Customs of Chinese New Year and the origin of Chinese New Year! Short Description.

The first day of the Chinese lunar year is called the Spring Festival. It is the grandest traditional festival of the Chinese people, and also symbolizes unity, prosperity, and new hopes for the future. According to records, the Chinese people have been celebrating the Spring Festival for more than 4,000 years, and it was initiated by Yu Shun. On a day more than 2,000 years B.C., Shun became the son of heaven and led his men to worship heaven and earth. Since then, this day has been regarded as the first day of the year and is considered the first day of the first month. This is said to be the origin of the Lunar New Year, which was later called the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival used to be called New Year's Day. The month of January in which the Spring Festival falls is called New Year's Day.

There is another way to say it: commonly known as New Year's Day, is the folk year to celebrate the longest and grandest traditional program. Spring Festival, the ancient called "New Year's Day". "Er Ya" on the "year" note is "summer is said to age, the business is said to sacrifice, Zhou is said to year". Since the Yin Shang, the moon is once for January, the first day of the first month for the first day of the month, the fifteenth day of the month for the first day of the month. The beginning of each year from the first day of the first month of the night mark, called "new year's day" or "new year's month". By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, due to the experience of "observing the elephant and granting the time" was getting richer and richer, Sima Qian created the "Taichu Calendar" to determine the first month of the year as the head of the year, and the first day of the first month of the year as the new year. Since then, the custom of Lunar New Year has been passed down. At the time of the Xinhai Revolution, in order to "implement the summer calendar, so as to comply with the agricultural time, from the western calendar, so as to facilitate the statistics". Representatives of the provincial capitals held a meeting in Nanjing and decided to use the Gregorian calendar. Thus, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar was designated as "Spring Festival". To this day, people still use the customary name of Spring Festival.

According to legend, the Spring Festival was first named by Zuyi Tianzi. A long time ago, there was a young man called "Wan Nian" who made a living as a firewood collector. He saw that the festival was very chaotic at that time, so he decided to set the festival correctly. One day, he went to the mountain to cut firewood, and when he rested, he saw the shadow of the trees moving, and he was inspired by it, and when he came back home, he set up a "day meter" which was specially designed to measure the shadow of the sun and count the length of the day. However, it was impossible to measure on cloudy and rainy days. Later, he drank water by the mountain spring, and saw the spring water dripping rhythmically down from the cliff, which aroused his association, and made a five-layer funnel pot, and used the method of water leakage to time the time, and slowly found that every three hundred and sixty-five days, the length of the day time would be repeated once. The shortest day is at the winter solstice, thus making a grass calendar: "Sunrise and sunset are three hundred and six, and the cycle repeats from the beginning. The grass and trees wither and prosper in four seasons, and there are about twelve rounds in a year." Once, Zuyi Tianzi went to visit Wannian, coinciding with the repetition of the celestial phenomenon. Wannian said to the Son of Heaven, "The night of Zi Shi turns, the old year is over, and the time is again spring, so please set a festival for the Son of Heaven." Zu Yi Tian Zi immediately said, "Spring is the first of the year, let's call it Spring Festival."

However, the date of New Year's Day in China through the ages has not been consistent: the Xia Dynasty used the first month of Bengchun as the first month, the Shang Dynasty used the month of Lunar New Year (December) as the first month, the first Emperor of Qin united the six kingdoms to October as the first month, and in the early Han Dynasty the Qin calendar was used. Liu Che, Emperor Liu Wu, felt that the calendar was too chaotic, so he ordered his ministers Gongsun Qing and Sima Qian to create a "solar calendar", which stipulated that the first month of the lunar calendar would be the first day of the year and the first day of the first month of the lunar year would be the first day of the year, that is, New Year's Day. Since then, China has been using the summer calendar (the lunar calendar, also known as the Lunar Calendar) until the end of the Qing Dynasty, a period of 2,080 years.

When Dr. Sun Yat-sen assumed the office of provisional president of the Republic of China in Nanjing in 1912, he announced that China had switched to the world's common calendar, also known as the solar calendar and the new calendar. And he decided to take January 1, 1912 AD as January 1 of the first year of the Republic of China. January 1 was called New Year's Day, but not New Year's Day.

On September 27, 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) decided to adopt the world-universal A.D. calendar while establishing the People's Republic of China (PRC). In order to distinguish between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar two "years", but also because of the 24 solar terms of the year "spring" just before and after the lunar year, so the solar calendar January 1 called "New Year's Day", the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar was officially renamed "Spring Festival".

Earth around the sun, the calendar called a year, the cycle, never-ending. However, according to the different seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, people take the first day of the first month of the summer calendar as the first year of the year. After midnight (12 o'clock) on December 30 (29th day of the small month) of the lunar calendar every year, the Spring Festival is officially here.

As the Spring Festival approaches, people pick up new year's goods, and on New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers together for New Year's Eve dinner. New Year's paintings and spring scrolls are put up to welcome the new year.

With the establishment of the new China, the Spring Festival celebrations are more colorful. Not only retained the folk customs of the past, eliminated some activities with feudal superstitions, but also added a lot of new content. Make the Spring Festival has a new flavor of the times. December 23, 1949, the People's Government of the People's Republic of China *** and the People's Government of the State of the annual Spring Festival holiday for three days.

China is a multi-ethnic country, the form of New Year's Day varies from one ethnic group to another. The Han Chinese, Manchu and Koreans celebrate the Spring Festival in much the same way, with family reunions, people eating rice cakes, dumplings and a variety of hearty meals, putting up lanterns and colorful decorations, setting off firecrackers, and wishing each other well. The celebrations during the Spring Festival are extremely rich and varied, including lion dances, dragon juggling, stilt walking, and running on dry boats. In some areas people follow the past ancestor worship God activities, praying for a new year of wind and rain, peace, harvest. Ancient Mongolia, the Spring Festival called "white festival", the first month called white month, is the meaning of good luck. The Tibetans celebrate the Tibetan New Year. The Hui, Uyghurs and Kazakhs celebrate the "Gulbang Festival". The Spring Festival is also a grand festival for the Miao, Boy and Yao ethnic groups.

Spring and autumn, Wannian after a long period of observation, carefully projected, the solar calendar set the right, he was full of gray hair, Zu Yi Tianzi y touched, the solar calendar named "Wannian Calendar", and sealed Wannian for the sun and moon life star. Today, people call the Spring Festival as the year, hanging the life star figure for New Year's Eve is said to be in honor of Wannian, who is highly meritorious and virtuous.

On the Spring Festival, thousands of years formed a lot of customs. Rizhao territory, from the "busy year" to the New Year, which lasts a month, and the New Year during which to do everything, have a particularly strong festive atmosphere.

Entering the month of Lunar New Year, the flavor of the year is getting stronger. It is said that "if you drink the congee, you can count the years". After the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, families began to busy New Year's Eve, do new clothes, do New Year's goods. The market is full of goods from the set, and the amount of goods sold is several times higher than on weekdays. Purchase of utensils, must add new bowls and chopsticks, symbolizing the increase in population, the prosperity of the people; soup must be chicken and fish, meaning that the year of good luck, the year of surplus. Must steam rice cakes, tofu, in order to borrow the "year high" "all blessed" harmony, praying for "year high", the whole family happy; family steamed meat and potatoes (steamed bread) steamed on the meat and potatoes on the big red jujubes, called jujube mountain, households have enough pancakes, to be added to the population, to increase the prosperity of the population; soup must be chicken and fish, intended to seek good luck, even more. Households prepared enough pancakes, to be enough for the whole family to eat a month. Since the sixteenth day of the Lunar New Year, families choose a sunny day for health cleaning, commonly known as "sweeping the house", inside and outside the apartment, housewares and utensils scrubbed, cleaned up, to show that the old and welcome the new. Poor people do not have a fire room bedroom points, and more mud smear wall, so sweeping the house after the need to "light wall". "Light strong" that is to take a fine white pond soil stirred into porridge, brush in the four walls to cover the color of smoke and fire, so that the house for the new.

Lunar month twenty-third "quit stove", also known as the small year. Individual villages in the south have had twenty-four, because there is "official resignation of three, the people resignation of four," said. Before dinner, the Zaowang statue with cooked rice or dumpling skin on the wall near the door of the pot, for dumplings, maltose melon, etc., and burn incense and paper, praying for the Zaowang "to the sky to say good things". For malt sugar melon, intended to let the king of the stove to eat sugar sweet mouth, more good words, but also intended to use the sugar will be the king of the stove's mouth to stick, to prevent him from the sky nonsense. Because of the rhetoric stove for sugar melon essential, so there is a "Lunar New Year twenty-three stove king reach out - steady take sugar melon" of the hysteria. On the 24th day of the Lunar New Year, the statue of King Zao will be taken down and formally posted on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year. After the resignation of Zao, those who make a living in foreign countries have to go home for reunion. On the afternoon of the 29th day of the Lunar New Year, each family would sweep the indoor and outdoor areas for the last time, singing the song "Sweeping the gold inside, sweeping the silver outside, and sweeping a large group of mules and horses" while sweeping. The garbage is piled up outside the front door. On the 30th day of the Lunar New Year's Eve, every family woke up early and set fire to yesterday's Laji. The name of the fire is "Wolf Smoke", which means that all the old things are burned down and turned into ashes. After the "wolf smoke" is lit, a few firecrackers are set off. At the same time, rice is served in a basin, and nine pairs of red chopsticks are inserted into the rice, with the gap between the chopsticks suitable for putting in a large date. There are also chopsticks strung with several pages of tofu inserted in the rice, placed on the table of the natural enemy, called "for the New Year's dinner. On the same day, spring scrolls are put up and New Year's paintings are hung. In the western part of the country, there are also posters for the door. Some intentionally put the word "Fu" upside down to symbolize the arrival of good fortune. The fisherman family besides in the residence pastes the couplet outside, but also in the boat pastes, will "invites the wealth to enter the treasure" four characters into a whole pastes in the boat head. Five gardenia wind boat's gardenia pole respectively pastes "the great general eight-sided mighty wind" "the two generals day travels a thousand miles" "the three generals then listens to the order" "the four generals all the way to be peaceful "The fifth general will be successful". The boat is labeled "full return". Coastal areas of the family, the yard erected a green bamboo, on the red cloth tied to make money, said "money tree", meaning that the source of wealth constantly. On New Year's Eve, every family should fill a tank with water and prepare enough firewood for three days, which is mostly soybean straw and sesame straw for cooking dumplings on the first day of the year. There are "sesame straw, when the big official"; "bean straw stick, year after year" said. On the night of the first day of the year, families gather together to eat a reunion dinner. After the meal, families sit around and make dumplings. After the meal, the family sits around and wraps dumplings, placing coins in several dumplings, known as "Bao Yuan Bao". The number of coins placed depends on the population, the population is large more put, less is less put, generally take five, six, nine number varies, meaning "five sons to get into school", "six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six", "nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, long term" meaning. Late at night, the door, the second door to place the barricade stick, but also in the door next to the insertion of mahogany branches, in order to prevent evil spirits into the house. After stopping the door, family members generally do not go out of the gate, the yard is prohibited to splash water. Most people with candles and incense, lights, sleepless all night, said "keep the year". Midnight at midnight for the first day of the first month, the beginning of a new year. At this time, firecrackers, bright lights. In the courtyard set up a god, blessing the young and old peace. After the paper horse is sent, the whole family sits around the kang and eats reunion wine. The hostess cooks dumplings on bean or sesame straws. The dumplings are cooked without a bellows to show that the New Year is calm. Whoever eats the most dumplings with money in them will be the most fortunate in the new year. On New Year's Eve, it is taboo to say unlucky words, such as "finished", "no more", "not enough", "forget it", etc. Dumplings are not called broken when they are boiled. Broken dumplings are not called broken, to say earned; steamed bread cracked not called cracked, to say laugh, commonly known as "New Year's words".

On the second day of the first month, firecrackers called "open market", labor is no longer taboo, began to bring gifts to relatives. In the old days, "the first month gift, thin paper". Walking relatives in the old days, "the second maternal grandmother in the first three aunts, the fourth and fifth to see the mother-in-law," the custom, is now more "the second, the first three first mother-in-law, the fourth, the first five and then see the aunt," and the wind of walking relatives to see the prevalence of.

The third day of the first month, take to the door stick. A variety of folk art began to activities, commonly known as juggling stories. Juggling teams generally have dragon lanterns, dry boats, lion packs, stilts, small plays, etc., the coastal villages have also run the aquatic dance team. Folklore team to the streets, entertainment in distant villages near neighbors, the higher level of the team into the city to perform. Two teams meet in the city, there will be a fight. Each team has to show their skills and put on a show. Literary team wherever they go, people from all directions converge, and juggling team mixed together. At this time, the artists or dragons and lions, or stilts, accompanied by drums and gongs and the rhythm of the music in the crowd outward expansion of the territory, known as the "opening". Afterwards, the performers show their skills and put on all kinds of shows, making for a very lively event.

The first five days of the first month of the God of Wealth, most people do some good meals to celebrate. In the morning to fry peanuts, soybeans, melon seeds, etc., called "fried ants", borrowing five of the harmonic symbol of the year "pest-free" and "grain harvest" meaning.

The morning of the sixth day of the first month, there is also the night of the family dumplings, firecrackers, burning paper and incense, said "receiving the king of the stove". It is said that on this day, Zao Wang returned from the sky, continue its career on earth. After the sixth, the Spring Festival is considered to be over, but the festivities, the atmosphere continues until the end of the first month.