How did birthdays come about in China?

Everyone has a day in the year that is uniquely theirs, and that is their birthday. On this day, we invite three or two friends to sing at a KTV, have dinner with our families, or organize a big birthday party. according to Chinese folk customs, the birth anniversary of a person under 40 years old is usually called "birthday", and those who have passed this limit are called "birthday". The Chinese folk custom is to call birthdays under the age of forty "birthday" and those after that "birthday. However, no matter what, with the pace of life nowadays getting faster and faster, people are more and more like to find some reasons to give themselves "vacation", which "birthday" is one of the best excuses, and thus friends and family so a gathering, birthday noodles had to eat, cake had to cut, wine had to drink, why not? The first thing you need to do is to get your hands dirty!

The origin of the birthday culture has been the subject of many different opinions. As early as in the pre-Qin "Li Ji, Nei Zi" in the record: "Zi Sheng: men set arc in the door on the left, women set handkerchiefs in the door on the right." Here, "arc" refers to a bow, and "handkerchief" refers to a handkerchief worn on the body, meaning that when a child is born, if it is a boy, a bow will be hung on the left side of the door, and if it is a girl, a handkerchief will be hung on the right side of the door. Since then, every year on this day, people have to hold a feast to celebrate, which is commonly referred to as "birthday". So why do people celebrate birthdays?

The first is to celebrate the continuity and prosperity of life.

In the "Book of Han - Lu ò biography" recorded such a thing: "and Gaozu (Liu Bang), ò strong, learning books, and love each other. Ri Zhongjia two families love each other, give birth to a son on the same day, strong and love each other, and then congratulate the sheep wine." According to later analysis, Lu òà?'s father and Han Gaozu Liu Bang's father lived in the same mile, as a life and death friendship, the two wives and the same day each gave birth to a baby boy, the townspeople learned of this news specially prepared gifts to congratulate, and "re congratulate" date is likely to be the anniversary of the birth of the two children, that is, what we say! Birthday. The custom of celebrating birthdays was very popular at the end of the Qin Dynasty.

The second theory: gratitude to the mother for giving life.

As the saying goes, "A child's birthday is a mother's difficult day." Leaving aside the October pregnancy, whenever a life comes into the world, as a child's mother must endure great physical and psychological pain, so there is also a saying in folklore that the original meaning of the birthday is to "grieve for the parents, I was born," "Charge! "is the meaning of labor and hard work, hope that through the birthday to memorialize the mother's labor and childbirth pain, to experience the hard work of parents. In the "Sui Book - Gaozu record", Sui Wendi had issued an edict: "June 13, is my birthday, it is appropriate to make the sea for Emperor Wu Yuan, Yuan Ming Empress cut off the slaughter." The "Emperor Wu Yuan" and "Empress Yuan Ming" here were Yang Jian's biological parents, Yang Zhong and Lu, and Yang Jian asked the whole country to go vegetarian on his birthday in order to memorialize his parents. Not coincidentally, in the "Yan's family training - wind exercises," also recorded that the southern dynasty Liang Yuan Di's birthday is the sixth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, every day, he will set up a "fasting lecture" in the palace. It is worth noting that the same article also mentioned that some areas of Jiangnan at that time, in order to set up wine to celebrate the way to celebrate the birthday, this move was denounced by the author as: "uneducated people, although to the lonely dew, the day are all for the supply of the ton, sound and music, do not know that there are sentimental." Visible, the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties period in the north of China, do birthday is mostly out of the Confucian concept of filial piety, to serious formal ceremonies, mostly with the color of mourning, according to historical records, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties after the Han Gaozu insisted on not engage in the birthday celebrations, the birthday is more like a commemoration of the ceremony, however, the custom of celebrating the birthday every year has been quietly popular in some parts of the south of the country.

The third theory: eliminate disasters and drive away evil spirits.

This argument stems from a folk legend: a young man's family is poor, there is only a seventy-year-old mother to depend on. Once, the teenager suddenly got an unknown disease, the family has no money to cure, see the dying time, someone told him a way, said that a certain month and a certain day, the eight Immortals will pass by this place, you can prepare the wine to seek their help. The young man acted according to plan, really saw the eight immortals, cured the strange disease, when he was leaving the eight immortals told him: "Today is the day of your regeneration, and every year thereafter to be celebrated on this day, will be able to live a long life." After the news spread, the birthday wine treats gradually became a local custom, spread. Although this is a legend, but also can be seen, the birthday in the hearts of many people have a kind of elimination of disease, praying for the next year peace of mind.

As we all know, the birthday accompanies the whole process of a life, it witnessed the life of the first to come into the world when the "wow" cry, but also recorded the passage of years in the road traces, everyone on the birthday has a special emotion. In fact, birthdays are not only personal, which means that a person can never have a birthday only once a year. With the development of society, the expansion of the social circle, people have to be around at any time in a variety of birthday occasions, let's take a city of 3.65 million people as an example, every day there will be 10,000 people in the birthday: friends' birthdays, parents' birthdays, lovers' birthdays, boss's birthdays, colleagues' birthdays, the birthday of an important customer ... ... ... none of them can be missing. In addition, "July 1" is the party's birthday, "August 1" is the army's birthday, "11" is the motherland's birthday, there are also school celebrations, the anniversary of the founding of the company, the shopping mall's store celebrations and so on. However, no matter what the purpose is and what kind of effect we hope to achieve, birthdays have become an inseparable part of people's lives. In the birthday of this unified concept, pregnant with huge business opportunities and immeasurable spending power, from a different perspective, get a different market segments, and each market, she is equally fascinating.

"Life in the world must be happy, do not make the golden bottle empty to the moon." Birthday moment, is the moment of laughter and song, is the time to call friends and friends, is the time to talk about wine! Birthday celebrations can not be separated from the wine, celebrating the birthday is even more inseparable from the wine, looking at this market demand, Sichuan Jiannanchun Group carefully created China's first special birthday wine - "birthday wine", its appearance is the inevitable market segmentation, but also the development of the times demand.