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Historical Changes of Chinese New Year Customs on New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve refers to the night of the last day of the Lunar New Year in the lunar calendar every year, which is the first and last day of the Spring Festival (the first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year). "New Year's Eve" in the "in addition to" the word is "go; easy; alternating" meaning, New Year's Eve means "the end of the month and the age of exhaustion ", people have to get rid of the old part of the new, there is the old year to this in addition, the next year another new year's meaning, is the lunar calendar throughout the year the last night. Therefore, the activities during this period are centered around the removal of the old part of the new, eliminate disasters and pray for blessings as the center.

Zhou, Qin period every year will be the end of the time, the palace to hold a "big exorcism" ceremony, drumming to expel the plague of ghosts, known as "by the removal of", and then called the day before the New Year's Eve for the small in addition to the small New Year's Eve; New Year's Eve for the big in addition to the big New Year's Eve.

The historical changes of the Spring Festival customs of the sticker door god

All over China on New Year's Eve, there is the custom of sticking the door god. Initially, the door god was carved mahogany in human form and hung next to the person, and later it was painted as a door god portrait posted on the door. Legend has it that the two brothers, Shentian and Yubi, specialize in controlling ghosts, and with them guarding the gateway, evil spirits of all sizes would not dare to enter the door for harm. After the Tang Dynasty, there are painted fierce general Qin Qiong, Yuchi Jingde two people like for the door god, there are painted Guan Yu, Zhang Fei like for the door god. Door god image of the left and right households each one, often a pair of descendants of the door god painted as a civil and a military.

Door God is divided into three categories: the first category is the "gate door God", more pasted on the door or the whole door, about four or five feet high, about two or three feet wide. The second type is the "street door god", more small streets on the door, about two feet high, about one foot wide. These two kinds of door god is a black face and a white face of the two gods. White left and black right, white good and easy, black caracal, each hand holding a battle-axe. The third type is "house door door god", compared with the street door door god is slightly smaller limited, also is black and white two god, but also black and white two god is sitting like. House door is most often posted "unicorn send son" image, two powder and grease comb Prince crown dolls, each riding the unicorn. This kind of door god, should be posted on the door of the newly married house, in order to take good luck, and then also as a common street door of the New Year embellishments.

Spring Festival customs of the historical changes in the Spring Festival couplets

As a unique form of literature, the Spring Festival couplets have a long history in China. It started during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and flourished especially during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and has developed for more than a thousand years today.

As early as before the Qin and Han Dynasties, China's folk every New Year's Eve, there is the custom of hanging peach symbols on the left and right sides of the main door. Peach talisman is made of peach wood, two large boards, respectively, written on the top of the legendary ghost-subduing god "Shentian (tu)" and "Yu Shi" name, to drive away the ghosts and suppress the evil spirits. This custom continued for more than a thousand years. It was only in the Fifth Dynasty that people began to inscribe couplets on mahogany boards instead of the names of the gods and goddesses. According to historical records, after the Lord of Shu Meng Chang (chang) in 964 A.D. New Year's Eve on the bedroom door couplet "New Year's Day, Jiajie No. Spring" is China's earliest pair of spring couplets.

After the Song Dynasty, it has been quite common for folk to hang spring couplets on New Year's Day, so Wang Anshi's poem "New Year's Day", which reads, "Thousands of doors and ten thousand pupils of the pupils of the day, and always change the new peaches for the old ones," is a true reflection of the spring couplet scene at that time. Because the appearance of spring couplets and peach symbols have a close relationship, so the ancients also called spring couplets "peach symbols".

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, strongly advocated couplets. After he settled in Jinling (now Nanjing), he ordered the ministers, officials and ordinary people before New Year's Eve must write a pair of couplets pasted on the door, he personally wore civilian clothes on patrol, door-to-door viewing for fun. At that time, the literati also took the title of the couplets as a literary pleasure, write the Spring Festival couplets will become a social trend.

After the Qing Dynasty, Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang dynasties, couplets flourished like poems in the Tang Dynasty, and many popular famous couplets appeared.

As a unique form of literature, the Spring Festival couplets have a long history in China. It began in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Ming and Qing Dynasties were particularly prosperous, the development to today has been more than a thousand years.

Before the Qin and Han dynasties, it was the custom of the Chinese folk to hang peach symbols on the left and right sides of the main door during the New Year. Peach talisman is made of peach wood, two large boards, on which are written the names of the legendary ghost-subduing gods "Shentian (tu)" and "Yu Shi" to drive away ghosts and suppress evil spirits. This custom continued for more than a thousand years. It was only in the Fifth Dynasty that people began to inscribe couplets on mahogany boards in place of the names of the gods and goddesses. According to historical records, the couplet inscribed on the bedroom door by Meng Chang (chang), the lord of Shu, on New Year's Eve in 964 A.D., "New Year's Day is a blessing, and the Jiejie number is a long spring" is one of the earliest spring couplets in China.

After the Song Dynasty, it was quite common for people to hang spring couplets on New Year's Day, so Wang Anshi's poem "New Year's Day", which reads, "On the day of the pupil of thousands of households, new peaches are replaced with old ones," is a true portrayal of the spring couplet scene at that time. Because the appearance of spring couplets and peach symbols have a close relationship, so the ancients also called spring couplets "peach symbols".

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, strongly advocated couplets. After he set up his capital in Jinling (now Nanjing), he ordered ministers, officials and ordinary people to write a pair of couplets on the door before New Year's Eve, and he personally went out on patrol in civilian clothes, viewing them door-to-door for fun. At that time, the literati also took the question of couplets as an elegant fun, write the spring couplets will become a social trend.

After the Qing Dynasty, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang three dynasties, couplets as prosperous as the poetry of the Tang Dynasty, a number of popular famous couplets.

With the development of cultural exchanges between different countries, the study of couplets began

In the middle of the sixth century A.D., the Security Department of the Liang Dynasty (about 498-561 A.D.) recorded the New Year's customs of the Jing-chu area in the Jing-chu Yearly Record, and scholars praised this exemplary yearly record as "a dynamic record of ancient fieldwork," in contrast to the previous monthly order-based political and religious style and literati style of play and wonder. A dynamic ancient field record" [1]. To this day, the Spring Festival, which originated from the year-end "Lunar New Year" festival, is still the most important festival for the Chinese people. However, the two faults that the Jingchu Youshi ji (Records of the Years and Seasons of Jingchu) tries to avoid still exist. There are many articles on Spring Festival customs, and although their contents vary in complexity and focus, their mode of narration is no more than the legend of the festival, its origins, historical records, and local customary events and their explanations. Research works on folklore either tirelessly comb through ancient texts or ponder the deeper meanings behind the festivals and customs. However, both introductory and research works refer to a solidified preconception of the Spring Festival. Such a clustered and timeless narrative creates the impression that Chinese New Year is practiced almost without exception by all people, and that this "tradition" appears to be as solid as a rock.

But today, we are struck by the clamor to "defend" the Spring Festival. The need to "defend" means that this "tradition" is in danger of being lost. New Year's dinner moved to the restaurant, pay tribute to the New Year with a text message, more and more people in the Spring Festival travel, Internet, elegant and comfortable; in this regard, the old people bemoaned the year will be no year, tasteless, and part of the folklorists are advocating a return to the "tradition". But what does the Spring Festival "tradition" look like? The transcription from document to document and the exhaustive search for the inner meaning of the Spring Festival have turned it into the "internal knowledge" of experts and scholars. What researchers have overlooked is the question of what kind of practice the so-called Spring Festival "tradition" takes on among ordinary people. Is their practice of the Spring Festival uniform? What makes the practice of Chinese New Year different from one person to another? Do the practices of the same people change over time? What influences these changes? How do they perceive these differences and changes?

2. Research Methodology and Theory

In the second half of the twentieth century, with the change of regimes, the change of social values, and the influence of political campaigns, the changes in Chinese New Year practices were particularly dramatic. However, in the midst of the grand narrative of history, the voices of discrete individuals are often drowned out. Therefore, in this paper, we intend to use another kind of historical material, oral history material, which is different from documentary research, to observe the changes of Chinese New Year customs between 1949 and 1989, mainly from the perspective of individuals and their family practices.

1) Oral History

The research material of this paper is 212 textual records of oral memories of Spring Festival practices. Oral memory, often called "Oral History" (Oral History). "Since the late 1960s and beyond, oral history has been widely used in Britain and other countries because of its particular suitability for the exposition of recent social history." [2] Investigative interviews of repetitive experiences are generally considered to be more suitable for oral history research, such as the history of everyday life is an important area. In China, oral history is also very flexible in its application, and in addition to historiography, it is also favored in many disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, folklore, and literature, and is still booming. However, this kind of research using oral history as the main material is currently dominated by the study of events. [3]

It goes without saying that the authenticity of oral history materials cannot be verified theoretically. This is why historians remain skeptical about the use of oral history materials, "partly because historians are reluctant to break with the principle that historical materials must be contemporary [4], whereas oral materials inevitably carry an element of hindsight." [5] It is true that the feelings, attitudes, and interests of the interviewees can lead to the focused clipping of memories, often out of the shaping of hindsight experiences, and not fully presenting the context in which the content of the interview took place on the spot. However, it may not be actually "real" to a certain extent, but at least it is real in the sense of observing the past from the present. How these interviewees absorb, store, and interpret their own personal experiences in relation to historical politics is itself an object of study. For example, Fang Huirong's oral history research on the social life of peasants during the land reform period demonstrates the dislocation between the "eventless realm" of memory and the reshaped mentality of power relations, and reflects on oral history investigations aimed at discovering the "truth" of reality. Secondly, oral history materials are often linked to personal life histories, and compared to documentary materials, their experiences are more lived, more personalized, more detailed, and their perceptions are not easily shielded by political power, so they are equally valuable for research as fugitive civilian narratives. Conversely, it has also been suggested that major events experienced in early adulthood have a particularly profound impact on the individual mind, i.e., the experience at the time also influences how other experiences are viewed afterward and the cognitive framework of the present. It was introduced to countries such as Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. These countries still retain the custom of posting couplets.