What is the Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is a traditional festival in China, commonly known as the "Festival of the Year", traditionally known as the New Year, the New Year, the New Year, but also known as the oral year, the celebration of the New Year, the New Year, the Chinese nation's grandest traditional festivals. In Chinese folklore, the Spring Festival is traditionally celebrated from the Lunar New Year festival on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, or the Zaos Festival on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth day of the Lunar New Year, until the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year as the highlight. The customs of the Spring Festival include sweeping the dust, observing the New Year, paying homage to the New Year, posting Spring Festival couplets, hanging New Year's paintings, setting off firecrackers, watching the Spring Festival gala, offering sacrifices to the ancestors, receiving the gods, and treading on the streets, etc. 1、Sweeping the Dust

"On the twenty-fourth day of the Lunar New Year, sweep the house." According to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals", China in the era of Yao and Shun, there is the custom of Spring Festival dust sweeping. According to folklore: because of "dust" and "Chen" homophonic, dust sweeping in the New Year has "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", the intention is to sweep out all the poor luck, bad luck. This custom is a symbol of people's desire to break up the old and bring in the new and their prayers for the old and the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean up the environment, wash all kinds of appliances, dismantle and wash the bedding curtains, sprinkle six Lu courtyard, dusting dust cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with joyful health, clean and welcome the new year's happy atmosphere. 2, the New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is one of the most important Chinese New Year's Eve customary activities, the custom of the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou Zhi's "Land and Customs": the night of New Year's Eve, each with the gift, known as "feed the year"; wine and food invited, known as the "other year"; young and old get together to drink, wishing to complete, known as the "sub-year"; all night, everyone is the most important customary activity of the Spring Festival. "; we stay up all night, waiting for the dawn, called "keep the year". Since the Han Dynasty, the moment of transition between the old and the new year is usually the middle of the night.

3, New Year's Eve

The Spring Festival when the New Year's Eve, the younger generation should first give the elders to pay tribute to the elders, wishing the elders a long life and well-being, the elders can be prepared beforehand the New Year's Eve money to the elders, it is said that the New Year's Eve money can be pressed to stop the evil spirits, because the "age of" and "spirits" It is said that the new year's money can keep evil spirits at bay, because "year" and "spirit" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend the year in peace if they get the new year's money. There are two kinds of New Year's money, one is to colorful rope threaded braided into the shape of a dragon, placed at the foot of the bed, this record is found in the "Yanjing Yearly Record"; the other is the most common, that is, wrapped in red paper by the parents of the money given to the children. New Year's money can be rewarded in the evening after the New Year's greetings in public, can also be in the New Year's Eve when the child is asleep, by the parents secretly placed under the child's pillow. Now the elders for the younger generation to send the custom of New Year's money is still very prevalent.4, posting Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets, also known as door to door, spring stickers, couplets, couplets, peach symbols, etc., it is neat, couplets, simple, sophisticated text depicting the background of the times, expressing the best wishes, is unique to China's form of literature. Every Spring Festival, whether urban or rural, every family should select a large red Spring Festival couplets pasted on the door, for the festival to increase the festive atmosphere. This custom originated in the Song Dynasty, began to prevail in the Ming Dynasty, to the Qing Dynasty, the Spring Festival couplets of ideology and artistry have been greatly improved, Liang Zhangrui prepared the Spring Festival couplets monograph "Threshold Lian series of words" on the origins of the couplets and various types of works of the characteristics of the discourse.

There are many types of spring couplets, which, according to their place of use, can be divided into door centers, frame pairs, horizontal phi, spring strips, and doufang. "Door" in the upper center of the door panel; "frame" on the left and right door frame; "Phi" on the horizontal wood of the door winks; "Chunzhi "According to different contents, posted in the corresponding place;" bucket catty "also called" door leaf "for the square diamond-shaped, more pasted in the furniture, shadow wall.5, hanging New Year's paintings

New Year's Day hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, the thick ink and colorful New Year's paintings to give a good idea of the color of the Chinese New Year, the Chinese New Year is also very common. Heavy ink and colorful paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. New Year's paintings are an ancient folk art in China, reflecting the people's simple customs and beliefs, and holding their hopes for the future. New Year's paintings, like spring scrolls, originated as "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of the New Year's paintings has not only limited to monotonous themes such as the God of the Door, become colorful, in some of the New Year's paintings in the workshop produced the "Three Stars of Fortune and Longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "Five Grains and a Plentiful Harvest," "Six Animals Prosperity," "Welcoming the Spring to receive the blessings of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's joyful prayers for the New Year's good wishes. There are three important production areas of Chinese New Year paintings in China: Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; forming three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings, each with its own characteristics. The earliest collection of Chinese New Year paintings in China is the woodcut New Year paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty, "With the fairness of the country's face", which depicts four ancient beauties, namely, Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Banji and Lvzhu. The most widely circulated folk painting is the one of "The Mouse Marrying Her Marriage". It depicts an interesting scene of a mouse marrying a bride in accordance with the customs of the earth. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng Mantuo of Shanghai combined the lunar calendar and New Year's paintings. This is a new form of New Year's paintings. This combination of two and one of the New Year's paintings, later developed into a calendar, and is still popular throughout the country. 6, firecrackers

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers," that is, at the dawn of the new year, the Chinese people have "open door firecrackers," said. That is, the arrival of the new year, the first thing to open the door of every household is to set off firecrackers, to beep, bla bla bla firecrackers in addition to the old and welcome the new. Firecrackers is a Chinese specialty, also known as "firecrackers", "cannonballs", "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, so far has a history of more than two thousand years. Firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, is a kind of festival entertainment, can bring people joy and good luck. With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers is more and more widely used, varieties and colors are also increasingly numerous, whenever a major festival and festivities, and marriage, building, opening, etc., are to set off firecrackers in order to show the celebration, Figure a good luck. Hunan Liuyang, Guangdong Foshan and Dongyao, Jiangxi Yichun and Pingxiang, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other areas is China's famous hometown of firecrackers, the production of firecrackers, colorful, high quality, not only sells well across the country, but also exported to the world. 7, watch the Spring Festival Gala

The Spring Festival Gala, often referred to as "Spring Festival Gala", generally refers to the Chinese Central Television (CCTV), which is held on the evening of the New Year's Eve every year. In the evening of New Year's Eve every year to celebrate the Lunar New Year organized by the variety of arts and culture evening. The history of the Spring Festival Gala in a broad sense can be traced back to 1956, when it was produced by the Central News and Record Film Studio as the "Spring Festival Gala" with Zhang Junxiang as the general director and Xie Jin, Lin Nong, Cen Fan and Wang Yingdong as the directors. CCTV's Spring Festival Gala has been broadcast since New Year's Eve 1979, and the first live broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala was broadcast on CCTV in 1983, and since then, every year at 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on Lunar New Year's Eve (which used to be before 8:00 p.m. in the early days), the Spring Festival Gala is broadcast on CCTV, with the program running for a long time. CCTV, the program lasts about 4 hours 10 minutes to 5 hours. The program ends with the chorus of "Unforgettable Tonight" (this song was created for the 1984 Spring Festival Gala, and later was 1985, 1986, 1990 Gala as the closing song, and from 1990 to the present).8, ancestor worship

New Year's Day for the first of the year, the first thing to do is to sacrifice to the ancestors. This ritual, some places called "worship ancestral home", because the ancestors are called "family relatives" rather than called God. Ancestor worship is usually performed at home. In some places, every family hangs a picture of their ancestors in the hall, but in most areas, the ancestors' tablets are placed on the tablets. Ancestor worship begins around midnight on New Year's Eve, before the door is opened and firecrackers are set off. In front of the ancestors' tablets, wine, food and seasonal fruits are set up for the ancestors to enjoy; after lighting joss paper and candles, parents and grandchildren perform the ritual of kowtowing to the ancestors. In ancestor worship, to face the ancestors of the tablets, one by one report home a year of joyous events, large to marry, bride, bridegroom, children to add Ding, small to how life. Customs experts say that the significance of the New Year ancestor worship is to be careful to catch up with the past, respect for ancestors and pray for the ancestors to bless future generations with prosperity, all things go well, showing the traditional ethical thinking of the Chinese people. 9, pick up the god

Pick up the god is the old and the new year, but pick up the god of the time is not quite uniform. Some start the ceremony as soon as the hour arrives, some to "ZiZheng" time, that is, at midnight to start receiving the god, and some in the "ZiZheng" after the party to receive. The ceremony is held in front of the table of heaven and earth, and is presided over by the eldest member of the family. Because the gods reside in different directions in the heavenly realm, they naturally come in different directions when they descend to the lower realm. As to which god to receive and from which direction the god comes, it is necessary to check the "constitutional book" in advance and lead the whole family to receive the god according to the direction by lifting up incense in the courtyard. After kowtowing ceremony according to the direction, standing at attention to be incense, and then kowtow, and finally the root of the incense, statues, treasure ingots, etc. removed, into the money already in the courtyard ready to burn in the basin, with the combustion of pine branches, sesame seed stalks, etc. 10, stepping on the Soun

After receiving the God, the sesame seed stalks from the street door to the door of the house, the people walk on it, the crackling, known as the "stepping on the year! Because the "age" and "Soun" homophonic, take the meaning of the beginning of the New Year to drive away evil spirits. To summarize, during the Spring Festival, the Han Chinese and some ethnic minorities in China have a variety of customs and activities to celebrate. These customary activities are to sacrifice to the gods and goddesses, pay homage to ancestors, get rid of the old cloth new, welcome the Jubilee to receive blessings, pray for a good year and so on as the main content, much the same.