Comparison table of Chinese and British New Year's Day customs

In Britain, although New Year's Day on the Gregorian calendar is not as grand as Christmas Day,

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are still celebrated according to local customs and traditions to send off the old and welcome the new. The British late at night on New Year's Eve,

often with cakes and wine to go out to visit, they do not knock on the door, they go straight

into the home of friends and relatives. According to English custom, the person who takes the first step towards

the house after the thousand nights of New Year's Eve heralds the luck of the new year.

If the first guest is a dark-haired man, or a happy, fortunate

and wealthy person, the host will be lucky all year round. If the first guest is a woman with light yellow hair, or a sad, poor, unfortunate person, the host will have bad luck in the new year, and will encounter difficulties and calamities. On New Year's Eve, those who visit friends and relatives at their homes, before talking to them,

have to stir the fire in the fireplace to bless their hosts with "good luck". Most of the New Year celebrations in Britain

are held on New Year's Eve, and the "New Year's Banquet

is one of them, which is divided into two types: the "family banquet" and the "group banquet. The banquets are divided into two types: family banquets and group banquets, which usually start at 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve and end in the early hours of New Year's Day. A variety of food, drinks and snacks are available for people to enjoy all night long. At midnight, people

turn on their radios and listen to the New Year's bells of the church bells, which ring out

with a great deal of joy, toasts and cheers, and songs of "

The Days of Yesterdays". The "New Year's Eve Ball" is another celebration.

By local inns and dances, night falls. People dressed in festive attire come from all directions to these brilliantly decorated and illuminated dance floors to dance to the sound of beautiful music, and crowds of thousands of people,

also gather in squares to sing, dance and revel around the fountains and the statue of Eros in the center of the square.

This is another celebration, which is also done on television. Television stations also broadcast live from the plazas, allowing those who are "keeping watch" at home to enjoy the fun.

Chinese New Year customs vary from region to region. The main ones are:

* Worshiping the stove, that is, sending the king of the stove to heaven on New Year's Day

* Sweeping the dust,

* Putting up Spring Festival couplets and New Year's paintings,

* Inviting the gods, worshipping the gods and sending the gods to the gods,

* Burning joss sticks and candles,

* Hanging up lanterns with candles inside them, and the candles are moving around and it is really beautiful. If you put a light bulb in the lantern, it will be much worse.

* Ancestor worship,

* Drumming,

* New Year's Eve dinner, New Year's Eve celebration,

* Firecrackers,

* New Year's Eve celebration,

* New Year's Eve money,

* Stilt stepping, dragon lantern dance,

* Family reunion. People who go out to study and work should go home to their parents to celebrate the New Year together.

The following is more detailed:

The Spring Festival is an ancient festival in China, but also one of the most important festivals throughout the year, how to celebrate this festival, in the development of thousands of years of history, the formation of a number of more fixed customs, many of which are still handed down to this day.

Sweeping dust

"Lunar month 24, dust sweeping house", according to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals" records, China in the Yao and Shun era, there is a Spring Festival sweeping 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 a symbol of people's desire to break away from 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 the bedding curtains, sprinkle clean the courtyard, dust dust cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with joyful health, clean and welcome the new year's happy atmosphere.

Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival 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 China's unique 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 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 Zhangzhu 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 content, posted in the corresponding place;" bucket catty "also called" door leaf "for the square diamond-shaped, mostly posted in the furniture, shadow wall.

Pasted window and upside down "Fu" character

In folklore, people also like to put all kinds of paper cuttings on the window - window flowers. 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 have the star, longevity, carp jump Dragon Gate, the five valleys, the dragon and phoenix, and so on.

New Year's Paintings

The Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, thick black colorful New Year's 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 Province; three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

China's earliest collection of Chinese New Year paintings is the Southern Song Dynasty "with the fairness of the country's face" woodcut New Year paintings, the painting is Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Banji and green beads of the four ancient beauties. 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 wall calendar, and is still popular throughout the country.

Vigilance

Vigilance on New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's activities, and it has a long history. The earliest record is found in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou Chu'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 "share the year! "

The first time I saw this is when I was a young man and I had to wait for the day to dawn, so I called it the "New Year's Eve".

"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 epidemic according to the run drive away, looking 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 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 the middle of the night.

Crackers

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers". That is, at the dawn of the new year, the first thing that families do when they open the door is to set off firecrackers, to beep and blare the sound of 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 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, every major holiday and festivals, and marriage, building, opening, etc., are to set off firecrackers in order to show the celebration, figure a good luck. Now, 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.

Welcome to the New Year

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, each other, wishing good luck for 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; there are 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 developed into the later "New Year's card".

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. It is said that New Year's money can keep evil spirits at bay, because "year" and "spirit" sound alike. There are two kinds of New Year's money, one is a colorful rope threaded and braided into the shape of a dragon, placed at the foot of the bed, which is recorded 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 the new year's money is still prevalent.

Chinese New Year food customs

In the ancient agricultural society, about since the eighth day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, housewives will be busy with the New Year's food. Because it takes a long time to pickle the preserved meat, it must be prepared as early as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of pickling preserved meat, of which the preserved meat in Guangdong Province is the most famous.

Steaming rice cakes has become a must-have for almost every family because of its resonance with the word "nian gao" and its varied flavors. There are square-shaped yellow and white rice cakes, symbolizing gold and silver, which are meant to bring wealth in the New Year.

The flavor of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers enjoy red date rice cakes, white rice cakes and white rice cakes made from river rice or yellow rice. People in Hebei like to add jujubes, small red beans and mung beans to their rice cakes and steam them together. Northwestern Shanxi in Inner Mongolia and other places, New Year's Eve used to eat yellow rice flour fried rice cakes, some also wrapped with bean paste, date paste and other fillings, Shandong people with yellow rice, red dates steamed rice cakes. Northern rice cakes are mainly sweet, or steamed or fried, some people simply dip sugar to eat. In the south, rice cakes are both sweet and salty, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of round-grained rice and have a light flavor. In addition to steaming and deep-frying, they can also be sliced and stir-fried or boiled in soup. Sweet rice cakes are made from glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, roses, osmanthus, mint and veggie paste, and are so well made that they can be steamed or dipped in egg white and deep-fried.

The night before the real New Year is called the Night of Reunion, when people who are away from home have to travel thousands of miles to come back home, and the whole family has to sit together to make dumplings for the New Year. The dumpling method is to make dumpling skin with flour, and then use the skin to wrap the filling, which is a variety of contents, including various kinds of meat, eggs, seafood, seasonal vegetables, etc., and can be put into the filling, and the orthodox way of eating dumplings is to boil it with water, and then fish it up to be accompanied by vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce. The orthodox way of eating dumplings is to boil them in water and then dip them in soy sauce flavored with vinegar, garlic, and sesame oil. Dumplings can also be deep-fried and cooked (potstickers). This is because the word "he" (和) means "to merge" (合), and the words "饺子" (饺子) and "交" (交), which mean "to merge" and "to merge" (合), harmonize with each other. The words "合" and "交" have the meaning of getting together, so dumplings are used to symbolize reunion and happiness; they are also taken as the meaning of a new year's handover, which is very auspicious; in addition, dumplings resemble a Yuanbao (元宝), so eating dumplings on New Year's Day carries the auspicious meaning of "inviting wealth and prosperity" (招财進宝). In addition, eating dumplings on New Year's Day also carries the auspicious meaning of "inviting wealth and prosperity". The family got together to wrap the dumplings, talk about the New Year, its happy

Respondent: s19851002 - thousand total five 2-2 12:05

Spring Festival Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. It is celebrated on January 1 in the Chinese lunar calendar. It is the day one month before the Chinese New Year in China, and it is usually during the festival that people start to buy clothes and food for decorating their houses. On the eve of the New Year, every family gets together for dinner, talks and watches TV almost all night. Children are the happiest, because they can get presents from their parents or bring them to their older parents. Chinese people like to eat dumplings on Lunar New Year. When their neighbors and friends get together, they say Happy New Year! The New Year celebration lasts for about half a month.

Respondent: li960316 - trial period Level 1 2-2 12:10

Weifang Qingyunshan, Jinbao Paradise, Yangjiabu launched a series of "New Year's custom" tourism activities. The city needless to say, super boring. The year in the countryside is more interesting to show the year. It seems that in the world of the child's mind, their desire for the year is far from other temptations, looking forward to the New Year's money, new clothes, fireworks, firecrackers, and the hot reunion dumplings ......

Shandong people are very conscientious about New Year's Eve, but also have their own different customs around the world.

For example, for the New Year's food, every New Year's Eve, most of the people have to cook a lot of black jujube. When you eat jujube, you must spit the jujube kernel on the ground, because the "kernel" in Shandong dialect and "silver" harmonized, meaning "spit silver all over the ground". On New Year's Eve, every household should cross a wooden pillar outside the front door, the head of the family is not allowed to sweep the floor, splash water, it is said that this is in order to be able to keep the God of Wealth.

Old customs such as this is also a lot, such as the taboo pin money, taboo meat, taboo garlic; the first night taboo lamps, it is said that the lamps, rats will be flooded; the first taboo break things, in case of breaking things, to hold the pieces, do not look back, do not speak, straight to the well, the pieces thrown into the well, otherwise "the Lord of the evil"; Cooking dumplings, broken can not say "broken", to say "earn (earn).

When I was a child on New Year's Day, the first morning of the first day must do one thing is to get up without saying a word, the first to go and hold tightly to the Tsubaki tree in front of the house, at the same time sing "Tsubaki tree Tsubaki tree king, you grow thick to me long, you grow thick to do material, I grow long to wear clothes ...... "Although at that time, I didn't understand what the connection between Tsubaki tree and my growing up was, I would still do it in a disciplined way, at least it would earn my mother's face full of happiness.

"Money or no money, paste the pair for the New Year." Shandong is a large agricultural province, the New Year's couplets are mostly related to the word "agriculture". The couplets, such as "six animals are thriving, five grains are abundant," "the wind is blowing the green willow, the rain is wetting the spring seedlings," and so on, are all praying for a good harvest in the new year.

From the first to the fifteenth day of the month, the year in the countryside seems to be thicker than the day. The lion dance and rice-planting songs can be called an indispensable festive meal for the people of Shandong. "Shandong rice-planting songs have a long history and unique style, and are roughly categorized into three kinds of performance forms: ground rice-planting songs, inch rice-planting songs and stilt rice-planting songs, among which the stilt rice-planting songs have the longest history and the widest distribution, and the performance forms are simple. The roughness and boldness of the male and the charm and flexibility of the female have been shown to the fullest.

Traveling to relatives is an important part of the Spring Festival in Shandong. As the saying goes: "Worship four, not five, worship five dead mother-in-law", "first look at the aunt, and then look at the uncle, father-in-law and mother-in-law in the back" and so on and so forth

New Year's Eve is a very important festival for the Chinese people. All over the New Year customs have their own characteristics, Wenzhou also has its own unique New Year's culture. Since the winter solstice, Wenzhou people have been preparing various kinds of New Year's goods, such as sun-dried soy sauce chicken, soy sauce meat, cooking muffins and so on.

The winter solstice to eat dumplings

The winter solstice is called the "to day", commonly known as the "winter festival". On the morning of this day, every family eats soup dumplings or mochi. Dumplings are filled with sweet sugar or sesame, and there are also salted meat dumplings. And mochi to first cook the glutinous rice, pounded tough into a block shape, and then placed in the sugar in the bean flour rolling so that it sticks full of bean flour, that is, mochi, mochi for the winter solstice snacks, commonly known as "ring mochi". Eat mochi, dumplings, symbolizing reunion and celebration, folk "eat the winter solstice pill, even if a year old" said.

Tan soy sauce meat and eel replica

Wenzhou people used to start tanning soy sauce meat and eel replica around the eleventh month of the lunar calendar. The raw lean pork, raw chickens and ducks are soaked in soy sauce and then dried in the sun for consumption, which has a unique flavor. In the past, during the month of sun-drying, the rafters of every house were densely studded with iron nails on which soy sauce meat, soy sauce duck, and soy sauce chicken were hung. Self-made soy sauce meat, soy sauce chicken flavor and quality, so even if the market has ready-made to sell, people are still willing to do their own sun. Eel is a specialty of Wenzhou, Wenzhou people generally go to the market to buy some larger eel, cut open the light sun, it became our mouth "eel replica bags", eel replica bags than fresh eel is also delicious, is the New Year's Eve dinner with wine.

Pounding rice cakes

Also known as "pounding sugar cake" with glutinous rice mixed with some indica rice, plus brown or white sugar, steamed, put in a mortar and pounded tough, and then made into a rectangular shape, Rui'an called "slow food". If placed in different patterns of the printing plate, can be pressed into such as peony, peach, Kuixing, God of Fortune, Scholar, and carp, unicorn and other patterns of sweet cakes, also made into a Yuanbao-shaped, the maximum weight of about 3 kilograms, inserted with silver flowers can be placed on the long table in the middle of the hall, and each room can be placed on. This is also known as "do rice cake", that is, the meaning of the year high rise.

Sacrifice to the stove

On the 24th day of the 12th month of the lunar calendar, families also "worship the wok and stove Buddha". It is said that this is the day when the king of the stove goes up to the sky to report to the Jade Emperor on the merits of mortals. It is said that the god of the stove is a glutton, and as long as there is candy to eat, his mouth will be sealed, so all the sacrifices to the stove are made with maltose, so that the king of the stove will not say anything bad about the king of the stove in front of the Jade Emperor.

Dusting new

Annual lunar December 24 around, along the waxing "dusting new" custom, Wenzhou city households to sweep the dust and drive dirt, powder wall decorative room, polyester with the sun, each family took the opportunity to wash away the dirt piled up in the home for a year, ready to dry clean to welcome the spring.

Posting Spring Festival couplets

Another common custom of the New Year is to post Spring Festival couplets. As early as in the Song Dynasty, posting Spring Festival couplets has become a popular custom, the Song Dynasty, the Spring Festival couplets known as peach symbols, the ancients believe that the peach can drive away the ghosts and evil spirits, so often set up in front of the door of the items made of peach wood as a decorative, known as peach decorations, and then slowly transmuted into peach symbols that Spring Festival couplets. In the past, the Spring Festival couplets are written in black characters on red paper with ink, and in recent years, the market has become popular with the Spring Festival couplets printed in gold on big red paper, which is quite popular among people. On New Year's Eve, each family's main door, house pillars and windows on both sides of the red paper pasted with spring couplets, commonly known as the "door to". The lintel with four words, commonly known as the "cross-patch", single door sticker "Daji" two words. The main house, the hall, the study, as well as pigs, sheep, cows, are pasted with different contents of the Spring Festival couplets, the content of most of the prayers for good luck and peace and a good harvest in all walks of life.

The New Year's Wine

On New Year's Eve, the whole family will gather together and have a meal, or invite friends and relatives to eat and drink together, called "New Year's Wine". Because New Year's Eve is the dividing line between the old and the new year, eat a year-old wine, meaning that the old and the new year is divided by this night. Therefore, this meal regardless of rich or poor, should try to do some sumptuous. Wenzhou people are very concerned about eating the "year-end wine", also known as "New Year's Eve dinner".

Eating a year-old wine is very auspicious. In the past, the banquet would use ten red bowls with red sand, holding ten kinds of cold dishes, called "ten full". In addition to chicken, meat, there should be peanuts (knot), mandarin oranges (Daji), carp (jump Dragon Gate), tofu (family clean), etc., and each bowl must have a piece of thinly sliced round carrot head on the top, to show that the color. Eat over the New Year's Eve wine, we find their own entertainment, and often stay up all night, commonly known as "keep the year", also known as "looking forward to the New Year's Eve".

Open the door cannon

The first thing to do in the early hours of the first day of the first month of the year, the first thing to do is to fight "open the door cannon", the whole city a firecrackers, symbolizing to send the old to welcome the new and to receive the rich, commonly known as "to receive the year". Playing the "door cannon" also has the practice, generally is the first small firecrackers a string, called "hundred children gun"; and then put a double sound of big firecrackers, big firecrackers only three hair, meaning that can be lifted a year of plague plague obscurity, and said to receive the New Year. Requirements for three rounds are loud, bright and clear sound, the most auspicious.