Customs of the Spring Festival, traditional customs

Spring Festival is a traditional festival in China. How did it come into being? Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. It is the grandest, most lively and most important ancient traditional festival in China, and it is also a unique festival for China people. Who knows the origin and customs of the Spring Festival? Let's learn about the origin and customs of the Spring Festival.

First, the origin of the Spring Festival:

The Spring Festival is the first year of the lunar calendar. Another name of the Spring Festival is China New Year, which is the biggest, most lively and most important ancient traditional festival in China, and it is also a unique festival for China people. It is the most concentrated embodiment of Chinese civilization. Since the Western Han Dynasty, the custom of the Spring Festival has continued to this day. Spring Festival generally refers to New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month. But among the people, the traditional Spring Festival refers to the sacrificial ceremony from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month or the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month to the 15th of the first lunar month in La Worship, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month as the climax. How to celebrate this festival, in thousands of years of historical development, has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits, many of which are still handed down today. During the Spring Festival, a traditional festival, the Han nationality and most ethnic minorities in China will hold various celebrations. Most of these activities are mainly about offering sacrifices to gods and buddhas, paying homage to ancestors, saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, and praying for the new. The forms of activities are rich and colorful, with strong national characteristics. On May 20th, 2006, the folk custom of "Spring Festival" was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

There is a legend about the origin of the Spring Festival. In ancient China, there was a monster called Nian. Its tentacles were very long and fierce. Nian lived on the seabed for many years, and climbed ashore every New Year's Eve, devouring livestock and killing people. Therefore, every New Year's Eve, people in the village fled to the deep mountains to avoid the harm of the "Nian" beast. One year on New Year's Eve, an old beggar came from outside the village. The villagers were in a hurry and panic. Only an old woman in the east of the village gave the old man some food and suggested that he go up the mountain quickly to avoid Nian beast. The old man smiled and said, "If my mother-in-law lets me stay at home for one night, I will definitely drive Nian beast away." The old woman continued to persuade and begged the old man to laugh without saying a word. At midnight, Nian beast broke into the village. It found that the atmosphere in the village was different from previous years: the old woman's house at the east end of the village had red paper on the door and bright candles in the room. The beast Nian trembled and let out a long whistle. When we were near the door, there was a sudden explosion in the yard, and Nian trembled and dared not go any further. It turns out that Nian was most afraid of red, fire and explosion. At this time, my mother-in-law's door was wide open, and I saw an old man in a red robe laughing in the hospital. "Nian" was frightened to disgrace and fled in confusion. The next day was the first day of the first month, and the people who came back from refuge were very surprised to see that the village was safe and sound. At this time, the old woman suddenly realized and quickly told the villagers the promise of begging for the elderly. The story soon spread in the surrounding villages, and people all knew the way to drive away the "Nian" beast. From then on, every year on New Year's Eve, every family posted red couplets and set off firecrackers. Every household has a bright candlelight, so it is better to wait for the New Year. In the early morning of the first day, I want to say hello to my relatives and friends. This custom has spread more and more widely, and has become the most solemn traditional festival among the people in China.

Second, the custom of the Spring Festival.

1, the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month.

In China, the Spring Festival usually begins with offering sacrifices to stoves. Sacrificing a stove is a kind of custom with great influence and wide spread among the people in our country. In the past, almost every kitchen had a kitchen god.

2. Sweep the dust on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month

"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.

On the 25th of the twelfth lunar month, the Jade Emperor received him.

According to the ancient custom, when the Kitchen God goes to heaven, the Jade Emperor will personally descend to earth on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month to investigate the good and evil on earth and decide the fortunes of the coming year. Therefore, every household offered his blessing, calling it "Meeting the Jade Emperor". On this day, we should be careful in our daily life and words, strive for good performance, win the favor of the Jade Emperor and bring good luck for the coming year.

4. Take a bath on the 27th and 28th of the twelfth lunar month

In traditional folk customs, intensive bathing and washing clothes are needed in these two days to get rid of the bad luck of the year and prepare for the Spring Festival next year. There is a saying in Beijing that "twenty-seven washes the sick, twenty-eight washes the sloppy". Taking a bath on the 26th of the twelfth lunar month is "washing Fulu".

5. On New Year's Eve of the twelfth lunar month, we will stick up door gods, put up Spring Festival couplets, celebrate the New Year, set off firecrackers, eat New Year's Eve, give lucky money and worship our ancestors.

New Year's Eve means "the month is poor and the year is over". People want to get rid of the old department, get rid of the old department, and the next year means getting a new department. This is the last night of the Lunar New Year. Therefore, the activities during this period are all around changing the old for the new, eliminating disasters and praying for blessings.

During the Spring Festival, there is a custom of putting up doors all over China. At first, the janitor carved mahogany into a human shape and hung it next to people. Later, it was painted as a janitor and posted on the door.

One source of Spring Festival couplets is Fu Tao. At first, people carved figures out of mahogany and hung them by the door to ward off evil spirits. Later, they painted the door god on the mahogany, simplified it and wrote the door god's name on the mahogany board.

Post blessings, stick grilles, New Year pictures and thousands of pictures. These all have folk functions of praying and decorating the residence. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China. They reflect people's customs and beliefs and place their hopes on the future.

Keeping the Year, China people have the habit of keeping the Year on New Year's Eve, commonly known as "keeping the Year". Watching the new year begins with eating New Year's Eve dinner. This New Year's Eve dinner should be eaten slowly, starting with lighting lanterns, and some families have to eat it until late at night. According to Zonggu's records of Jingchu's age, there was a custom of New Year's Eve dinner at least in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The custom of observing the old age not only includes the feeling of farewell and nostalgia for the fleeting time, but also expresses the good hope for the coming New Year.

Firecrackers, there is a folk saying in China called "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". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. Wang Anshi s Poem Yuan Ri;

Except for the one-year-old in firecrackers,

The spring breeze warmed the Tusu people.

Every family has a primary school birthday.

Always trade new peaches for old ones.

It depicts the grand festival scene of China people celebrating the Spring Festival.

Eating New Year's Eve is the most lively and enjoyable time for every household in the Spring Festival. On New Year's Eve, a table of rich Chinese New Year's dishes, family reunion, sitting around the table and having a reunion dinner, I really can't tell you the sense of fulfillment in my heart.

Give lucky money, which is given by the elders to the younger generation. In some families, everyone is not allowed to leave the table after eating. When everyone has finished eating, the elders will give it to the younger generation to encourage their children and grandchildren to learn and improve in the new year.

In ancient times, ancestor worship was very popular Due to different local customs and habits, the forms of ancestor worship are also different. Some go to the wild to sweep graves, and some go to the ancestral temple to worship their ancestors. Most of them put their ancestral tablets in the main hall in turn at home to show their worship, and then worshippers worship them in order of age.

6. Pay New Year's greetings on the first day of the first month.

When the door is opened in the morning of the Spring Festival, firecrackers are set off first, which is called "opening the door to set off firecrackers". After the firecrackers, the ground is broken red, which is the so-called "full house". At this time, the streets are full of anger and joy.

An important activity of the Spring Festival is to congratulate the New Year at new friends and friends' homes and neighbors, which used to be called New Year greetings. 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". When paying New Year greetings during the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders and wish them health and longevity. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can kill evil spirits, because "old" and "special" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money.

7. Visit the temple fair

Visiting temple fairs is the Spring Festival complex of most people in China, and it is also an indispensable custom. The temple fair in the Spring Festival was originally a folk religious ceremony. At temple fairs, monks and Taoists usually hold "ceremonies" or "Dojo" to offer sacrifices to gods and buddhas. People must also go on pilgrimage, make wishes, make wishes and seek blessings. During the temple fair, there were vendors selling and folk art performances. At the temple fair, there are many traditional activities with a long history that are deeply loved by ordinary people, such as lion dance, dragon dance, yangko, walking on stilts and boating.

8. Look at the social fire

In addition to temple fairs, folk self-entertainment and social fire are also long-standing annual entertainment activities. Social fire originated from the worship of land gods and fire gods in ancient times. Society, land god; The ancestor of fire, fire, is the legendary Vulcan. In China, which is famous for its farming culture, land is the foundation of people's foothold and lays a material foundation for human survival and development. Fire is the source of people's cooking and heating, and it is also an indispensable condition for human survival and development. The ancients thought that fire also had "spirit" with primitive thinking and worshipped it as a sacred object with special significance, thus forming the concept of respecting fire. The worship of land and fire in ancient times produced the custom of offering sacrifices to social fires. With the development of society, the ceremony of offering sacrifices to social fires has gradually become a grand, rich and diverse folk entertainment.

9. Dragon dance

Dragon dance, also known as "playing with dragon lanterns" and "dragon dance", is one of the traditional dance forms of Han nationality. Every festival, there is a custom of dragon dancing everywhere.

Dragon dance originated in the Han Dynasty and has gone through several generations. Dragon dance was originally a ritual to worship ancestors and pray for rain, and later it gradually became an entertainment activity. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, dragon dancing has become a common form of expression in festivals.

About the origin of dragon dance, there is a folk legend: One day, the Dragon King suffered from unbearable back pain and took all the medicines in the Dragon Palace, but it still didn't work. I had to become an old man and come to this world for treatment. The doctor felt strange after feeling the pulse and asked, "You are not human, are you?" The dragon king can't hide it, so he has to tell the truth. So the doctor changed him back to his original shape and caught a centipede from the scales around his waist. After being poisoned and bandaged, the Dragon King recovered completely. To thank the doctor for his treatment, the Dragon King said, "As long as you dance and play with dragons like me, you will have a good weather and a good harvest." . After this incident came out, people thought that dragons could sow clouds and rain, and they would dance dragons and pray for rain every drought. There are also the rules of spring dance Qinglong, Summer Dance Red Dragon, Autumn Dance White Dragon and Winter Dance Black Dragon.

10, lion dance

Lion dance, also known as "lion beating" and "lion dancing", is a traditional dance form in China. Like dragon dancing, it is a popular folk sports activity. They will also dance lions during the Spring Festival or celebrations.

Lion dance began in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. In China, there are various forms of lion dance, which can be roughly divided into two types: northern lion dance and southern lion dance. The northern lion dance looks like a real lion, and it is covered with a lion's cloak. Lion dancers (usually two people dance together to form a big lion) only show their feet and see no one. There are lionesses and lions in the north, as well as Wen lions, Wu lions, adult lions and young lions.

Southern lion is mainly popular in Guangdong. This kind of lion dance consists of one person dancing the lion head and one person dancing the lion tail. Lions are different from lions in the north in shape, style and color. Lion dancers wear all kinds of knickerbockers and Tang-style lantern sleeves or tightly buckled vests to show the whole body of the lion dancers. Lion dancing needs all your strength.

Why do people especially like lion dancing during the Spring Festival? According to legend, in the early Ming Dynasty, a monster appeared in Foshan, Guangdong. At the beginning of the new year, it came out to destroy crops and hurt people and animals, and the people complained bitterly. Later, it was suggested to scare the monster with lion dance, and it really worked. The monster escaped. Locals believe that lions have the power to exorcise evil spirits and have auspicious omen, so they beat gongs and drums every Spring Festival and go door to door to dance lions to celebrate the New Year, so as to eliminate disasters and predict good luck.

Third, the dietary customs of the Spring Festival.

In ancient agricultural society, housewives began to prepare food for the New Year from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Because curing bacon takes a long time, it must be prepared as soon as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of curing bacon, among which Guangdong is the most famous.

Steamed rice cake, because of its homophonic "high year" and diverse tastes, has almost become a must-have food for every household. The styles of rice cakes are square yellow and white rice cakes, which symbolize gold and silver and express the meaning of making a fortune in the New Year. The taste of 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.

In jiaozi, there is a tradition of eating jiaozi on New Year's Eve in the north, but the custom of eating jiaozi varies from place to place. Some places eat jiaozi on New Year's Eve, some places eat jiaozi on New Year's Day, and some mountainous areas in the north have the custom of eating jiaozi every morning from the first day to the fifth day. Eating jiaozi is a unique way for people to express their wish for good luck when they bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year. According to the method of punctuality in ancient China, the time is from 1 1 in the evening to 1 the next morning. "Intersection" is the moment when the new year and the old year intersect. Jiaozi means getting married at an older age, and eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival is considered a great luck. In addition, jiaozi is shaped like an ingot, wrapping jiaozi means wrapping good luck, while eating jiaozi symbolizes prosperity.

Lantern Festival, Lantern Festival, Taoism calls it "Shangyuan Festival". According to the notes of Yi Tu Zhen (female+lang) in Yuan Dynasty, I quote the notes of Sanyutie: After the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, I missed her and fell ill. On the fourteenth day of the first month, a teenager suddenly asked for an audience, claiming to be the messenger of Chang 'e, and said, "Madam knows you are thinking, and there is no way to go down. Tomorrow is the full moon. You should use rice flour as a pill, put it in the northwest of the room, call your wife's name, and you can go down in three nights. " You obeyed the law, and Chang 'e really came. It can be seen that eating Lantern Festival means "reunion is like the moon".

In the Ming Dynasty, Lantern Festival was very common in Beijing, and the practice was no different from today. During the reign of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the "Babao Lantern Festival" and the Ma Siyuan Lantern Festival prevailed in the ruling and opposition parties. In the early years of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai ordered that it was forbidden to shout Yuanxiao, because it had the same pronunciation as "Yuan Xiao". In addition to glutinous rice noodles, there are glutinous sorghum noodles, yellow wheat and so on. The fillings include sweet-scented osmanthus sugar, mountain slag sugar, assorted foods, bean paste, jujube paste and so on. Physically, there are walnuts as big as soybeans, "Baizi Tangyuan", and "deerskin Tangyuan" with solid and thin skin in jiaozi.