What are the customs of Spring Festival in Puning?

Chinese New Year: A few days before New Year's Eve, a general cleaning. On New Year's Eve or a day or two in advance, every household puts up Spring Festival couplets and prepares all kinds of food, including fish and meat. Poultry are mainly geese and ducks-traditionally, they cook braise in soy sauce (boiled in white water in a few areas), cook some food (rice, sugar, radish cake and so on), and prepare a large number of oranges and Chaozhou oranges (mainly used by relatives and friends to exchange good luck when celebrating the New Year). On New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers at a table to have a reunion dinner (New Year's Eve). You can call relatives and friends to pay New Year's greetings on New Year's Eve.

On the first, second and third day of the first month, we worship our ancestors in the morning.

These days, relatives and friends visit each other, pay New Year greetings, exchange oranges and Chaozhou oranges (meaning exchange good luck and blessings), sit and chat and play games. Distant relatives and friends call each other to pay New Year greetings. Married elders give unmarried seniors lucky money red envelopes, married young adults give red elder lucky money red envelopes, and couples also give each other red envelopes to bless each other.

Worship God on the fifth day of the first month.

Lantern Festival:

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lantern Festival (Shangyuan Festival, China Valentine's Day), offering sacrifices to gods, lighting and dancing lights to bless lovers. In Chaoshan, many rural villages wander around the fifteenth day of the first month (different villages may worship different gods), set off firecrackers, perform social dramas (Chao Opera) and sing and dance, which is quite lively. They worship Mazu for peace, and invite sugar lions (lions made of sugar, peanuts and white sesame seeds) to explore (earn high profits), and worship Guan Gong for wealth.

After the kitchen god went to heaven on December 24 of the lunar calendar, Chaoshan people began to prepare for the New Year. Every household carries out cleaning, rearrangement and decoration inside and outside the house; Steamed hearts, rat treading koji and other products; Buy new year's goods and new clothes; Haircut, beauty. Slaughter the "Three Birds" early on New Year's Eve and buy sacrificial items. After lunch, the whole family should take a bath, put on new clothes, pay homage to their ancestors, put up Spring Festival couplets, hang lanterns and put up notices on the walls. It is to set up a stove in the hall at night, and the family will have a reunion dinner around the stove. No matter how far your family is usually scattered, you should hurry home for reunion. After "surrounding the kitchen", elders should give their elders "lucky money" and those who can earn money should also give them red envelopes, which are called "waist-pressing pockets". On this day, you can't make noise and break plates, bowls and other utensils. If you break them, you can say something auspicious to make up for your mistakes, such as "opening your mouth to make a fortune", which symbolizes that the whole family is full from beginning to end. At home, the water tank should be filled with water and the rice tank should be filled with rice to symbolize "more than one year". Stay up all night, and every family stays up all year.

The first day of the first lunar month is the first year of the lunar calendar, which is called "Spring Festival". In ancient times, it was called "New Year's Day", commonly known as "New Year's Day". Early in the morning, every household put on new clothes and set off firecrackers to worship the ancestors of heaven and earth. When offering sacrifices to ancestors, vegetarian food should be used as a confession, because it is said that Maitreya Buddha sat down on this day, so vegetarian food was used. This custom has been circulating for a long time, and the Qing Shunzhi's Chaozhou Fuzhi said: "Yuan Day is a sacrifice." Qing Qianlong's "Puning County Records" said: In the Yuan Dynasty, ancestors were vegetarian and ancestors ate meat. "Then the whole family had a warm and friendly breakfast, and the next generation blessed their elders, who gave their expectations to the next generation. After breakfast, parents will take their children to visit relatives and friends. Whenever you visit relatives and friends, you should bring Chaozhou oranges. Because oranges are bigger than oranges, they are named big oranges. Oranges are homophonic with auspicious words, meaning "auspicious". A big orange means good luck. It doesn't matter much how many oranges you bring, but it must be even, not odd. On the tea table of the host family, there is always a plate of red and green oranges, banlang (now replaced by olives), plus candy to welcome guests and respect them. The custom of using betel nut in Chaoshan is recorded in detail in local county annals and county annals. Qing Qianlong's "Chaozhou Prefecture Records" said: "Without eat areca, it is simple and slow. Because "Bin Lang" and "Bin Lang" are homophonic and contain the meaning of "guest", the homonym of "Bin Da Lang Ju" has become a kind of etiquette to greet each other and exchange good luck. When the guests come in, they say some auspicious words to each other, such as "Happy New Year" and "Congratulations on getting rich". The host should invite guests to eat olives and sweets, drink congou (Jiexi Hakka people also respect the custom of "smashing tea and rice"), exchange good luck and give each other "profit market" (red envelopes). Then the host prepares wine and holds a banquet to entertain the guests, commonly known as congratulations.

Spring Festival is a sacred day, so there are many taboos in Chaoshan, such as not sweeping the floor, not washing clothes, and being afraid of losing money; Don't use long and short chopsticks when eating, or you will miss the opportunity in the transition; Don't eat porridge or drink rice soup, or it will rain when you go out; Don't speak ill, swear or fight. If a child hits or scolds a child, parents should apologize with a pair of oranges and wish others good luck.

Chaoshan people's custom of worshipping gods during the Spring Festival: Chaoshan people who live in the easternmost part of Guangdong Province and border with Jiangxi and Fujian still retain the folk customs of the ancient Central Plains of the motherland. Among them, "worshipping God" at the end of the year and "wandering God" at the beginning of the year are long-lasting folk cultural activities. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "I wander in February." Every year on the first day of the twelfth lunar month, people begin to "thank God", which is to repay God's "gratitude" to the human world. This activity lasts until1February 24th. On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, from the end of the year to the end of February, all towns and villages in Chaoshan will hold various "fugue meetings". The so-called God Tour is actually a folk carnival in Chaoshan villages and towns. From the end of the twelfth month to the second day of the first month, villages choose auspicious days (or fixed times) to worship God. The god you visited is not only a god enshrined in the city corridor, but also a god made locally and enshrined in the four gates of the village. In short, they are the gods of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Such as "King of Three Mountains", "Mazu", "Guan Ye", "Zhu Shengniang", "Big Master", "Second Master", "Third Master", "Dragon Tail Master" and "Chenghuang Master". Wandering God is the most distinctive cultural activity of Chaoshan God, and it is also a typical harmonious cultural activity in Chaoshan area.