Chaozhou folk customs and traditions of the essay 500 words, to be previously not.

There are many legends about the origin of the Spring Festival, which are widely circulated in the folklore, among which the story of Wannian is more popular. I chose this story for in-depth understanding, the story is summarized as follows: a long, long time ago, in the mountains and waters of the Dingyang Mountains, there is a not too large village. On the hillside at the head of the village, there was a small stone house where a young man named Wannian lived. His family was poor and he earned his living by chopping wood and digging medicine. At that time, the season was very chaotic, making it impossible for the farmers to plant their fields. Wannian was a young man who wanted to set the seasons right, but he didn't know where to start.

One day, Wannian went up the mountain to cut firewood, sitting under a tree to rest, the movement of the shadow of the tree inspired him, he made a sundial, measuring the shadow of the sun to calculate the length of the day. However, there are clouds and fog and rain, affecting the measurement of the record. He wanted to make another timekeeping device, so as to make up for the lack of sundials. That day, he went up the mountain to dig medicine, came to the spring to drink water, the cliffs of the spring water rhythmically ticking ticking, attracted his attention. He looked at the spring out of his mind. After thinking for a while, he returned home, drew and tried, and made a five-layer funnel pot. From then on, he measured the sun and shadow, looked at the leakage, and worked hard. Slowly, he realized that every 360 days or so, the length of the day would repeat itself from the beginning. The shortest day was at the winter solstice. At that time, the son of heaven was called Zu Yi, and the disorder of the festival made him very anxious, so he summoned all the officials to discuss the difficulties of the disorder of the festival. The official of the festival was called Ah Heng, who did not know the laws of the sun and moon, so he said that people were careless in their work and had offended the gods of heaven. Only by kneeling down and offering sacrifices can they be forgiven by the gods. Zuyi then fasted and bathed, and led all the officials to the Temple of Heaven to make sacrifices, and spread the word to the whole country to set up a platform to offer sacrifices to the sky. However, the sacrifices were not effective, and the season was still very chaotic; the people around the world had to serve and donate for the construction of the altar, which was really a pain in the neck with the bile. Wannian couldn't help it, so he brought his sundial and funnel pot to see the son of heaven. Wannian met the Son of Heaven, said the winter solstice, the sun and moon cycle. Zuyi heard, heart great joy, that is to order a large construction, in front of the Temple of Heaven to build the sun and moon pavilion, built on the sundial platform, built on the funnel kettle Pavilion. And allocated twelve children to serve Wannian, Wannian let six children to guard the sundial, six children to guard the funnel pot, carefully recorded, and reported on time.

One day, Zu Yi asked Ah Heng to go to the Sun and Moon Pavilion to inquire about the production of the calendar, Wannian pointed to the grass calendar and said: "Sunrise and sunset three hundred and sixty six, week after week from the beginning. Grass and trees wither and prosper in four times, a year of twelve round." A Heng heard, y feel is reasonable, but the heart is uneasy. He secretly thought: If Wan Nian set the seasonal order correctly, the son of heaven is happy, reuse Wan Nian, who still listen to my A Heng? Ah Heng thought and thought and thought, and he wanted to get rid of Wannian. One day, Ah Heng found out about an assassin who was good at shooting, so he sent someone to invite him to his home, set up a banquet, explained the reason, and promised him a great gift. The assassin promised to assassinate him that night. The day turned two drums, the assassin took advantage of the wine to leave the A Heng, to the Sun and Moon Pavilion to run. However, around the Temple of Heaven, the Sun and the Moon, there are guards, the assassin can not get close to the bow and arrow to the Sun and the Moon Pavilion is watching the stars on the Wannian shot. Who knows that the assassin has drunk too much wine, eyes dim, flying arrow only hit the arm of Wannian. Wannian fell to the ground with a thud, and the children called out for the thief. When the guards heard the shouts, they all went out, caught the assassin and twisted to see the Son of Heaven. Zu Yi asked the truth, ordered the A Heng received prison, and the seal out of the Palace on the Sun and Moon Pavilion to visit Wannian. Wannian very touched, pointing to the Shenxing said: "Shenxing caught up with the silkworm hundred stars, the stars recovered, the night crosses the Zi Hour, the old year is over, the time and the beginning of the spring, hope that the son of heaven to set a festival it." Zu Yi said, "Spring is the first year, let's call it Spring Festival. Secretary of love into the cabinet, three years not to go out, draining the liver and guts, to the full moon prevailed in the production of the Taiyin calendar, is really high merit and morality. Now the love of the Secretary by the sycophants assassinated, and follow me to the palace to recuperate." Wannian said, "Although the Taiyin Calendar was created, but it is not very accurate, and there are still a few hours left at the end of the year. If we don't put the end of the year into the end of the time, the sun and the moon like a shuttle, over and over again will be wrong calendar. I am responsible for the hope of all beings, by the grace of the Son of Heaven, I would like to break the heart of the Sun and Moon Pavilion, carefully projected, the grass calendar set accurate."

In this way, Wannian in the Sun and Moon Pavilion, carefully observe the glory of the grass, wheat and beans, carefully projected, the end of the year when the accumulation of the day into the month of wet in. Wannian presented the Taiyin Calendar, Zu Yi looked at the day and night work of Wannian, eyebrows also white, beard also white, y moved, the Taiyin Calendar named the Wannian Calendar, also named Wannian as the Sun and Moon Longevity Star. Therefore, later people also called the Spring Festival as the year, every time the New Year's Eve hanging on the house of the Longevity Star, symbolizing the new year to add longevity, but also to the high moral weight of the Wannian send nostalgic feelings.

One of the folklore - posting spring couplets. Posting Spring Festival couplets is an indispensable part of the series of activities to welcome the Spring Festival, as early as a few days before the Spring Festival, the streets are crowded with vendors selling Spring Festival couplets loudly. The stalls are filled with a wide variety of spring couplets. Each spring scroll has a blessing written on it, but each is different and intriguing. Some spring scrolls read: "The wind blows green willow in the south of the Yangtze River, and the spring rain urges to bloom flowers in the north of the Seychelles", while some spring scrolls read: "The water and the mountains are painted everywhere, and every family is rich in wealth year after year". Two short sentences, written live in the heart of the New Year festival people's good wishes.

I heard my grandfather say that Spring Festival couplets have a long history in China. The Song Dynasty poet Wang Anshi wrote in the New Year's Day: "The sound of firecrackers is the first year of the year, and the spring breeze sends ambiguous into the tassel. Thousands of doors and tens of thousands of pupils of the sun, always change the new peach for the old one." The new peaches and old talismans in this poem are the prototypes of spring couplets. Spring Festival couplets are also a kind of couplets, as a unique form of literature, from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the development has been more than a thousand years today, but its peak period is still in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Legend has it that after Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, set his capital at Jinling, before New Year's Eve one year, he passed a decree to Jinling and other places that "a pair of Spring Festival couplets must be added to the doors of public officials and common people." On New Year's Eve, he personally went out on a tour in micro-suits to get a sense of the real situation. Once he found a family did not paste the Spring Festival couplets, asked Fangzhi is a pig castration, do not know how to write their business content into the couplets. Zhu Yuanzhang heard, thinking for a moment, for the castration of pigs, said: "hands split the road of life and death; a knife cut off the root of right and wrong." This shows that Zhu Yuanzhang, the immediate emperor, has made outstanding contributions to the promotion and development of the Spring Festival couplets. To the Kangxi and Qianlong period, the art of spring scrolls is perfect. Whether from the content or from the form, have a certain level. Kangxi is also a master of writing couplets, his inscription of Zhenjiang Jinshan Seven Peaks Pavilion couplet, is a very good excerpts of the couplet: "Creek clouds at the beginning of the sun sinking Pavilion, the mountain rains want to full of buildings." Chunlian development to today, has entered a new era, Chunlian this ancient evergreen tree, will be in the new century to show attractive posture.

Folklore No. 2 - post the god of the door. Door god is also and spring couplets have the same status of a must-have Spring Festival, but with the development of culture, it has not seen much. I personally believe that its decline should be due to the reform of modern architecture for the door, the portrait of the god of the door is difficult to find a place here, and gradually dissipated. After much searching, I finally saw it. Listening to the introduction of the painting seller, this is the portrait of Shencha and Yubi, one of them holding a steel whip in his hand and the other with an iron mace at his waist, with the momentum of angry hair. Through the information, I learned that in the ancient times, there are two brothers, the god naphthalene Yu base, they live in the Dushuo mountain. Picking wild fruits, picking and planting peach tree life. In Dushuo mountain there is a peach tree, the shade of the tree like a cover. One day, the king of ghosts wanted to steal some peaches here to eat, so he told the little ghosts to go and pick them, but they were beaten up by the two brothers. The king of ghosts, in a fit of anger, appeared in his original form and broke into the residence of the two brothers at night. The two brothers, calm and collected, subdued the king and fed him to a tiger, and the ghosts bowed down to them. Every morning, they reviewed all the ghosts under the peach tree. Every morning, they would inspect all the ghosts under the peach tree, and if there were any evil ghosts that harmed the earth, they would be tied up and fed to the tigers. Later, people used two peach wood boards to paint the portraits of Shencha and Yubi, and hung them on both sides of the door to drive away ghosts and evil spirits.

Folklore No. 3 - post windowpane. Chinese paper-cutting art is an ancient handicraft art, but also a beautiful folk art in China, has a long history, it is rooted in the masses of people, has always been happy for the people, has been passed down nearly two thousand years of history. The art of paper-cutting as part of folklore, in the folk is its tenacious vitality of existence, development, and today its vigorous vitality has been greatly shown. Whether ancient or modern, a pair of scissors, a small piece of paper, can be cut out with a strong flavor of life paper-cutting works. Such as puppies, sheep and other animals in the twelve Chinese zodiac signs, they are exquisite, as if the work of nature. In the Spring Festival this festive days, we can see in the windows of each family's unique paper-cutting works - window flowers.

Folklore No. 4 - New Year's paintings. In addition to posting Spring Festival couplets and hanging door gods at the door, putting window decals on the windows and admiring the New Year paintings is also an important event in the Spring Festival. This New Year's paintings add a bit of harmony and tranquility to every household. In the old days, families in the Spring Festival, from the front door to the hall, are plastered with a variety of flowers and greens, symbolizing good luck and wealth of New Year's paintings, the reason why the Spring Festival is full of joyful and lively atmosphere, New Year's paintings play a certain role. By and large, the more affluent people, in the hall room always like to hang the old life star, Zi Wei Xing, fortune, wealth, life and so on. Plum orchids, bamboo and chrysanthemums and other birds and flowers, naturally, are also welcome. Now more common on the market on the "Zi fish lying lotus" (a fat doll, holding a large goldfish, lying on the even flowers play), "Phoenix" (painting the left side of a rock, standing on the colorful winds, the right two teenagers, talking to each other with the picture), "Yearly", or depicting the "Legend of the White Snake," "Journey to the West," "Water Margin" in the storyline of the New Year's Eve paintings.

Folklore No. 5 - New Year's money. After all, we still have to go back to one of the things that children look forward to the most in the Spring Festival, that is to send the new year's money. There is a story about the New Year's money that has been widely circulated. In ancient times, there was a kind of small demon called "Sneaky", which came out on the night of New Year's Eve and touched the head of a sleeping child with its hand, and the child would often cry out in fear, then suffer from a headache and fever, and become a fool. Therefore, the family is in this day lighted lamps sitting not sleep, called "guarding the Sneaky".

There is a family of husband and wife in their old age, as a son, as the heart of the treasure. On the night of New Year's Eve, they were afraid that the "Sneaky" to harm the child, they took out eight coins to play with the child. The child fell asleep tired of playing, they put the eight coins wrapped in red paper under the child's pillow, the couple did not dare to close their eyes. In the middle of the night, a gust of wind blew open the door of the room, blowing out the lights, "Sneaky" just reached out to touch the child's head, the pillow side of the road burst into flashes of light, scared the "Sneaky" fled. The next day, the couple used red paper wrapped in eight copper coins to scare off the "Sneaky" thing told everyone, and then everyone learn to do, the child is safe.

It turned out that the eight coins are the eight immortals change, secretly to protect the child. Because the "Sneaky" and "year" resonance, and then gradually evolved into the "New Year's Eve money". To the Ming and Qing Dynasties, "to colorful rope through the money braided into the shape of a dragon, called the New Year's Eve money. Honorable elder's gift to the children, also known as the New Year's Eve money. So some places to give children the New Year's money called "string money". In recent times, it evolved into a red paper wrapped in a hundred copper money given to the younger generation, meaning "long life". To the adult generation of the late red paper bag is put a silver dollar, meaning "a million dollars". After the change of currency to paper money, elders like to go to the bank to exchange new banknotes with the same number on the face of the banknotes to their children, wishing their children "successive rises". To the pressure of the new year's money is good, along the tradition, but also shows the elders of the next generation of deep expectations, but now parents are often generous, out of a hundred or two hundred, or even thousands, which will not only let the child will be spent in the wrong place, but also will make them that develop the habit of big spending, waste of money. So, parents in the child pressure money when a do not give too much, two to guide them to use the money in the right place.

Folklore No. 6 - Chinese knot. Throughout the streets and alleys, everywhere you can see the figure of the Chinese knot, legend has it that the Chinese knot is made by a monk in his spare time with a rope to weave a whole knot, and then strung on the expensive Buddha jewelry, in the press on the spikes of the word "king", passed down to the present day. The monk at that time, in order to reflect his "single-mindedness" to the Buddha so it is a cord braided out of the spike in order to reflect his "supreme" faith so braided out the word "king". Later, gradually flow into the society, the meaning of the Chinese knot also changed from faith to the Chinese people on the family, friendship, love, "one heart" and the owner of the "supreme" status symbol. From small to large, from thick to thin, the big red Chinese knot reveals the depth of Chinese culture