as the lunar calendar is concerned, the date is irregular, about the end of February and the beginning of March. As far as the solar calendar is concerned, it is either April 5 or April 6.

The most important activity in Tomb-Sweeping Day is grave-sweeping. The significance of sweeping the grave lies in carefully pursuing the distance, caring for family, drinking water and thinking about the source, and remembering the ancestors. According to the Book of Rites, "When the rain and dew are wet in spring, a gentleman will be anxious, as seen." The meaning of this passage is: "Spring comes to the earth, and the frost and snow disappear. In the morning, the earth is covered with lovely dew. When people step on dew, fear arises. They want their dead relatives to return to the world and get together. This passage can best explain why China people attach so much importance to grave sweeping.

Generally speaking, the process of sweeping graves is as follows:

Ten days before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, you can go to the grave. Grave-diggers will turn over the zodiac and choose an auspicious day. Usually there are the most people in Tomb-Sweeping Day, but this day is so crowded that some people don't choose this day.

Inform relatives of the date of grave-sweeping, and prepare offerings such as good wine, food, fruit, candles, silver paper, hoes, sickles, etc.

Before you reach your ancestors' graves, use hoes and sickles to remove weeds around the graves and clean them up. Hanging or pressing a rectangular piece of five-color paper on the graves of ancestors is called "hanging paper" or "pressing paper".

Set up the offerings, worship the earth (that is, the earth god) before and after the grave, then worship the ancestors, burn incense, drink three rounds, burn silver paper and set off firecrackers, and it's over.

Everyone eats an egg and scatters the eggshell on the ancestral grave. It is said that this will bring good luck. As soon as firecrackers are set off, children living nearby will come uninvited and beg for the tomb fruit, which is called "tomb fruit" If the score is not enough, they must pay, otherwise the unwilling urchin will roast the cow on the tombstone, or even deliberately put it on the grave to damage it. Now, they are rich and have hardly seen the "fruit of the grave".

On the seventh day of July

Qixi refers to the night of the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. It is said that on this night, Weaver Girl and Cowherd will meet at Magpie Bridge, so it is also called Valentine's Day, which is the most romantic festival.

The legend about Weaver Girl and Cowherd originated from Nineteen Ancient Poems in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The poem reads: "A distant Altair, a beautiful girl by the Jiao Jiao River, is a delicate hand, and she is rocking the loom. It's not a chapter all day, tears are like rain, and rivers are shallow. What is the difference? Between water and water, there is no language. "

Cowherd star refers to cowherd; Hehan girl refers to Weaver Girl. From this poem, we can know that the earliest two stars, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, were neither bridging the bridge by magpies nor meeting in the Tianhe River, but weeping across the river and heartbroken.

In the Jin Dynasty, great changes have taken place in the legendary stories. According to the story of Jingchu era, there is a weaver girl in the east of Tianhe. She is the daughter of the Emperor of Heaven. She has been trying to knit a brocade dress all year round. God pitied her loneliness and married her to the cowherd on the west side of Tianhe. Unexpectedly, the weaver girl was busy with love after marriage, and the Emperor was furious.

The above legend is quite different from the statement in Nineteen Ancient Poems. The content of the story encourages people to work hard and not neglect their duties because they are greedy for their children's affair.

At present, the following version of the story of Weaver Girl and Cowherd is circulating.

In ancient times, the seventh daughter of the Jade Emperor in heaven was called Weaver Girl. She is not only beautiful, but also skilled. She works hard in the brocade factory every day. In addition, there is a cowherd named Cowherd, handsome and upright, diligent in farming. After they got married, their love was abnormal, and they soon gave up their jobs because of two relationships. When the Jade Emperor learned about it, he was very worried and ordered the magpies to tell them only once a week.

The jade emperor was very angry when he learned that, so he drew a galaxy boundary in the sky with a hair pin, separated them, and stipulated to meet once a year on Tanabata. In addition, in order to punish magpies for dereliction of duty, he ordered magpies to gather the same kind on Tanabata, and set up a magpie bridge on the Milky Way so that Weaver Girl and Cowherd could meet across the bridge.

Tanabata is also called Jojo Festival or Daughter's Day. In ancient times, girls in boudoir regarded it as a festival to pray for superb art and beauty. That night, they prepared needle and thread, flowers, melons and fruits, powder and so on. Sacrifice to Weaver Girl and Cowherd, pierce pinholes with colored thread in the moonlight and beg for wisdom. If they penetrate this hole, they think it is clever and their needlework skills will be greatly improved in the future. Besides, they will scatter powder into the sky. If powder falls.

Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th.

Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the three major festivals in China (the other two are Spring Festival and Dragon Boat Festival), and it is also a festival to celebrate family reunion.

It is said that the Mid-Autumn Festival originated in the Spring and Autumn Period. The lunar calendar divides a year into four seasons and twelve months, with January, February and March as spring, April, May and June as summer, July, August and September as autumn, October, November and December as winter, and August 15th as mid-autumn day, so it is called Mid-Autumn Festival. The name "Mid-Autumn Festival" also comes from this.

There are many folk myths about the Mid-Autumn Festival, such as: the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, WU GANG chopped laurel trees, Jade Rabbit pounded elixir, and Tang Dynasty visited the Moon Palace. Among them, the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon is the most popular and widely circulated.

According to legend, more than 4,000 years ago, the sixth king of the Xia Dynasty, Hou Yi, was brave and diligent in archery. But he is greedy for pleasure, extravagant and extortionate, and the people live in poverty. One day, Hou Yi heard that the Queen Mother, who lived in seclusion in Kunlun Mountain, had an elixir for life, so he sent an old Taoist to ask for it. Soon, the old Taoist priest went to ask for it.

Hou Yi's wife Chang 'e is a beautiful and kind woman. She sympathized with the sufferings of the people and couldn't bear to be brutally ruled by her husband forever (if Hou Yi took the immortal medicine, the people would be squeezed by him forever), so she secretly took the immortal medicine. After eating, her body immediately floated up and floated all the way to the moon palace. After Houyi discovered it, he immediately shot an arrow.

On the Mid-Autumn Festival, every family eats moon cakes. Why do you eat moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival?

It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang rose up at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and rebelled against the tyranny of the Yuan Dynasty. Finally, the rebels surrounded Dadu (Beijing), but Yuan soldiers still stubbornly resisted and struggled with the trapped animals. Because of the long-term political failure, the strategist Liu Bowen came up with a plan. He ordered people to make many moon cakes and sent people to the city as moon cake vendors to distribute to the Han people in the city. There is a note hidden in the moon cake, which stipulates the collective uprising on August 15. The Mongols were wiped out in one fell swoop, and then in order to commemorate this day of overthrowing tyranny, moon cakes were eaten on August 15th every year. After a long time, eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival has become a habit.

In addition, in the Mid-Autumn Festival, both Anhui and Guizhou have the custom of "stealing melons for children". On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, women who have been married for a long time and are eager to have children will steal melons in the melon garden in the dark and put them at home after they succeed. It is said that they can get pregnant and have children.