The Forgotten Traditional Festivals Essay

The Spring Festival is an ancient Chinese festival and the most important one in the whole year. Therefore, there are a lot of customs in this festival. Take this opportunity to introduce to you! 1 Posting Spring Festival Couplets Spring Festival Couplets evolved from the "Peach Stalks" of the Warring States period more than two thousand years ago. According to the Huainanzi, the peach symbol (i.e., the peach stalk) was carved from peach wood. It was engraved with the incantation of "Sending Blessings" and was changed once a year. When Emperor Meng Chang of Shu had a whim during the Spring Festival in the Five Dynasties, he had the peach tree sliced, and he wrote a couplet on it: "New Year's Day is a blessing for all, and the festive season is an everlasting one". This is the earliest Spring Festival couplet in China. As for the official birth of the name of Spring Festival couplets, it was in the Ming Dynasty. Ming Dynasty founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang built the capital of Jinling, had in the new year's eve decree: "public officials and the common people's families, must write a pair of spring couplets to decorate the new year". Later, the spring couplets were popularized and are still used today in every household during the New Year. 2. New Year's Eve Dinner On the evening of the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, families will gather together to eat New Year's Eve dinner. Of course, this is the first meal of the New Year, and it can be eaten either at one's own home or at the home of one's elders. There are strict rules about the number of dishes to be served. In our family. Every year, there are eight dishes at the New Year's Eve dinner, and fish and chicken are essential. Fish symbolizes a good year's harvest, and chicken is a Cantonese favorite. They are both good omens of good luck! 3. Firecrackers at midnight on the night of Xu Xi It is also a special custom to set off firecrackers at midnight on the night of Lunar New Year's Eve, which means "to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new year". There is also a saying for welcoming the New Year, which is called "keeping the New Year's Eve", so to speak, "keeping the New Year's Eve" actually means staying awake from the 30th day of the New Year to the first day of the New Year. For most young people, this is the best time to have fun. Of course, this is not always the case, some of the old and strong old people will also be with the young people to celebrate the New Year! 4. should be festive activities early in the morning of the first essay writer network you can also contribute, a lot of lion dance team and the Yingge team beat the gongs and drums to the villages and households to pay homage to New Year's greetings, the owner of the firecrackers to welcome. On the second and third day of the Lunar New Year, towns and villages will organize recreational activities to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Such as showing movies, ball games, calligraphy and painting exhibitions, riddles and so on. During the day and night people travel in groups to enjoy watching, a lively and joyful atmosphere to welcome the Spring Festival. 5. to the red envelope to the red envelope Chinese New Year customs in an important one, the elders to share the money to the younger generation, can earn the younger generation should also send money to the elders. The money can not be sent straight, but to be very carefully packed in a Li Shi bag. This is commonly known as "pressure belly waist", meaning that the year from beginning to end, the waist bag will be full of solid, rich and wealthy. 6. New Year's Day to the family and neighbors to pay tribute to the New Year is also a rule, in the first day of the New Year, you must go to the grandparents' home to pay tribute to the New Year, the second time you must go to the grandparents' home to pay tribute to the New Year, only to the third and fourth to go out to the neighbors and friends to pay tribute to the New Year. In short, it's a new start for the new year. I believe that in the full of ***, lively 2008, all of us can be healthy, happy! A New Year's Eve, why elders should give children the New Year's money Every New Year's Eve, children will get the elders to give the New Year's money. Why is it important to give children money on Chinese New Year's Eve? There is a story that has been widely circulated. Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a small demon with black body and white hands, named "Sneaky", which came out to harm people on the night of the 30th day of the New Year every year. It touched the sleeping child's head three times with its hand, and the child cried in fear, and then he had a fever, and then he talked nonsense and got sick from then on, and after a few days the fever subsided and the disease went away, but the smart and clever child turned into a demented and crazy fool. People are afraid that the child will be harmed by the evil spirits, so they will light up the lamp and sit still, known as "guarding the evil spirits". There is a family surnamed tube in Jiaxing, husband and wife in their old age, as the jewel in the palm of their hand. On the night of New Year's Eve, they were afraid that the evil spirits would harm the child, so they forced the child to play. The child with red paper wrapped eight coins, unwrapped on the package, package and unwrapped, has been playing until bedtime, wrapped in eight coins on the side of the pillow. Couples do not dare to close their eyes, next to the child long night guarding sneaking. In the middle of the night, a huge wind blew open the door, blew out the lamp, the black short little man with its white hand touch the child's head, the child's pillow into a bright light, the sneak hastily shrink back to the hand screamed and fled. Mr. and Mrs. Guan told everyone about the story of the eight coins wrapped in red paper to scare off the sneak. Everyone also learned to use red paper wrapped in eight coins after the New Year's Eve dinner and gave them to the children to put on their pillows, and sure enough, the sneaks never dared to harm the children again. Originally, these eight coins are changed by the Eight Immortals, in the dark to help the child to scare off the Sneaky, therefore, people call this money "pressure Sneaky money", but also because of the "Sneaky" and "age" resonance, with the passage of years and was called "New Year's Eve money". In the history of our country, there was New Year's money at a very early stage. The earliest Lunar New Year's money is also called the aversion to win money, or called the big Lunar New Year's money, this kind of money is not the circulation of the money on the market, is in order to wear to play and cast into the shape of a coin to avoid the evil products. This coin form of wear items first appeared in the Han Dynasty, some of the front of the coin cast on the text and a variety of auspicious words, such as "thousands of years", "peace in the world," "to remove the evil" and so on; back cast with a variety of patterns, such as dragons and phoenixes, tortoises and serpents, double fish, fighting swords, stardust and so on. Tang Dynasty, the court in the spring scattered money wind prevailed. At that time, the Spring Festival is "spring day", is the day of mutual worship in the palace, the folk did not have this custom. Ziji Tongjian" Volume 26 records Yang Guifei gave birth to a child, "Xuanzong personally to see, happy to give the consort to wash the child gold and silver money" thing. In addition to congratulations, the more important significance of the money here is that the elders give the newborn child to protect the amulet from evil spirits and demons. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the first day of the first month to replace the spring, known as the Spring Festival. Many of the original belong to the Spring Festival custom also moved to the Spring Festival. The custom of scattering money on the Spring Festival evolved into the custom of giving children New Year's money. Qing Fucha Dun Chong, "Yanjing Yearly Records" is recorded in this way: "colorful rope through the money, braided into a dragon shape, placed at the foot of the bed, known as the New Year's Eve money. Honorable elder's gift to the children. Also known as the New Year's money." By the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of the New Year's money is given to children with red string. After the Republic of China, it evolved into a hundred copper yuan wrapped in red paper, the meaning of which is "long life", to have been an adult offspring of the New Year's Eve money, red paper is wrapped in a foreign currency, symbolizing the "prosperity", "a book of 10,000". After the currency was changed to banknotes, parents liked to choose the new banknotes with matching numbers to give to their children, because "Lian" and "Lian" are homophonic, which symbolizes that the future generations will be "rich and prosperous" and "rise high in the world". From the above description, it is easy to find that the custom of New Year's money has a long history, it represents a kind of elders to the younger generation of the good wishes, it is the elders to the child's amulet, blessing the child in the new year of health and good luck. II. Why eat dumplings on New Year's Day Dumplings are a long history of folk food, popular with the people, folk have "delicious but dumplings" proverb. Whenever the Chinese New Year, dumplings have become an indispensable delicacy. According to "Guangya" written by Zhang Yi of the Wei Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, there were already foods shaped like a crescent moon called "wontons", which were basically similar in shape to the present-day dumplings. During the North and South Dynasties, wontons were "shaped like a crescent moon and were commonly eaten throughout the world". It is assumed that after the dumplings were cooked, they were not fished out and eaten separately, but were mixed with the soup and served in a bowl, so the people at that time called the dumplings "wontons". This way of eating is still popular in some areas of China, such as Henan, Shaanxi and other places, people eat dumplings, to put some cilantro, green onion, shrimp, chives and other small ingredients in the soup. Around the Tang Dynasty, dumplings had become exactly the same as today's dumplings and were fished out and put on a plate to be eaten separately. In the Song Dynasty, dumplings were called "jiao'er", which is the etymology of the word "dumpling" in later times. This style of writing can still be seen in the subsequent Yuan, Ming, Qing and Republic of China. In the Yuan Dynasty, dumplings were called "flat food". In the Ming Dynasty, Shen Bang's "Miscellaneous Records of the Wan Agency" recorded that, "On New Year's Day, we pay tribute to the New Year's Day ...... as a plaque of food". Liu Ruoyu's "discretion in the Zhi": "the first day of the first day of the festival ...... to eat fruit snacks, that is, plaque food." Yuan and Ming Dynasty "plaque food" "plaque", now known as "flat". "flat food" a, may come from the Mongolian language. Qing Dynasty, such as "dumplings", "water snacks", "boiled meat and potatoes" and other dumplings about the new title. The increase in the number of names for dumplings indicates that the geographical area in which they are spread is constantly expanding. The custom of eating dumplings in the Spring Festival has been quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Dumplings are usually wrapped before 12:00 pm on the night of the 30th day of the new year, to be eaten in the middle of the night, when it is the beginning of the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, eating dumplings to take the meaning of "more years to hand over the child," the "child" for the "son of the time! "The meaning of eating dumplings is "to celebrate reunion" and "good luck". There are many legends about eating dumplings on New Year's Day, one of which says that it is to commemorate Pangu's opening up the sky and ending the mixed state, and the other is to take it as a harmonic of "Hun Hoard", which means "grain hoard". In addition, folklore has it that the folklore of eating dumplings is related to the creation of man by Nuwa. When Nuwa created man, due to the cold weather, the ears of the yellow earth people would easily freeze off. In order to keep the ears in place, Nuwa tied a small eye in the ear, tied the ear with a thin thread, and put the other end of the thread in the mouth of the yellow earth people to bite on, so that the ear could be considered done. In order to commemorate Nuwa's achievements, the people made dumplings in the shape of a human ear, with a filling (thread) inside, and ate them with their mouths. Dumplings have become an indispensable part of the Chinese New Year program for a number of reasons: First, they are shaped like Yuanbao. People eat dumplings in the Spring Festival to take the sound of "attracting wealth and treasures", and the second is that dumplings have a filling, so it is easy for people to put all kinds of auspicious things into the filling, in order to send people's prayers for the new year. When making dumplings, people often put gold ruyi, sugar, peanuts, dates and chestnuts into the filling. Those who eat ruyi and sugar will have sweeter days in the coming year, those who eat peanuts will live a long and healthy life, and those who eat jujubes and chestnuts will give birth to precious children early. In some areas, people eat dumplings with some side dishes for good luck. For example, eating tofu, symbolizing the happiness of the whole family; eating persimmon cake, symbolizing the success of everything; eating three fresh vegetables. Symbolizing the three suns. Taiwanese people eat fish dumplings, meat dumplings and hairy vegetables to symbolize reunion and wealth. Dumplings come in many varieties depending on the filling and the method of preparation. Even if the same kind of dumplings, there are different ways to eat them: the Daur people in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang put the dumplings in a vermicelli broth and cook them. Then eat the soup with dumplings; some areas of Henan will be dumplings and noodles cooked together, the name of the "golden thread through the treasure". Dumplings have become an important part of China's food culture while bringing joy to people on New Year's Day. Third, eat New Year's Eve after the family's house is dressed up, New Year's Eve will come. Housewives are busy preparing the most sumptuous and meaningful New Year's Eve dinner of the year. As the name suggests, a New Year's dinner is a meal where families gather together to celebrate the New Year, not forgetting even their deceased ancestors. Therefore, after a family has prepared a New Year's Eve dinner, the first thing they must do is to "pay homage to their husbands" (offer sacrifices to their ancestors). When making offerings to the ancestors, the incense burner representing the ancestors is brought down from the shrine and placed on the offering table, then incense is burned and prayers are offered to invite the ancestors to eat. Then the elders and children kneel down in order, which fully demonstrates the traditional virtue of the Chao people to be prudent and filial. After the festival, the meal for the ancestors is reheated, a big table is set up in the hall, and the family gathers around the Kin, which is a wonderful moment of reunion for every family. No matter how far apart the family is, or how many problems they have, this is the time to laugh and be happy, not to talk about sadness or quarrels. After dinner, the housewife is busy cleaning up the dinner table, so a big cleaning activity will begin. This cleaning does not have to be very elaborate, purely for the sake of cleanliness, unlike the one at the end of the year, which must be swept and brushed with pine branches and grass.　Go to Baidu to check ~