When is the Lunar New Year? What are the customs?

In China, the New Year is not exclusively a holiday, and the day it is called varies from place to place due to different customs. Most areas in the north call the Zao Festival on the 23rd or 24th day of the Lunar New Year; many areas around Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai call the 5th day of the first month of the lunar year the New Year; and many areas within China call the 15th day of the first month of the lunar year the Lantern Festival the New Year, and there are places that call the winter solstice the New Year. In some places (e.g., Shanghai), it is customary to refer to the day before New Year's Eve as the New Year's Eve.

Generally, most regions within China celebrate the 23rd or 24th day of the Lunar New Year as the Small New Year. Xiao Nian is often regarded as the beginning of the big year (Spring Festival). After Xiao Nian, there are only six or seven days left before the Spring Festival, which means that people start to prepare for the New Year's goods, as well as sweeping the dust thoroughly to get rid of the old and welcome the new.

Legend has it that the day of the Lunar New Year is the day when the traditional Chinese mythological Lord Zao went to heaven, so many of the customs of the Lunar New Year are related to the Lord Zao. There are still quite a lot of stories about the New Year, among which there are many versions of the legend about Master Zao, and the most widely spread version is about Master Zao being a ? The most widely spread version is the one about Mr. Zao being a special agent. s story. According to legend, Zaojun is a minor deity sent by the Jade Emperor to supervise all aspects of life on earth, and often snitches in front of the Jade Emperor. If he commits a minor offense, he will lose 100 days of his life, and if he commits a major offense, he will lose 300 days of his life. The following is the old willow search of the small year origin legend story, please enjoy.

Legend One

Folklore, the Zaojun master went to heaven to specifically sue the earth sins, once the defendant, the major crimes to reduce life 300 days, minor crimes to reduce life 100 days. In the "Taishang Induction Chapter", there is also ? The Secretary with its lightness, take away its discipline counting? The description of "Si-Man" means Zao-Jun. The term "Si-Ling" refers to the God of the kitchen, and the term "Ji-Yi" refers to twelve years, while the term "Si-Ling" refers to the God of the kitchen. Here, the punishment for a serious crime is increased to twelve years of loss of life. Therefore, in the sacrificial stove, to beat the Zaojun, begging it to be high

Legend two

There is a rather interesting story circulating in the folklore. It is said that in ancient times, there was a family named Zhang, two brothers, brother was a plasterer, brother was a painter. The brother's specialty is the work of the pan pan, East Street please, West Square invited, all praised him for his high craftsmanship of the base stove. Over the years, he became famous and was honored as "King Zhang Zao" by all the people in the area. To say that Zhang Zao Wang is also strange, no matter to whose home base stove, such as the case of other people's families have disputes, he loves to meddle.

When he met the noisy daughter-in-law, he had to persuade, and when he met the fierce mother-in-law, he had to say, as if he were an old elder. In the future, the neighbors would go to him for anything, and everyone respected him. Zhang Zaowang lived to be seventy years old, and it was the night of the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year when he died. Zhang Zao Wang passed away, Zhang family can be a mess, the original Zhang Zao Wang is the head of the family, the family things are at his command, and now the elder brother left the earth, the younger brother will only poetry and painting, although the flower of the armor, but has never been in charge of the household chores. Several daughters-in-law are clamoring to split the family, the painter was stirred to do nothing, all day long sad face. One day, he finally came up with a good idea.

On the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, the first anniversary of the death of King Zao, late at night, the artist suddenly called to wake up the whole family, saying that his elder brother had manifested himself. He will son in law the whole family led to the kitchen, only to see the dark stove wall, floating candlelight vaguely show Zhang Zaowang and his late wife's appearance, the family were stunned. Painter said? When I went to bed, I dreamed that my elder brother and sister-in-law had become immortals, and the Jade Emperor had honored him with the title of ? The Jade Emperor has named him as the Jiu Tian East Kitchen Secretary Zao Wang Fu Jun. You have been lazy and lazy, and your sisters-in-law are not in harmony, not respecting and filial piety, which makes the family God uneasy. Big brother knows that you are making a fuss about the separation of the family, very angry, ready to go up to heaven to report to the Jade Emperor, the New Year's Eve down to the world to punish you. The children nieces and nephews-in-law heard these words, terrified, immediately kneeling down and kowtowing, busy fetching Zhang Zao Wang usually love to eat sweets to offer on the stove, pleading with the Zao Wang master forgiveness.

From then on, the often quarrelsome uncles and brothers and daughters-in-law never dared to make a scene, and the whole family got along peacefully, and the young and the old lived in peace and quiet. After the incident was known to the neighbors, a rumor spread, all rushed to the Zhang family to find out the truth. In fact, the night of the twenty-third day of the waxing moon on the wall of the stove stove king, is the painter pre-drawn. He was pretending to show the spirit of the big brother to scare the children nieces and nephews, I do not expect this method is really effective. So when the neighbors came to find the painter to find out the situation, he had to pretend to be real, the painted Zaowang statue distributed to the neighbors. In this way, it was passed down along the countryside to every household.

Legend Three

Legend has it that there is a Three Corpses God attached to all human beings, who often snitches to the Jade Emperor and says bad things about the earth. Within a short period of time, the Jade Emperor received many secret reports from him, saying that the earth was going to conspire against the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor was furious when he read them and immediately summoned the God of Three Corpses and ordered him to write their crimes on the walls of the homes of those who had spoken ill of the Jade Emperor, and then asked a spider to make a big web and hang it under the eaves of the house. The Jade Emperor also ordered Wang Lingguan to go down to the world on New Year's Eve, and wherever he saw the three corpses of the God of the mark of the family, he would kill all the family. Seeing that the Three Corpses God was about to succeed in his plot and that he could monopolize the beautiful earth, the Three Corpses God flew down to the earth and marked the walls of every house. Zaojun discovered the plot of the three corpses god, and hurriedly got the Zaowang master of each family to discuss the strategy: from the day of sending Zao, every family was cleaned up before the New Year's Eve. When Wang Lingguan was ordered to go down to the boundary on New Year's Eve to inspect the situation, he found that every house was clean and unmarked, and that the people were peaceful and hard-working. When the Jade Emperor learned from Wang Lingguan and Zaojun that the Three Corpses God had wronged good people, he was furious and sent the Three Corpses God to prison for eternity. From then on, the kind-hearted Zaojun was embraced by everyone, and every year on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, Zaojun was sacrificed, and sweeping the dust on the twenty-fourth day of the Lunar New Year also became a folk custom.

Legend IV

The custom of sacrificing zaos on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year in Henan is accompanied by a sad folk legend. In ancient times, an old couple had only one son, the two regarded their son as the jewel in the palm of their hand, very much in love. But because of the poverty of the family, there is no lake mouth, had to bear the pain to let the son to the coal mine to dig coal. The son did not return for a long time, the old man extraordinarily miss. This day, the old woman asked the old man to the coal mine to see. On the way, the old man met a barefoot piece of the same way, the more the two walked more familiar, get along very well. In casual conversation, the old man learned that the barefoot piece is instructed by the King of Hell, to mine to recover a hundred miners. The old man was so anxious that he begged Lightfoot to leave his son behind. The old man begged the barefooted man to keep his son, but the barefooted man generously agreed and asked him not to tell anyone. When he saw his son, he pretended to be sick, and his son served him, but he was never able to go down the mine.

Soon, there was an accident in the coal mine, and the old man rushed to take his son home. Three years have passed, this year the waxing moon 22 night, the old man remembered that year's risk, can not help but say to the old partner. Who knows that this word was Zaojun heard away, twenty-third night, Zaojun went to heaven, told the Jade Emperor about this matter. The Jade Emperor was infuriated and immediately punished the barefoot piece and took away the old man's son. For this reason, every day on the 23rd day of the Lunar New Year, people honored Zaojun and ate Zao candies, hoping that after he went to the Heavenly Palace, he would not stir up the wrongs and wrongs on earth. Over time, people have been worshipping Zaojun on the 23rd day of the Lunar New Year.

The emperor of the Qing dynasty from the Yongzheng years, every year on the 23rd day of the lunar month in the Kunning Palace worship God, in order to save money, the emperor by the way, the Zaowang also worship. Later, the royal family, Baylor followed suit, on the twenty-third day of the lunar month to sacrifice the stove, and since then began to have the people and the government in different days to celebrate the small New Year's respectively.

In the folk, the small year has?

In folklore, there is a tradition that the government and the people have a different day to celebrate the New Year. tradition, that is to say, the official New Year is the 23rd day of the month of Lunar New Year, the people's home is the 24th day of the month of Lunar New Year, and the people on the water is the 25th day of the month of Lunar New Year.

North in the Southern Song Dynasty before the political center, by the official gas influence is heavier, so the small year more for the Lunar New Year 23; on the contrary, the South is far away from the political center, the small year for the Lunar New Year 24; and along the lakes, the sea residents, is retained the tradition of the boat family, the small year is set in the Lunar New Year 25.

Holiday Customs

Stove Sacrifice

Little New Year is a day for folk to sacrifice stoves. Since the Chinese basically consume rice, cooked food is generally not easy to preserve and must be cooked at any time. Unlike the western consumption of bread, you can bake many at a time to save and eat. So for the Chinese, ? Chai (fuel) is the most important part of life for the Chinese. (fuel) is one of the seven things in life. (seven things) in life. （Without fuel, even if there is basic food, there is no way to eat it, so every family in China must have a stove.

Because every family has a stove, a legend has arisen that the Jade Emperor sends a supervisor to each family, the Zaoshen (Zaojun, Zaojun, Zaowang, Zaowang), to supervise the family's behavior for a year, and on the twenty-third of Lunar New Year's Eve, the Zaoshen will go up to the sky to report to the Jade Emperor, who will then decide whether the family should be rewarded or punished for the next year, and then come back on the next New Year's Eve. The next New Year, the God of the Vesta will return to oversee the family's behavior. This day is actually a festival for each family to send the Zaoshen to heaven.

When offering sacrifices to Zaos, Guandong sugar is melted over a fire and smeared on the mouth of Zaowang, so that he cannot say bad words in front of the Jade Emperor. Folk also have ? Men don't worship the moon, women don't sacrifice Zao? The custom of sacrificing to Zao Wang Wang is therefore limited to men only.

Sweeping the dust

That is, sweeping the New Year, in fact, is to carry out the cleanup of the household environmental sanitation. People in the north call it ? Sweep room? The southern people called? Dusting? Traditionally, this day, every family dawn that is up, sweeping room cleaning window, washing clothes, scrubbing pots and pans, the implementation of clean and thorough health cleaning. According to "Gleanings" records, this custom can be traced back to more than three thousand years ago, when for the exorcism of the epidemic ghosts, praying for the well-being of the religious ceremony. After that, it was a religious ritual to drive away the ghosts of epidemics and pray for health and well-being. Dust? and? Chen? Harmonization, so sweeping the dust is also to sweep away the old things, which refers to both the old dirt in the courtyard, but also refers to the unpleasantness encountered in the old year.

Writing Spring Festival couplets

After the New Year, every household has to write Spring Festival couplets. Folk say that every god must be posted, every door must be posted, and every object must be posted, so the Spring Festival has the largest number of couplets and the most complete content. The couplets in front of the gods are especially elaborate, mostly words of worship and prayers. The couplets on the main door, which is the front of a family, are especially emphasized, either expressing emotions or writing scenes.

Cutting Window Flowers

Of all the preparations, cutting and pasting window flowers is the most prevalent folkloric activity. The content of a variety of animals and plants, such as magpies, swallows through the peach willow, peacocks play peony, lions rolling embroidered balls, three sheep (Yang) Kaitai, two dragons play pearls, deer and crane Tongchun (six contracts spring), five bats (Blessing) hold life, rhinoceros moon, lotus (Lian) year fish (Yu), mandarin ducks play in the water, the Liu Hai play gold cicada, and the two immortals, and so on.

Bathing

Adults and children have to take a bath and get a haircut. Folk have? Rich or poor, shaved head for the New Year?

Marriage

After the twenty-third, the folk believe that the gods went to heaven, no taboo. Marrying a daughter-in-law, hiring girls do not have to choose the day, known as rush messy marriage. Until the end of the year, the marriage ceremony is held especially more. Folk song has "the year yan countryside marriage busy, Yichun post to tease the spring light. Sisters speak privately in front of the lamp, keep this year is the cave" said.