Customs of Chinese New Year in Northeast China

There are a lot of customs passed down from ancient times, and in the case of the Northeast, there are quite a few.

In the olden days, almost all the celebrations of the New Year's Eve were centered on New Year's Eve. The whole family has to put on new clothes. First of all, the whole family together ancestor worship, burning incense and candles, wide Chen offerings, according to the seniority and seniority, to the clan three generations of God kowtow to the Lord, said resignation. Afterwards, a family feast is held, with the elders sitting at the top and the juniors sitting in a group, taking the meaning of "reunion of the whole family".

The meal must be rich, so that people have a sense of fulfillment, a sign of the coming year, food and clothing, business prosperity. This meal is the first taste of New Year's food, can be meat and vegetables together. Usually necessary to have braised pork, stewed mutton, rice flour meat, stewed elbow strips, Yuanbao meat, south fried meatballs, four happy balls, chicken jelly, fish jelly, pork jelly, soy sauce, tempeh tofu, mustard pier, spicy mustard, fried soy sauce melon children and other New Year's Eve set of dishes.

During the meal, young and old wish each other good luck, exchange glasses between brothers, and enjoy the happiness of the family.

After the meal, the children spread sesame straw all over the courtyard, people walking on it, crunching, known as "stepping on the year"; and then hung indoors and outdoors of the spring lanterns lit up, shining on the four walls of the New Year's Eve paintings and spring strips, indoors and outdoors, a brilliant light. On the "Heaven and Earth Table", there is a large yellow paper and colorful print of "18 Buddhas in the three places and three worlds" or "100 copies" (the image books of the gods of heaven and earth), and there are big cakes, honey offerings, noodle offerings, fruits, vegetables, New Year's cakes, New Year's rice offerings, high rice cakes, and so on. In order to welcome the gods down to the earth and bestow blessings on them, they make offerings of rice, New Year's rice, red candles with gold characters, and incense. In order to cherish the passing years, men, women and children stay up all night and engage in different recreational activities, which is called "keeping the New Year's Eve". The children used to play as they pleased, shaking the firecracker, pulling the gyro, twisting the figure of a rising official, rolling the dice, playing the cow card, blowing the glazed trumpet, the harmonica, playing the shadow puppeteer, lighting the horse lanterns, releasing the "dripping gold child", "rat shit", "yellow smoke with guns". "

Old women sit together and play cards, mahjong, and ten hu. Entertainment with fresh fruits, candies, dried fruits, mixed children, Wen Park, fried red fruits, candied begonias, etc., eat and play, enjoy, until the "reception of God".

Midnight, the sound of firecrackers, the night sky. "Silver flowers rust all over the sky, the whole street smoke thick". Families gather at the heaven and earth table to burn incense and offer vegetarian dumplings to welcome the gods. After the ceremony is completed, it is announced that the old year is over and the new year is coming, which is the solemn moment of "five nights and two years". The whole family says "New Year's Eve" to each other, the younger generation should go to the hall to bow to the elders to pay respect to the New Year, the elders must give the underage children one by one to introduce the "New Year's Eve money".

Finally, the whole family eats a meal of vegetarian dumplings, called "Wujing Dumplings" and "Reunion Dumplings". In a hundred and ten dumplings, only one of them has a coin, which means that the person who eats this dumpling will have a good year. Now the Northeast people celebrate the New Year, still retains many ancient traditional customs.