About China Folk Customs

Spring Festival is an ancient festival in China, and it is also the most important festival in a year. How to celebrate this festival has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits in thousands of years of historical development, and many of them have been passed down to this day.

1. Dust removal

"On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lv Chunqiu, China had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the Yao and Shun era. According to the folk saying: Because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not being new", and its original intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. This custom has placed people's desire to break the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean the environment, clean all kinds of electrical appliances, remove and wash bedding curtains, sweep six yards, dust cobwebs and dredge culverts in open channels. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.

2. Post Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and delicate words, which are unique literary forms in China. 3. stick grilles, pour the word "Fu"

In the folk, people also like to stick various paper-cuts on the windows-window grilles. Window grilles not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality.

Paste new year pictures

Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future.

Step 5 keep your age

Keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve is one of the most important activities, and the custom of keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record can be found in the Local Records of the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties give gifts to each other, which is called "the year of giving back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "not old"; Young and old get together to drink and wish a complete song called "age division"; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for dawn. This is the so-called "shou sui".

6. Eat jiaozi

The folk custom of eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival was quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Generally, jiaozi should wrap it up before New Year's Eve 12, and eat it at midnight. At this time, it is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Eating jiaozi means "making friends when you are young", and "Zi" is homophonic with "jiaozi", which means "reunion" and "good luck".

Setting off firecrackers

There is a folk saying in China that "open the door and set off firecrackers". That is, when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Firecracker is a specialty of China, also known as "Firecracker", "Firecracker" and "Firecracker".

8. Happy New Year

On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same patriarch from door to door. Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings; Others get together to congratulate each other. This is called "group worship". Because it takes time and effort to pay New Year greetings at home, some elites and scholars later congratulated each other with stickers, thus developing the later "New Year cards".

9. Eating habits during the Spring Festival

Eating rice cakes, the taste of eating rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers like to eat jujube rice cakes, 100-fruit rice cakes and white rice cakes made of glutinous rice or yellow rice. Hebei people like to add jujube, red beans and mung beans to rice cakes and steam them together. In northern Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places, it is customary to eat yellow wheat fried rice cakes during the New Year, and some people will also stuff them with bean paste and jujube paste, while Shandong people steam rice cakes with yellow rice and red dates. The rice cakes in the north are mainly sweet, steamed or fried, and some people simply eat them with sugar. There are sweet and salty rice cakes in the south, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of japonica rice and have a light taste. In addition to steaming and frying, you can also slice and fry or cook soup. Sweet rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, rose, osmanthus, mint, vegetable paste and other ingredients. They are fine in workmanship and can be steamed directly or fried with egg white.

The night before the real Chinese New Year is called Reunion Night. Wanderers who are away from home have to travel thousands of miles to go home, and the whole family has to sit around and wrap jiaozi for the New Year.

10 .. Spring Festival Poetry

Tianjiayuan Day

(Tang) Meng Haoran

I returned to the north last night and set out from the east today;

I'm already strong, and I'm worried about agriculture without money.

Mulberry field cultivates father, lotus hoe follows shepherd boy;

Tian said that this year's climate is abundant.

Selling dementia

(Tang) Fan Chengda

On new year's eve, people don't sleep, tired of being depressed and forcing the new year;

Children are told to take the long street, and clouds are called to sell if they have dementia.

Except at night.

(Tang) Legu

It's a matter of unity being empty, and Wan Li is lovesick overnight.

Worried that the crow dies, you will see the spring breeze again.

The first day of the lunar month

(Song) Wang Anshi

In addition to the one-year-old firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tu Su;

Thousands of families always trade new peaches for old ones.

Yuanri Yulouchun

Maopang (Song Dynasty)

Every year, the lotus drops leak, and Bijing Tu Su sinks the frozen wine.

Han Xiao is still cheating. She is slim in spring.

Beauty urges a long life, and cypress leaves and green peppers are covered with beautiful sleeves.

Deep in my hometown, I don't know each other, but I only stay with Dong Jun.

New Year's Eve

Wen Tianxiang (Southern Song Dynasty)

Dry kunkong, years go to the church;

The end of the road is stormy, and the poor side is full of ice and snow.

Life disappears with the years, and the body is forgotten;

There is no such thing as killing Su Meng. It's still early at night.

Pay new year's call

(Ming) Wen Zhiming

I don't want to meet, but I want to talk about it. The famous papers are all us.

I also throw some paper at people. The world is too simple and empty.

Is new and correct.

Julia (Ming)

The wind and frost in heaven and earth are exhausted, and the weather in Gankun is harmonious;

Add the New Year, and the old mountains and rivers will spring.

Mei Liufang is full of pride, sloppy and old;

Tu Sucheng was drunk and laughed at Baiyun.

Today is New Year's Eve.

(Qing) Huang Jingren

A thousand smiles are slow, and worries are hidden from the outside.

People standing high on the stone bridge seem to be on earth, staring at the sky, but seeing a star like a moon.

Fengcheng new year speech

(Qing) Check Shen Xing

Cleverly cut Silla and paint colorful gold like a moth;

Since then, the scissors have been idle for a month, and there are more sewing in the boudoir before the age of 20.

Wu Jia New Year's Day

(clear) hole

Xiao Shu's white hair is not full of ups and downs, and the old-age stove actually sleeps.

Cut the candle and dry the midnight snack wine, and spend all the spring money.

Listen to the childlike innocence of burning firecrackers and see the change of peach blossom characters.

Add a plum blossom to the drum horn to celebrate the New Year in Lian Xiao.

New Year's Day takes up the charm of Liu Yazi.

Dong

* * * Laughing and laughing for the New Year, Hongyan Lady sends plum blossoms;

Everyone toasted each other in the toast to express their wishes for the New Year. After all the people were not satisfied, they tasted the tea of victory together and talked about current affairs.

Only loyal to the country, there is no paradise at home;

Song and dance accompany Beijing to welcome the festival and overlook Yan' an scenery.

See the flower market during the Spring Festival.

Lin

Mickey met to see the flower market, but leaned against the arcade like a gallery;

Bundled potted plants are lined up, and the grass plants are woody and fragrant.

The lights are bright all night, and the songs are fascinating.

It was this year that the scenery was beautiful and colorful.

China people use red to express their national characteristics, and red represents enthusiasm, diligence, energy and love. Yu Ximan has been looking for the reason why China people like red. China people are naturally suitable for red.

Spring represents the beginning of a year, and the Spring Festival is a new year at that time. When spring comes, it's called Spring Festival!

Jiaozi originated in China and has a history of more than 2,600 years. The Book of Rites is one of the Confucian classics compiled by Dai Sheng in the Western Han Dynasty, and it is a monograph devoted to the study of various etiquette before the Qin and Han Dynasties. It says, "Rice comes second, meat comes first, so it can be fried as bait." However, there are different opinions on who made the jiaozi, and there are neither accurate and detailed historical records nor reasonable and scientific explanations. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that there are two theories about the origin of jiaozi.

Zhang Zhongjing said that jiaozi originated from Zhang Zhongjing's "medical sage" and "giving up medicine on the winter solstice". During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing, a Nie native of Nanyang County (now Gedong Town, dengzhou city City, Henan Province), devoted himself to studying ancient medical books and collecting effective prescriptions, and wrote Treatise on Febrile Diseases, which was regarded as a classic by doctors in past dynasties and made outstanding contributions to the development of traditional Chinese medicine. Throughout his life, he took the motto of "saving the world if he advances, saving the people if he retreats, not being a good doctor, but also being a good doctor" as his motto, helping the world and saving people and caring for the people. Changsha served as the magistrate and was in charge for three years. He did not forget to practice medicine in the lobby. He saw that the villagers on both sides of the Baihe River were all scrawny with cold, and many people's ears were festering with cold, and they couldn't bear it. They resigned to practice medicine for the people. When winter arrived, he asked his disciples to set up a shed and support a pot in Dongguan, Nanyang, and cook mutton, peppers and herbs for dispelling cold in one pot. When cooked, take it out and chop it up, and then cook it into an ear-shaped "pepper" soup. After each person drank a bowl of soup with two horns, his whole body was swollen with blood, his ears were burning, his cold disappeared, and his frozen ears soon recovered. It has been handed down from generation to generation for more than 1700 years, and people eat Joule to the sun every winter to commemorate Teacher Zhang Zhongjing.

Li Shimin said, according to legend, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, liked to eat meatballs and was afraid of being greasy, so he asked the chef to add vegetables to the meat. As a result, neither frying nor boiling can be formed. When the chef had a brainwave, Emperor Taizong asked what it was, and the chef replied that it was made of leather bag meatballs, which were very strong and called "prison pills". Unexpectedly, Emperor Taizong was overjoyed and even shouted, "Great! That's great! " Playing that kind of "prison pill" has become a landmark food for major festivals. 1972, archaeologists found more than a dozen pieces of "crescent-shaped" food in a wooden bowl buried in the tomb of Astana Tang in Turpan, Xinjiang, which were identified by experts as "prison pills" in the Tang Dynasty, similar to today's jiaozi. It can be seen that as early as 1300 years ago, the courtship of the Tang Dynasty had spread to ethnic minority areas in the western regions.

The historical evolution of jiaozi has gone through a long and gradual process. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Zilie gave a good explanation: "jiaozi's ear, that is, Duan Shi, Tang Wan, or Fenjiao, is pronounced jiao by northerners, but it is fake jiaozi because it is called jiaozi as bait." Yan Zhitui said in the collection: "Today's wonton is shaped like a crescent moon, and it is delicious all over the world." According to a lot of data, from "prison pill" to "pepper" and finally called "jiaozi", it has a history of hundreds of years because of incorrect pronunciation. Jiaozi was the most popular in the Qing Dynasty, when jiaozi was everywhere. The famous dumpling restaurant was founded by Renqiu people in Hebei Province in the ninth year of Daoguang in Qing Dynasty. Later, he was inherited by his father and followed by three grandchildren. Among them, Sun San Bianlin set foot in the north of the Yangtze River, collected information everywhere, integrated the cooking principles and traditional skills of Chinese cuisine, and founded the famous jiaozi-"Old Border jiaozi". 1929 founded the "Old Capital One Place" dumpling restaurant in Harbin, with sea cucumbers, scallops, shrimps and other seafood as the main raw materials, which was well received by Chinese and foreign customers. More interestingly, during the Guangxu period, the bell-shaped jiaozi made by Baekje Dumpling House in Sanchahekou, Tianjin, was delicious, stuffed with meat, and shaken with chopsticks. The taste and craftsmanship were amazing. Now they hang old signs in the food street.

It was in the Han Dynasty that jiaozi became the main food custom during the Spring Festival in China. After the great social turmoil in the Qin Dynasty at the end of the Warring States Period, the policy of "rest and recuperation" was implemented at the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, social production was restored and developed, and social order was stable. The date of the New Year was set, and jiaozi was eaten on the first day of the first month. From the Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the custom of Chinese New Year became more and more fierce. The Ming Dynasty's History of the Forbidden City recorded the scene of eating jiaozi on New Year's Eve. "Starting from the fifth watch ... drinking pepper and cypress wine, eating snacks, that is, eating flat food. Or there is a dollar or two hidden in it, and the winner will be one year old. " The Spring Festival is the most poetic festival. Taking beginning of spring as the beginning of the year, welcoming the New Year means welcoming the spring. Therefore, China New Year is the most important festival in China's life, which is both joyful and sacred. As Lu Xun said, "the end of the old calendar is the most like the end of the year." On this day, people condense the sowing in spring, the cultivation in summer, the harvest in autumn and the collection in winter into deep joy and sweetness, the hope and expectation of the four seasons. Parents put all the happiness accumulated in a year on the table. Children who have left their homes, whether it's sunny, cold and warm, or snow smearing He Jiang, covered with mountains and rivers, with swords and swords, will "run through the New Year" and go home to eat dumplings, even if the world is far away and close at hand. For this creature, living in the jungle of reinforced concrete, or a beautician who dresses up for the earth, people do it at sunrise, rest at sunset, work hard, go home again and again, and go on the road again and again. On New Year's Eve, jiaozi is the end and the starting point. "Even if there are thousands of precious dishes, it is not as good as a mat in jiaozi" (a round mat made of double-layer arrangement of crop straws similar to sorghum). * * * See the old and new, and bid farewell for one night. This "two-year-old one night, two-year-old in five classes" New Year's Eve jiaozi can realize the celebration of "older jiaozi", which means the renewal of childhood, so it adds a lot of attention to this jiaozi: First, the stuffing must be vegetarian, not meat, which means quiet and smooth; Second, there will be many people in the bag, and people who can work will get together to show friendship and welcome; The third is burning straw, which can only be burned with sesame stalks, cotton stalks and other straws, without blowing with bellows, which means that life is getting higher and higher; Fourth, we must obey the rules and eat according to the order of generations. The older generation eats first. Don't eat even numbers when eating. Odd numbers are unlucky. Shoot before eating, which means eliminating disasters and exorcising evil spirits. Try to shorten the time when eating and put an end to mistakes. When jiaozi is in the big market, his family will hug him. When eating, he doesn't dip in the juice, and the children don't serve, which means peace, harmony and good luck. This kind of food is shaped like an ingot, which means making money into treasure and accords with people's psychology of praying for wealth. Jiaozi has stuffing, and the contents of stuffing are ever-changing and varied. The family wrapped jiaozi on the case, put the dough in the palm of their hand, and put the stuffing on the round skin to express a blessing. This is a change and mystery, far more complicated and civilized than foreigners eating turkey. Eat, the whole family, old and young, around the steaming jiaozi, savoring the hard work of grandma and mom and experiencing the passage of time together. The warm and peaceful atmosphere sets off the feeling of becoming a monk, and the attraction of family is far greater than the temptation of food. Eating is not only delicious, but more importantly, enjoying family and maternal love. "There is no jiaozi in the New Year, and jiaozi can't eat it last year." The statement is somewhat biased, but it reflects people's desire and yearning from one side. Small slot, wrapped in Gan Kun and people's psychology of happiness, peace, auspiciousness and hope in the coming year, is a symbol of abundance and harvest in the new year. It is completely integrated with the traditional culture of China, and it also casts the soul of the descendants of the Chinese nation and permeates everyone's life.

China is a vast country, and the custom of eating jiaozi on New Year's Eve is different. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Hebei's "Suning County Records" contained: "On the first day of New Year's Day, everyone enjoys it together, eats flat food, and takes the meaning of young friends." In Suzhou and Hangzhou, we eat eggs, jiaozi and chubby fish on New Year's Eve, but the fish only eat those with a head and a tail in the middle, and there are gold and silver ingots and a head and a tail in them. Throughout the year, family affairs flourished. In Kunming, Yunnan, you can eat bait made of soybeans on New Year's Eve, which can be fried, roasted and boiled into a sweet and salty taste. I wish you a bumper harvest in the new year. Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning eat Chinese sauerkraut meat dumplings on New Year's Eve, which means "sour treasure" (Zhabao). Jiaozi cooked with vermicelli in Henan area, which is called "vermicelli jiaozi", which means "jade belt wrapped in treasure". In Shaanxi area, jiaozi and noodles are soaked and boiled, which is called "gold thread goes through the ingot". In Shandong, on New Year's Eve, the whole family sat together to pack jiaozi and jiaozi, who must be vegetarian, hoping to have a clean and peaceful New Year. In southern provinces, we eat more glutinous rice balls and fried rice cakes on New Year's Eve, which means that every year the reunion is round and tall. Ethnic minorities' New Year's Eve dinner has its own characteristics. Mongolians call the Spring Festival "White Festival" and the first month "Bai Yue". On New Year's Eve, they cook jiaozi and roast leg of lamb, eat around the stove and offer "farewell wine" to their elders. Manchu people are eating a hearty New Year's Eve dinner, eating jiaozi and tofu. Dishes include blood sausage, sauerkraut and white meat, as well as fish and meat dishes symbolizing auspicious celebrations. Miao New Year's Eve in Xiangxi is sweet wine and zongzi, which means that life is sweet and the grain is plentiful. People of Lahu nationality in Yunnan must make glutinous rice harrows on New Year's Eve. One pair is very big, which is said to symbolize the sun and the moon, and several small ones symbolize the stars in the sky, so as to wish the new year a good weather and fruitful results. Although these customs are different, being a vegetarian on New Year's Eve is the same as * * * *, eating jiaozi is the same as * * * *, and the beautiful moral is that * * * and * * * are the same, both in order to add a good color to the New Year. This is the real reason.

"Delicious but jiaozi". Jiaozi is delicious, and more and more people eat it. Many places in our country regard jiaozi production as industrial management, develop jiaozi's economy and expand export to earn foreign exchange. Frozen jiaozi is exported to Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries. The development of jiaozi has also developed from flat to dumpling feast. This kind of food, which was only available in previous festivals, has now become a popular commodity, with a wide variety, which can be found in all seasons, such as Muyu jiaozi, Lace Crescent jiaozi, Yuanyang jiaozi, Sixi jiaozi, Butterfly jiaozi, Gold and Silver jiaozi, Lady jiaozi, Pearl jiaozi and so on. In the past, jiaozi, a kind of leek, shrimp and Chinese cabbage that only dignitaries could eat, has entered the homes of ordinary people, and some vegetables and wild vegetables that are forbidden to make stuffing have also ascended the throne of dumpling stuffing. Jiaozi also has some nicknames, such as Bian Shi and Bianhe in the north, Bobo in old Beijing, Wonton in Guangdong and Wonton in Sichuan. jiaozi knows all the names. Let China and jiaozi go to the world, let the world know about China and jiaozi, and then know about China. Jiaozi is not only loved by China people, but also praised by foreign guests: China jiaozi, delicious!

Eat China jiaozi and taste the world's delicious food.