Information about traditional customs and culture of the New Year.

Sweep the dust-the folk proverb says: on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, sweep the house dust ". The north is called cleaning the house and the south is called dust removal. Indoor and outdoor, behind the house, thoroughly clean up, clothes and appliances, wash a new look, and greet the Spring Festival cleanly.

Door painting-According to Shan Hai Jing, when Li Shimin was ill, he often heard amityville horror's voice in his dream, so that he couldn't sleep at night. At this time, two generals, Qin and Weichi Gong, volunteered to stand on both sides of the door. As a result, the palace is safe. Li Shimin felt sorry that the two generals were too hard, so he ordered the painter to paint their mighty images on the door, which is the so-called "keeper". According to Cai Yong's Random Thoughts in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were statues of Shen Tu and Lei Yu stuck on the door in the Han Dynasty, which evolved into woodcut New Year pictures in the Song Dynasty. Later, people rushed to follow suit, and after several evolutions, they formed their own unique style, that is, the current New Year pictures. The earliest existing New Year picture in China is the Song version of Meitu of the Sui Dynasty.

Spring Festival couplets evolved from "peach stalks" in the Warring States period more than two thousand years ago. According to Huainanzi, peach characters (peach stalks) are carved from peach wood. It is engraved with a spell that destroys happiness, and it changes every year. Meng Changjun, the Emperor of Shu after the Five Dynasties, had a whim during the Spring Festival and asked people to slice peach trees. He wrote a couplet on it: "Welcome to Qing Yu in the New Year and celebrate the festival in Changchun". This is the earliest Spring Festival couplets in China. As for the official birth of the name Spring Festival couplets, it was in the Ming Dynasty. After Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, made Jinling his capital, he made an imperial edict on New Year's Eve: "When the official family visits the New Year, they must write a Spring Festival couplets." Since then, Spring Festival couplets have become popular, and every household should post Spring Festival couplets during the New Year.

Fireworks-The custom of setting off firecrackers in the Spring Festival began in the Han Dynasty. According to "The Story of Meng Jing Times" written by Nan Liang Zonggu, "On the first day of the first month ... the rooster crowed, and people set off firecrackers in front of the court to drive away evil spirits from Shan Yao." In ancient times, firecrackers were set off by burning bamboo in a fire. Because the air in bamboo is heated and expanded, it makes a "crackling" sound to ward off evil spirits, hoping for good luck and happiness in the coming year. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, firecrackers made of gunpowder came into being.

New Year's greetings-According to the Miscellaneous Notes of Lu Rongyuan in Ming Dynasty, the custom of New Year's greetings was first implemented in Kyoto in Ming Dynasty. When dealing with officials, whether you know them or not, you should worship each other, while the people worship their relatives and friends. In the Qing Dynasty, it was popular to send "worship boxes" during the Spring Festival, that is, to send New Year cards to relatives and friends in exquisite and beautiful decorative boxes to show solemnity. In today's China, "Happy New Year" has become a traditional custom. Dear friends and colleagues visit and greet each other.

In ancient times, it was popular for literati to pay New Year greetings to each other. The New Year drill is today's New Year card, which evolved from ancient business cards. According to Zhao Yi's research in the Qing Dynasty, there was no paper in the Western Han Dynasty, so bamboo was cut into thorns, and the book was named "Ming Thorn". Later, people embroidered the words "business card" on the brocade with red wool. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, wood was replaced by paper, which was called "famous paper". In the Six Dynasties, it was called "Ming" for short, and in the Tang Dynasty it was called "door-shaped". Song dynasty was also called "hand stab" and "door stab". It was called "Inch Chu" and "Red Sheet" in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Spring Festival is an ancient festival in China, and it is also the most important festival in a year. How to celebrate this festival has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits in thousands of years of historical development, and many of them have been passed down to this day.

sweep the dust

"On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lv Chunqiu, China had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the Yao and Shun era. According to the folk saying: Because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not being new", and its original intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. This custom has placed people's desire to break the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean the environment, clean all kinds of electrical appliances, remove and wash bedding curtains, sweep six yards, dust cobwebs and dredge culverts in open channels. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.

paste up Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and delicate words, which are unique literary forms in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph Poetry of Spring Festival couplets discusses the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works.

There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door heart, frame pair, cross string, spring strip and bucket square according to the place of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "door frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is posted on the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also known as "door leaf", is a square diamond, often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Stick the window grilles and the word "fu" upside down.

In the folk, people also like to stick various paper-cuts on the windows-window grilles. Window grilles not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in China, which has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is often pasted on the window, it is also called "window grilles". With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window grilles show auspicious things and good wishes incisively and vividly, and decorate festivals with colorful colors.

While putting up Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. The word "Fu" symbolizes good luck and wishes for a happy life and a bright future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply put the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "Fu has arrived" and "Fu has arrived". Others elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp yue longmen, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on.

New Year picture

Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods". With the rise of block printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. Some New Year pictures workshops have produced classic color New Year pictures, such as Fu Lushou's Samsung, God bless the people, abundant crops, prosperous livestock and welcoming the New Year, to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the New Year. There are three important producing areas of Chinese New Year pictures: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; Three schools of New Year pictures have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

The earliest existing collection of New Year pictures in China is the woodcut New Year pictures of the Southern Song Dynasty, which depict four ancient beauties: Wang Zhaojun, Zhao, Ban Ji and Lvzhu. The most popular folk painting is the Year of Marrying the Rat. It depicts an interesting scene in which a mouse marries a bride according to human custom. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng of Shanghai combined the monthly calendar with the New Year pictures. This is a new form of New Year pictures. This new year's picture, which was combined into one, later developed into a calendar and has been popular all over the country.

stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve

Keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve is one of the most important activities, and the custom of keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record can be found in the Local Records of the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties give gifts to each other, which is called "the year of giving back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "not old"; Young and old get together to drink and wish a complete song called "age division"; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for dawn. This is the so-called "shou sui".

On New Year's Eve, the whole family get together, eat New Year's Eve, light candles or oil lamps, sit around the stove and chat, wait for the time to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year, and keep vigil all night, which symbolizes driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and expecting good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, wrote a poem "Shou Sui": "Cold words and winter snow, warm with spring breeze". To this day, people are used to celebrating the New Year's Eve.

In ancient times, observing the age has two meanings: the old man's observing the age means "resigning from the old", which means cherishing time; Young people keep their age in order to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the time for the alternation of the old and new years is generally at midnight.

firecracker

There is a folk saying in China that "open the door and set off firecrackers". That is, when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Firecracker is a specialty of China, also known as "Firecracker", "Firecracker" and "Firecracker". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. With the passage of time, firecrackers are more and more widely used, and there are more and more varieties and colors. Every major festival and happy celebration, as well as marriage, building, opening, etc. We should set off firecrackers to celebrate and make good luck. At present, Liuyang, Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao, Yichun and Pingxiang, Jiangxi, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other regions are famous fireworks towns in China. The firecrackers produced have many colors and high quality, which are not only sold well all over the country, but also exported to all parts of the world.

Pay new year's call

On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same patriarch from door to door. Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings; Others get together to congratulate each other. This is called "group worship". Because it takes time and effort to pay New Year greetings at home, some elites and scholars later congratulated each other with stickers, thus developing the later "New Year cards".

When paying New Year greetings during the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders and wish them health and longevity. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can kill evil spirits, because "old" and "special" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to put colored rope in the shape of Jackie Chan at the foot of the bed, which was recorded in Yanjing year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. Lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly put under the child's pillow by parents when the child falls asleep on New Year's Eve. It is still very popular for elders to give lucky money to younger generations.

Eating custom in Spring Festival

In ancient agricultural society, housewives began to prepare food for the New Year from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Because curing bacon takes a long time, it must be prepared as soon as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of curing bacon, among which Guangdong is the most famous.

Steamed rice cake, because of its homophonic "high year" and diverse tastes, has almost become a must-have food for every household. The styles of rice cakes are square yellow and white rice cakes, which symbolize gold and silver and express the meaning of making a fortune in the New Year.

The taste of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers like to eat jujube rice cakes, 100-fruit rice cakes and white rice cakes made of glutinous rice or yellow rice. Hebei people like to add jujube, red beans and mung beans to rice cakes and steam them together. In northern Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places, it is customary to eat yellow wheat fried rice cakes during the New Year, and some people will also stuff them with bean paste and jujube paste, while Shandong people steam rice cakes with yellow rice and red dates. The rice cakes in the north are mainly sweet, steamed or fried, and some people simply eat them with sugar. There are sweet and salty rice cakes in the south, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of japonica rice and have a light taste. In addition to steaming and frying, you can also slice and fry or cook soup. Sweet rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, rose, osmanthus, mint, vegetable paste and other ingredients. They are fine in workmanship and can be steamed directly or fried with egg white.

The night before the real Chinese New Year is called Reunion Night. A wanderer who has left his hometown has to go home from thousands of miles away. During the Spring Festival, the whole family will sit around and wrap jiaozi. Jiaozi's practice is to use flour to make dumpling wrappers first, and then use leather bags to fill them. The contents of stuffing are varied, and all kinds of meat, eggs, seafood and seasonal vegetables can be stuffed. The orthodox practice in jiaozi is to cook it with clear water, remove it and mix it with vinegar, minced garlic and vegetables. There are also methods of frying jiaozi and baking jiaozi (fried dumpling). Because the word "he" in dough mixing means "he"; Jiaozi's "jiao" and "glue" are homophonic, and "harmony" and "glue" have the meaning of reunion, so jiaozi is used to symbolize the reunion of acacia; It is very auspicious to make friends with older people; In addition, jiaozi, which is shaped like an ingot, has the auspicious meaning of "making a fortune" when eating jiaozi in the New Year. All the families get together to pack jiaozi, so it's fun to celebrate the Spring Festival.

What year? Year is the image of drooping ears of grain and a symbol of bumper harvest. The so-called "bumper harvest year".

What year? Nian is a monster. It stays in the deep sea all year round and only climbs ashore on New Year's Eve. Tay

When you go ashore, wherever you go, there will be floods. Later, people put red paper on their doorsteps and gathered in the yard to burn firewood.

Fire, cutting vegetables and meat with a kitchen knife, making a thunderous sound. Scared nian back and fled back to the sea. So there is an exception.

Put up couplets at night, hang lanterns, wear new clothes, chop jiaozi and wrap jiaozi, and burn firewood at night-

This is this year.

So how did the ancients celebrate the New Year? Let's listen to this "festival song" first—

23 days of furnace sacrifice,

Twenty-four couplets,

25 make tofu,

Twenty-six years of cutting meat,

…………

The second day kowtows,

Play ball in grade three and grade four,

Jumping monkeys on the fifth and sixth days,

…………

"New Year, busy for half a year." The ancients were busy with "Nian" from the twelfth lunar month until Yuan Xiao passed. This year,

It's over. Then we can trace back to the "year step" of the ancients, and come to worship the stove first-

Kitchen God is the most exposed of all the gods worshipped on New Year's Day.

The custom of offering sacrifices to stoves has a long history, which is the gratitude of ancestors to fire and stoves.

A sign of respect. In legend, the Yellow Emperor, Yan Di and Zhu Rong.

They are all kitchen gods. The popular kitchen god's surname is Guo and Long.

Act like a beautiful woman. He has a wife named "Qing Ji" and six children.

A daughter named "Chen Wenjing" and some soldiers. Except him.

In addition to being responsible for fire fighting, we should also examine what the world has done and resort to the court.

Tiandi people also use distiller's grains, maltose, sticky cakes and other "bribes" stoves.

At the same time, God murmured prayers and begged him to speak well in heaven. This wind

The custom has been passed down to this day, but the time is the 24th of the twelfth lunar month.

Sacrificial food has also been simplified to "stove candy stove cake", but if you pay attention.

If you do, you will definitely hear grandma and mom say to the kitchen god: go!

Speak well, not ill. ...

Besides firecrackers, the spring breeze also brings warmth to Tu Su.

Thousands of families always trade new peaches for old ones.

-Wang Anshi

Firecrackers were originally a tool of witchcraft, used to drive away monsters. The original firecrackers are not like now.

Firecrackers are real bamboo, that is, they burn bamboo, making a crackling sound and scaring ghosts. Tu Su is a Tu Su wine, which means.

Kill something congenial and awaken people's souls. It is said that drinking this wine in the morning of January can keep you from getting sick for a year, and then drink it during the Chinese New Year.

These wines are collectively called "Tu Su wines".

Fu Tao, also known as "pottery board", is the predecessor of Spring Festival couplets. The ancients thought that mahogany was the essence of five trees and could make hundreds of ghosts, so it was from

Since the Han dynasty, peach has been used as a tool to win, and peach wood has been used as a peach man, peach seal, peach board and peach symbol to ward off evil spirits. Fu Tao

It is said that the emergence of Spring Festival couplets is due to Meng Chang, the master of Shu after the Five Dynasties. Paper Spring Festival couplets were only popular in Ming and Qing Dynasties. today's

Spring Festival couplets are to highlight the atmosphere of the New Year and wish good luck. They have lost the driving role of the old Spring Festival couplets and are rich in content.

Rich and diverse.

I wrote couplets, and then it's time to prepare Chinese New Year's dishes for the Chinese New Year holiday.

There are many kinds of food, such as rice cakes, New Year's Eve dinners and jiaozi. in addition

There are also diets with strong witchcraft flavor, such as peach soup, cypress wine, pepper wine, and five.

Pan Xintao soup is a soup made of peaches, and white wine is a kind of cypress leaves.

Made of wine, pepper wine is made of pepper seeds, and the ancients were on the first day of the first month.

Drinking means exorcising evil spirits and praying. Five coriander is five spices, such as onion and ginger.

Spicy food is put on a plate, also called spring plate. It is said that evil can be eliminated and plague can be eliminated.

Passing through the five internal organs also means wishing the new.

The cold light in the hotel stayed alone and didn't sleep, and the guest turned sad.

My hometown is thinking thousands of miles tonight, and it is another year of the Ming Dynasty.

New Year's Eve is a night of reunion, and China people can't untie a knot of reunion. Even if people are far away, it will be on New Year's Eve.

Go home for New Year's Eve. The home on New Year's Eve is a particularly warm and sweet space, which is very important in history.

Even the prisoners in the prison were released and reunited at home. The whole family sat around the table and started the "reunion dinner" and "Shounian"

Process. The first is the "reunion dinner", and then the whole family will sit together and watch the New Year.

At this time, the younger generation saluted their parents and resigned.

Old people must share the lucky money. Lucky money is also called "old thing"

Money, lucky money and lucky money were originally used to

Many people are tired of exorcising evil spirits and helping their children celebrate the New Year.

Show affection and love.

After the reunion dinner, we will also eat "midnight snack", which will be eaten by the whole family.

Snacks, or laughing, or raining, waiting for a good day.

Ming, this is Shousui. In addition, there is a mirror to listen to on New Year's Eve.

According to the custom of raising silkworms, selling dementia and making ash piles, this is how it came about.

One year divination is good or bad, and the new year is a blessing for children.

Smart, everything is as you wish.

"In the rural New Year, from the twelfth lunar month to the first half of the first month, the sound of gongs and drums for a whole month and a half is monotonous.

But it touched the hearts of every one of us in China. Just then, ... I found that the winter jasmine was in bloom. "

Yes, the winter jasmine is in bloom, and the new year has come!

The ancients compared the first eight days of the new rectification with six kinds of animals, people and valleys respectively. The first day of the first month is the Year of the Rooster, which is an auspicious day.

The ancients used chickens to ward off evil spirits by killing chickens or sticking them on doors. People have been busy since New Year's Day.

Happy new year. In the Han Dynasty, it was popular to pay New Year greetings. On the first day of the first month, the ministers went to the palace to worship, and the monarch and the minister enjoyed each other. reach

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the official New Year greeting developed into an empty etiquette, which was often "sighing at the door", whether you know it or not.

There are poems as evidence:

I don't want to meet, but I want to talk about it. The famous papers are all us.

I also throw some paper at people. The world is too simple and empty.

In folk beliefs, the first day to the fourth day is the carnival day of the New Year, and it is not until the fifth day that normal life is resumed.

Live. The fifth day is also called "breaking the fifth day", and the custom activity on this day is "sending the poor". For merchants, the fifth day is a business day.

Family opening. The first month's activities did not gradually calm down until 15. ...