What are the customs of Chinese New Year?

1, dusting .

"Twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, dust and sweep the house", according to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals", China in the era of Yao and Shun on the Spring Festival dust custom. According to folklore: because the "dust" and "Chen" consonant, dust sweeping in the New Year has "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", the intention is to all the poor luck, bad luck, swept out the door. This custom is based on people's wishes and prayers to break up the old and bring in the new.

Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean up the environment, wash all kinds of utensils, dismantle and wash the bedding curtains, sprinkle the courtyard, dusting the dust and cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with joyful health, clean and welcome the new year's happy atmosphere.

2, paste the spring couplets.

Chinese New Year couplets, also known as door to door, spring stickers, couplets, couplets, peach symbols, etc., it is neat, couplets, concise, sophisticated text depicting the background of the times, expressing the best wishes, is a unique form of literature in China. Every Spring Festival, whether urban or rural, every family should select a big red spring couplets posted on the door, for the festival to increase the festive atmosphere.

This custom began 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 frames; "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, more in the furniture, shadow wall.

Pasted window and upside down "Fu" word

In the folk people also like to put a variety of paper cutouts on the window - window. Window flowers not only set a festive atmosphere, but also decorative, appreciative and practical in one. Paper cutting in China is a very popular folk art, for thousands of years by the people's favorite, because it is mostly affixed to the window, so it is also known as "window flowers". Window flowers with its unique generalization and exaggeration of the auspicious events, good wishes expressed in the best possible way, will be decorated with festivals red hot and rich.

At the same time as the Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on the doors, walls and lintels of their houses. The Spring Festival sticker "Fu" character, is China's folk custom from a long time. The character "福" refers to good fortune and good luck, and it expresses people's desire for a happy life and their wish for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wishes, some people simply stick the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived" and "good fortune has arrived". Folk will also be "Fu" word fine as a variety of patterns, patterns of longevity, longevity peach, carp jump Dragon Gate, the five valleys, the dragon and phoenix, etc.

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The word "Fu" is the word for "happiness" and "good fortune".

3, New Year's paintings.

The Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, thick black 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 from the "God of the Door".

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, fortune and longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "five grains and plenty of prosperity," "six animals," "to welcome the spring to receive the blessing of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's joyful prayers for the year's best wishes. China appeared three important production areas: Suzhou Taohuayu, Tianjin Yangliuqing and Shandong Weifang; the formation of China's three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings, each with its own characteristics.

4, the New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities, the custom of keeping 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": New Year's Eve night, 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 long to keep watch. "

The first time a person is invited to a party, he or she will be invited to the party, which is called the "farewell party".

"One night even double the year, five nights divided into two days", New Year's Eve, the whole family gathered together, ate the New Year's Eve dinner, light up candles or oil lamps, sitting around the fireplace chatting, waiting for the time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, the all-night vigil, symbolizing all the evil plague and disease, according to the run away, and look forward to a new year of good luck. This custom gradually prevailed, to the early Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a "year-keeping" poem: "cold resignation from the winter snow, the warmth of the spring wind". Until today, people are still accustomed to observing the New Year's Eve to welcome the new year.

Anciently, there are two meanings of year-end vigil: the elderly year-end vigil for the "resignation of the old year", there is the meaning of the treasure of time and light; young people year-end vigil is to extend the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the time of the transition between the old and new year is usually half past midnight.

5, firecrackers .

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers" said. That is, the arrival of the new year, the first thing that families open the door is to set off firecrackers, to beeping firecrackers to get rid of 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 holiday entertainment, can bring joy and good fortune.

6, worship.

On the first day of the New Year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dressed neatly, go out to visit friends and relatives, pay respects to each other, wishing good luck in the coming year. Worship a variety of ways, some of them are the same patriarch led a number of people to go door to door to pay tribute to the New Year; some colleagues invited a few people to pay tribute to the New Year; there are also get together to congratulate each other, known as the "group worship". Because of the time-consuming and labor-intensive door-to-door New Year's greetings, some of the upper-class people and the scholarly community used the posters to congratulate each other, which led to the development of the later "New Year's tablets".

The Chinese New Year, the late generation should first pay tribute to the elders, wishing the elders a long life and well-being, the elders can be prepared beforehand the New Year's money to the elders, it is said that the New Year's money can be pressed to stop the evil spirits, because the "age" and the "spirit" consonant, the elders get the New Year's money can be a year of peace and security. The new year's money is said to keep evil spirits at bay because the word "year" is a homonym of "spirit", and the younger generation can spend the year in peace if they get it.

There are two kinds of New Year's money, one of which is braided into the shape of a dragon with colored ropes and threads and placed at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in the "Yanking Yearly Record"; the other is the most common, which is wrapped in red paper and given to the children by their parents. 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 prevalent.