What are the traditional customs in Xiamen during Chinese New Year? What are the ones that are still practiced today?

The Spring Festival is the biggest and grandest festival of the year, and in Xiamen it is celebrated from at least New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the first month of the lunar year. Before the festival, families put up Spring Festival couplets. On New Year's Eve, families gather around the stove (hot pot) to eat New Year's dinner (reunion dinner), to show that the family reunion in the coming year. Some people stay up all night, which is called "keeping the New Year's Eve". Elders give red envelopes to underage children, called "New Year's money". On the first day of the first month of the year, the door was opened at dawn, and Van Xiang burned explosives, which was called "Kai Zheng". Wake up in the morning to sacrifice ancestors, is the day, the manure does not dump outdoors. Early in the morning, there is the custom of eating noodles, indicating that the new year of health and longevity. People put on new clothes and go to their relatives' homes to pay their respects in order of seniority. When they meet friends, they congratulate each other on the new year. Guests to the home, should be treated with sweet tea, candies, preserves; guests with children, is given to the gift of citrus, fruits. The second day of the first month, the son-in-law day, the daughter with her husband back to his mother's home. The third day of the first month, as the new mourning home sadness day, generally do not visit and go out to celebrate the New Year. The ninth day of the first month, the Jade Emperor's birthday, incense to honor the gods. However, the mourning family has to stop worshiping for two years.

On the stove:

New Year's Eve New Year's Eve dinner, called "eat twenty-nine all night", most love to eat hot pot (warm pot), "around the stove" family fun. Hot pot has "a pot" (the whole pot of a frame), "mandarin ducks pot" (two frames), "four-color pot" (four frames). The famous dish "Yipin Fortune" is formed from the "Yipin Pot", the soup is pork or chicken and duck soup, the main dish is Golden Dollar (egg), Silver Dollar (pigeon's egg), and the whole hoof is called "One Trouble and Harmony", and the black spiny cuttlefish is served with seaweed. The black thorns of cuttlefish tied together with seaweed are called "Wujin Moyu", the wings of chicken and duck are called "Pengcheng Miles", asparagus is called "Jiejie Gaoxing", and vermicelli is called "Fukushu Mianlong". Fortune and longevity", fishballs, meatballs and hairy vegetables are called "reunion and wealth", chicken head and fish head and tail are called "beginning and end", and ham feet and claws are called "smooth sailing". "Pingbuqingyun", the end of the fruit, meaning "immortality", eating citrus, a symbol of good luck. Due to the hot pot steaming, food tumbling non-stop, do not break the soup, add good ingredients, it is called "the more you eat the more you have, the more you burn the more prosperous". Xiamen people pay special attention to seafood, such as silver carp ("year-round"), oysters, red shrimp, arkshells, Wang snails, kelp, and hairy vegetables and tofu ("hairy fortune"), etc., in recent years there is a beer hot pot, tofu hot pot, croquettes hot pot, assorted hot pot, etc. should be marketed.

Nian gao (rice cake):

Eating nian gao (rice cake) is a way of wishing the elders good luck and happiness every year! It is also a way of wishing elders a long and happy life. Rice cake is also called "Nian Nian Cake", "Nian Nian Cake" from the "sticky sticky cake" homophonic evolution. A Qing Dynasty man, Cheng Nesai, wrote a poem to illustrate the meaning of the rice cake: "The heart of the people is good and high, and harmonizes the sound to make food. The meaning is that the year is better than the year, so as to pray for a ripe year." Xiamen people call rice cake "kuey teow", and there are various varieties, both sweet and salty, the sweet ones are white sugar kuey teow, black sugar kuey teow, with winter melon, red dates, peanuts, etc.; the salty ones are jin gua (pumpkin) kuey teow, choy tau (radish) kuey teow, sweet potato (groundnut) kuey teow, taro kuey teow, with pork, shrimp, dried oysters, mushrooms, green onions, etc.; in addition, there are also liang cuey teow, hairy cuey teow, bowl cake kuey teow, and other kinds of food, such as rice cake and rice cake. kuey teow, bowl cake kuey teow ．．．．．．

Pancakes:

A poet in the Qing Dynasty wrote a poem about pancakes: "Spring comes to the world in a roll of", describing the pancake crust as "thinly cut the full moon, and softly rolled into a thin tube", and describing the pancake filling as "strangely hidden silk wisps, and chewy flavor melting". The filling of the pancake is "a mixture of silk and wisps, and the taste of chewing is melting". Pancake is also a great invention of Xiamen people. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty (1522--1566), Li Chunfang, a native of Tongan who was the governor of Chaozhou, married his daughter to Cai Fuyi, a native of Cai Chu in Jinmen (at that time, Jinmen was under the jurisdiction of Tongan County). Later, Cai Fuyi became the Governor of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Guangdao military affairs and Guizhou governor, busy with public affairs, day-to-day management, often sleep and food. Mrs. Cai saw it in her eyes and loved it in her heart, and was afraid that it would be harmful to her husband's health in the long run. So, she will be some fish, meat, shrimp, vegetables, bamboo shoots, beans, etc. stewed over a slight fire, wrapped in dough rolls, placed on his son-in-law's desk, so that he can eat while the office, two birds with one stone. This dish is known as the "granny cake", Xiamen language "granny" "thin" homophonic, it is also known as "pancake". It spread from the government to the people, "Mrs. pancake" and become "beauty pancake".

Yuanzai:

Eating Yuanzai, also known as eating Lantern Festival, is also called Tangyuan or Tangtuan in some places. It is said that eating Lantern Festival began at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, and only in the Song Dynasty was it called Yuanzi, taking the meaning of "reunion and roundness". In the Song Dynasty, a writer said that this food is "Panicum powder wrapped in sugar, fragrant soup bath," and 16 words of praise for a song: "Panicum powder, a bit of sugar cane frost; bath to the sinking water, clear sweet and fragrant." Xiamen Yuanzai will be the flavors of all over the world, both sweet and salty, some white heart, some packaged filling, assorted, bean paste, date paste, bamboo shoots, pork, lard all have.

New Year's Day customs have the same origin in Fujian and Taiwan. In the past, Fujian and Taiwan have this custom: the first day of fried eat leftovers from New Year's Eve, each person tasted a few mouthfuls; will be carp and green vegetables eaten together, can get wealth.

Traditional Xiamen customs on the third day of the first month can not visit the door to pay tribute to the New Year, to worship the dead at home. There is a proverb that "the first morning, the second morning, the third sleepy A full", meaning that the third day of no guests to the door, no harm in getting up late. So how did this custom come about? According to legend, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese invaders occupied the outer islands of Xiamen. On the night of New Year's Eve, the officials and soldiers were busy with New Year's Eve and neglected to keep guard, so a large group of Japanese invaders took the opportunity to attack the city, and the people and the army rose up to resist the enemy, and the battle raged for two days and three nights before the Japanese invaders were defeated and retreated, but the casualties among the people and the army in the city were very heavy. On the third day of the first month, the people buried their friends and relatives, mourning the dead, crying, no time to visit other families to pay tribute to the New Year. The next year, the third day, Xiamen residents take this day as a taboo day, over time, become customary. (Note: For the same reason, the coast of Fujian have this custom, just a different time, such as Fujian Putian Xianyou area for the second day of the first month.

Xiamen New Year's Eve customs - New Year's paste spring couplets

Red spring couplets, is the beginning of the New Year's most red-hot most new weather, spring couplets since the Five Dynasties so far has been flaunted red-hot for more than a thousand years, year after year, the new Peach for the old, every year, there is the most sincere most beautiful blessings let us blossom, so that we are full of hope for the world and the hearts of the people.

The custom of Xiamen is said to have flourished since the city was founded in the Ming Dynasty. According to Mr. Fang Wentu, in the old days, Xiamen city, the Spring Festival is approaching, set up stalls everywhere to sell spring couplets, usually social interaction, but also often with couplets to socialize, for which the bookstore specializing in the printing of couplets, such as 1836 by Xiamen, Wende Hall engraved and printed by the "elegance Dacheng," that is, the compilation of more than 1,000 couplets, which part of the Spring Festival couplets, there are 154 couplets.

In recent years, most people in Xiamen buy their couplets from the market, and few of them write them themselves. Red paper and gold lettering does look good, but just get rich, make money and such content is inevitably monotonous. Therefore, before the Spring Festival this year, Xiamen Couplet Association organized Xiamen poetry, calligraphy, association, painting all parties, to push the envelope, joint creation, writing a number of new Spring Festival couplets, such as "welcome urbanization, yearning for the Gulf type", "Xiang'an warm flowers open, Jimei winds and heron birds" "Eugenics compliance with the national policy, advocate honesty and trust in the people's wind", "Heron Sea, a bay of unlimited business opportunities, the river and the sky of ten thousand miles of friends such as clouds," and so on, quite a regional and contemporary sense, showing a new wave of meteorology.