Chaoshan Yuanxiao Custom Composition

Because the first month is the beginning of a year, Chaoshan people often regard it as a sign of good or bad luck in the New Year, so there are many "taboos" during the New Year. The following is my composition about the customs of Chaoshan Lantern Festival. Welcome to read!

Chapter 1: The Lantern Festival in Chaoshan falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month, also called "Shangyuan Festival". It originated in the Western Han Dynasty in China, and was regarded by Chaoshan people as a festival to celebrate happiness and reunion, symbolizing good luck and a bright night in the future. Shangyuan is the first full moon night when spring returns to the earth, so it is called Yuanye and Yuanxi, and the tide is commonly known as "Fifteen Nights". Ancient times were the most charming, lively and "night" time of the year. This night is not only bright and bright, but also brightly lit and twinkling, so it is also called "Lantern Festival". In the first year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty (1862), Chen Kun, the magistrate of Chaoyang County, recited the poem "Chaozhou Lantern Festival": "The lights of Shangyuan are red and six streets, and the clothes and fragrance of the characters are the same everywhere. Meet with a smile and forget the enmity, and there is no news. Who works with Yi Deng Tiger? " Tang Bohu, a romantic talent in the south of the Yangtze River, also left a wonderful poem praising the popularity of Lantern Festival: "Without lights, there is no entertainment, and without lights, there is no spring; Spring is everywhere, just like the lady seen here. On a bright moonlit night, flashing lanterns set off the moon like pure silver. The streets are full of women swimming in the village, and the stars are singing and playing; If you don't laugh, how can you get rid of this wonderful time? " The poem tells a touching scene of a man and a woman celebrating the Lantern Festival.

The Lantern Festival cultural entertainment and activities of Chaoshan people are rich in content, diverse in forms, varied, unique and fascinating. Besides traditional lanterns, there are fireworks, animal dances, lion and dragon dances, graffiti dramas, yangko, square dramas, film screenings, swings and solve riddles on the lanterns. There are also "sitting on a big dish", "pushing the toilet wall", "holding a big pig", "seeking happiness", "making a ding table", "hanging banyan branches and bamboo tips on the door" and "gambling on sugar lions", which contain folk customs and anecdotes. Especially, in Zhanglingu Port of Chenghai, every household has to cook mouse rice and feed it to relatives and friends. This peach is the most homesick of overseas hipsters. On the night of Lantern Festival, the whole family got together and held a banquet to eat "family happiness". Clams, garlic and fish are indispensable delicacies in a gourmet feast. In ancient times, clams' shells meant coins, and eating clams meant "counting money". Eating garlic symbolizes auspiciousness for many years and "will be cost-effective"; Eat fish to pray for family prosperity, more than a year and so on.

It turns out that Chaoshan Lantern Festival also has so many habits.

Chapter II: The Lantern Festival in Chaoshan is celebrated all over the world on the 15th day of the first month, especially in Chaoshan area, where the main activities are playing lanterns, solve riddles on the lanterns, dragon (lion) dancing and eating jiaozi. The excitement of Chaoshan people celebrating the Lantern Festival has long been recorded in historical materials: the Ming Jiajing version of the tide drama "Lijing Collection", when the Lantern Festival is superimposed, said that "three streets and six lanes are good light sheds"; Qing Jiaqing's Chenghai County Records said: "On the New Year's Eve of the Lunar New Year, temples are decorated with lanterns, vying for the Aoshan Mountain, picturesque figures, pavilions and pavilions ... vying for lanterns."

In fact, Chaoshan people are not limited to the fifteenth day of the first month, and celebrations (such as temple fairs) often run through them. In villages and towns, at this time of year, venerable old people will come out and take the lead, and organize villages to send their own dragon (lion) dance teams to participate in collective parades to meet the gods. The day when the parade arrives in a village is the day when the village is "lively" to worship the gods. In addition, some towns and villages with better spiritual civilization construction will organize friendship basketball games during this period, which not only enlivens the atmosphere, but also strengthens the exchanges between villages (towns).

Chapter 3: Chaoshan Lantern Festival is also called Shangyuan Festival. This is because Taoism believes in the three official gods (Tiangong, Underground Palace and People's Palace), and the fifteenth day of the first month is called Shangyuan Festival, hoping to be blessed by Tiangong. Most activities of Chaoshan Lantern Festival include hanging lanterns, swimming lanterns, lion dancing, solve riddles on the lanterns, eating soup and medicine, and so on. Its main content is lanterns, so it is also called Lantern Festival. It has the strongest entertainment color, so it is called the Lantern Festival.

The Lantern Festival in Chaoshan is second only to the Spring Festival. Old-fashioned God Tours are held around the Lantern Festival, with long activities, many events and more rich folk culture. After the reform and opening up, local governments advocated to carry out various healthy cultural and social activities at home and abroad during this period, making this festival more contemporary and positive.

Lantern Festival lanterns have always been very popular. Ming Jiajing's engraving of the Chao Opera "Mirror Flower Edge" was once folded, saying that "three streets and six lanes are good light sheds". Qing Jiaqing's "Chenghai County Records" quoted the old zhiyun: "Since the eleventh night, the temple street has been decorated with lanterns, maids wandering, bloom flowers falling, swinging, and singing to the peak." He also said: "On this ordinary night, all the temples are decorated with lanterns and colorful decorations, competing for wonders, picturesque Aoshan, pavilions and pavilions ... competing for lanterns." The most famous is Chaozhou. After the rise of Chaozhou Seiryuji in the early Qing Dynasty, the whole city indulged in lanterns and drums for three nights every year. Every second night, we gather at the North Gate Arrow Road for appraisal, and strive for perfection year after year, making Chaozhou Lantern famous at home and abroad. Chaozhou folk song "Hundred Lights Song" shows the prosperity of Chaozhou Lantern Festival.

Except for the large-scale Lantern Festival, festive lanterns are hung in every household. Starting from the 13th, I went to the ancestral temple to hang lanterns. On the 15th, I brought them back and hung them at home, called Xing Lantern. "Light" and "Ding" are homophonic. All the old customs should be "popular" to facilitate the writing of homophonic "Xing Deng (Ding)" on lanterns during Lantern Festival. Nowadays, Lantern Festival viewing basically has no such connotation. In towns and some rural areas where civilization has developed, the old customs have been abandoned and replaced by neon lights of various commercial advertisements, decorative lights of government agencies, stars in parks and roads, and lanterns filled with dry batteries for children to enjoy. Many families have colored lanterns, and some families traditionally hang red lanterns with light bulbs. Cities and counties also hold large-scale light shows, with colorful fire trees and silver flowers, old bottles and new wines, which are pleasing to the eye.