What are the traditional Chinese festivals?

China's traditional festivals are diverse and rich in content, and are an integral part of the long history and culture of our Chinese nation. The formation of traditional festivals is a process of long-term accumulation and cohesion of the history and culture of a nation or country. The festivals listed below are all developed from ancient times, and from these festivals and customs handed down to the present day, you can still clearly see the wonderful picture of the social life of the ancient people.

The origin and development of festivals is a process of gradual formation, subtle refinement, and slow penetration into social life. It is the same as the development of society, is the product of the development of human society to a certain stage, these festivals in ancient China, most of the astronomical, calendrical, mathematical, as well as later divided into festivals related to the literature can be traced back at least to the "Xia Xiaozheng", "Shangshu", to the period of the Warring States period, the division of twenty-four festivals of a year, has basically complete, and the subsequent traditional festivals, all of them and the festivals are closely related to these festivals.

The festivals provided the preconditions for the emergence of festivals, and most of the festivals were already in their infancy during the pre-Qin period, but the richness and popularity of their customs still required a long process of development. The earliest customary activities were related to primitive worship and superstitious taboos; myths and legends added a touch of romance to the festivals; there was also the impact and influence of religion on the festivals; and some historical figures were given eternal remembrance to penetrate into the festivals, all of which fused and coalesced into the content of the festivals, giving Chinese festivals a deep sense of history.

By the Han Dynasty, China's major traditional festivals had already been finalized, and it is often said that these festivals originated in the Han Dynasty, which was the first period of great development after the unification of China, with political and economic stability, and great development of science and culture, which provided good social conditions for the final formation of the festivals.

Festivals developed to the Tang Dynasty, has been freed from the primitive worship, taboo and mysterious atmosphere, turned into entertainment ceremonial type, become a real festival of good times. Since then, the festival has become joyful and festive, rich and colorful, many sports, enjoyment of the content of the activities appeared, and soon became a fashionable popular, these customs have been continued to develop, enduring.

It is worth mentioning that, in the long history, the generations of literati, poets and artists, for a festival composed many ancient masterpieces, these poems and texts are popular and widely celebrated, so that China's traditional festivals permeated with a deep cultural heritage, wonderful and romantic, the great vulgarity in the great elegance, elegance and vulgarity **** appreciation.

Chinese festivals have a strong cohesion and broad inclusiveness, a festival, the country celebrated together, which is a valuable spiritual cultural heritage with the long history of our nation's long history.

Here are just some of the larger traditional festivals of the Han Chinese people, China is a multi-ethnic country, each ethnic group has its own cultural practices, numerous national festivals, is a cultural treasure to be mined.

Introduction of the Spring Festival

The Spring Festival, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, also known as the lunar year, commonly known as the "New Year". It is one of the grandest and most lively traditional festivals in China. The Spring Festival has a long history, which originated in the Yin Shang period at the end of the year to sacrifice to the gods and ancestors.

The Spring Festival is here, meaning that the spring will come, the recovery of grass and trees renewed, a new round of sowing and harvest season will begin. People have just passed through a long winter of ice and snow, grass and trees withered, have long been looking forward to the days of spring, when the new spring is coming, naturally, to be full of joy singing and dancing to meet this festival.

Over the centuries, people make the New Year celebrations have become very colorful, every year from the 23rd day of the lunar month to the 30th, the folk called this period of time "Spring Day", also known as the "dust day", in the Spring Festival before the dust to engage in sanitation, is a traditional habit of our people. Our people have traditional habits.

Then it is the family to prepare for the New Year's goods, about ten days before the festival, people began to busy purchasing items, New Year's goods, including chickens, ducks, fish and meat, tea, wine, oil and soy sauce, North and South fried goods, sugar bait and fruits, to buy enough, but also to prepare for some of the New Year's Eve when visiting friends and relatives when the gift, the children to add a new coat and a new hat, ready to wear on New Year's Day.

Prior to the festival in the residence of the door to paste the red paper and yellow letters of the New Year message, that is, written in red paper Spring Festival couplets. Inside the house posted brightly colored auspicious New Year's paintings, clever girls cut out beautiful window flowers pasted on the windows, hanging red lanterns or sticking the word "Fu" and the God of Fortune, the God of the Door, etc., the word "Fu" can also be pasted upside down, passers-by read the word "Fu" upside down, that is, the blessing of the arrival of the festival, all of these activities are to add enough to the festivities of the atmosphere of festivities.

Another name for the Spring Festival is the New Year. In past legends, Nian was an imaginary animal that brought bad luck to people. When the year came. Trees wither and no grass grows; once the year passes, everything grows and flowers are everywhere. How can the year pass? Need to bombard with firecrackers , so there is the custom of burning firecrackers, which is actually another way to bake a lively scene.

The Spring Festival is a happy and peaceful holiday, but also the reunion of loved ones, children away from home in the Spring Festival to go home to celebrate. The night before the New Year's Eve, is the old year's Lunar New Year's Eve, also known as New Year's Eve, also known as the reunion night, in this time of transition between the old and the new, the New Year's Eve is one of the most important annual activities, New Year's Eve night, the whole family stay up to keep watch together, get together to drink soundly, *** enjoy the joy of family, the northern region in the New Year's Eve to eat dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, and the word is together; dumplings and dumplings and cross the harmony of the meaning, but also take more years of intercourse The dumplings have the meaning of "getting together" and "turning over the year". In the south, it is customary to eat New Year's cake on New Year's Day, a sweet and sticky cake that symbolizes the sweetness of life in the new year.

To the first rooster crows, or the New Year's bells ringing, the street firecrackers, loud and clear, the family is full of joy, the new year began, men and women, young and old, dressed in festive attire, the first to the elders of the family New Year's Eve wishes, the festival there are to the children of the New Year's Eve money to eat New Year's Eve dinner, the second and third began to go to relatives to see their friends and to pay tribute to each other, congratulations on the blessing, say some Congratulations to the new happy, Congratulations on the new year, congratulations, congratulations, good New Year and other words, ancestor worship and other activities.

The warm atmosphere of the festival is not only overflowing in every household, but also full of streets and alleys, some places on the market there are lions, dragon lanterns, fireworks, swim in the flower market, temple and other customs. During this period of lanterns all over the city, the streets are full of tourists, lively, unprecedented, straight to the first month of the 15th Lantern Festival, the Spring Festival is really the end.

The Spring Festival is the most important festival of the Han Chinese people, but the Manchu, Mongolia, Yao, Zhuang, white, mountain, Hezhe, Hani, Daur, Dong, Li and other dozens of ethnic minorities also have the custom of the Spring Festival, but the form of the festival is more of their own national characteristics, more flavorful.

January 1: New Year's Day

("New Year's Day" is the earliest word from the Liang people in the Southern Dynasty, Xiao Ziyun, "Jieya" poem: "four gas new New Year's Day, ten thousand lives at the beginning of this day. Yuan is the beginning, the first meaning; Dan is a Chinese character, above the "day" means the sun, below the "one" means the horizon. The sun rises over the horizon, symbolizing the beginning of the day. New Year's Day is the first day of the year.

January 1, Gregorian calendar, is recognized as New Year's Day in today's world. China's New Year's Day through the ages, the date is not consistent. Such as the first day of the first month of the Xia Dynasty; the first day of December in the Shang Dynasty; the first day of November in the Zhou Dynasty, and so on. September 27, 1949, the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Association through the use of the "AD chronology", will be January 1 as New Year's Day on the Gregorian calendar.)

The 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar: the Lantern Festival

(also known as the "Festival of the New Year", that is, the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar. It is an important traditional festival in China. In ancient books, this day is called "on the Yuan", and its night is called "Yuan night", "Yuan Xi" or "Lantern Festival". The name "Lantern Festival" has been used until now. Since the Lantern Festival has the custom of opening and watching the lanterns, it is also known as the "Festival of Lights" in folklore. In addition, there are also eating Lantern Festival, stilt walking, riddles and other customs. China's ancient calendar and the phase of the moon has a close relationship with the fifteenth day of the month, people ushered in the first full-moon night of the year, this day is rightly regarded as an auspicious day. As early as the Han Dynasty, the fifteenth day of the first month was used as a day to worship the emperor and pray for blessings. Later, the ancients called the 15th day of the first month "Shangyuan", the 15th day of the 7th month "Zhongyuan", and the 15th day of the 10th month "Xiayuan". At the latest, in the early North and South Dynasties, Sanyuan was already a day to hold a grand ceremony. Among the three elements, the first element was the most important. Later, the celebrations of the Middle and Lower Yuan were gradually abolished, while the Upper Yuan has endured.)

The day before Qingming Festival: Cold Food

(A festival in the old custom, one day before the Qingming Festival [one says two days before Qingming]. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Prince of Jin, Chong Er, who had been dead for many years, returned to his country and assumed the throne [i.e., Duke Wen of Jin], and rewarded the ministers who had died with him, but only Jie Zhi Tui was left out. Jie Zhitui then took his mother to live in seclusion in Mianshan Mountain [now southeast of Jiexiu County, Shanxi Province]. Duke Wen of Jin learned of this and wanted to reward him, so he went to Mianshan Mountain and couldn't find him, so he tried to burn the mountain to force him to come out. However, Jie Zhi Tui insisted on not coming out, and as a result, both mother and son were burned to death. Duke Wen of Jin then stipulated that people should be forbidden to burn rice on this day every year to mourn the death of his mother and son. Later, the custom of eating cold food and sweeping graves on the day of cold food was formed.)

April 5: Ching Ming Festival

(Ching Ming Festival is a traditional festival in China and the most important festival of worship, a day for ancestor worship and tomb-sweeping. Tomb-sweeping is commonly known as visiting the graves, an activity to honor the dead. Most of the Han Chinese and some ethnic minorities sweep their tombs on Qingming Day. According to the old custom, when sweeping tombs, people should bring wine, food, fruits, paper money and other items to the cemetery, offer the food in front of their loved ones' graves, then incinerate the paper money, cultivate new soil for the graves, fold a few tender green new branches and stick them on the graves, then bow down and perform rituals and worship, and then eat the wine and food and go home at last. Du Mu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem entitled "Qingming": "The rain falls one after another during the Qingming Festival, and the pedestrians on the road want to break their souls. Where can I find a tavern? The shepherd boy points to the apricot blossom village." It writes about the special atmosphere of Qingming Festival.

The Qingming Festival, also known as the Treading Green Festival, according to the solar calendar, it is between April 4 and 6 every year, which is the time of spring when the grass and trees spit out the green, and it is also a good time for people to go on spring excursions [called trekking in ancient times], so the ancients had the custom of trekking in the Qingming Festival and carrying out a series of sports activities.)

The fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar: Dragon Boat Festival

(The fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar is the "Dragon Boat Festival". Duanwu" is originally called "Duanwu", and "Duan" means the beginning. "Five" and "Wu" for each other as a harmonic and universal. It is an ancient festival in China. China's earliest ancient patriotic poet Qu Yuan

Being exiled by slander, witnessed the growing political corruption in Chu, and not to realize their own political ideals, inability to save the perilous motherland, and then threw himself into the Bioluo River in order to martyrdom. After that, people in order not to make the fish and shrimp eat their bodies, have used glutinous rice and flour into various shapes of cakes into the river, which later became the Dragon Boat Festival to eat zongzi, fried cake source. This custom has spread abroad.)

The seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar: Tanabata Lover's Day

(The evening of the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is called "Tanabata". China's folklore is that the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden meet on this night at the Bridge of Magpies in the Sky River, and then there are women who beg for coquettish things by threading needles to the Weaving Maiden star on this night. The so-called begging for coquettish, that is, under the moonlight to the Vega star with colored thread through the needle, such as can pass through seven different sizes of the eye of the needle, even if it is very "coquettish". Farmer's proverbs say "the seventh day of the seventh month is clear and bright, grinding sickle cut good rice." This is the time to sharpen the sickle and prepare for the early rice harvest.)

The 15th day of the 8th lunar month: Mid-Autumn Festival

(On the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, this day falls in the middle of the autumn season, so it is called "Mid-Autumn Festival". In the evening, the moon is full and the fragrance of laurel, the old custom people see it as a symbol of reunion, to prepare a variety of fruits and cooked food, is a good festival to enjoy the moon. Mid-Autumn Festival also eat moon cakes. According to legend, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, in order to overthrow the brutal Yuan Dynasty, the people wrote the date of the riot on a note and put it in the mooncake filling so as to pass it secretly to each other, calling for an uprising on August 15th. Finally, on this day, a nationwide peasant uprising was baked, overthrowing the corrupt Yuan Dynasty. Since then, the custom of eating mooncakes at mid-autumn has spread even more widely.)

The ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar: the Chongyang Festival

(The ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar. In ancient China, nine is Yang, September 9 is the yin and yang day, so the name "Chongyang". Legend has it that in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ru Nan Huan Ying, heard Fei Changfang said to him, September 9 Ru Nan will have a big disaster, and quickly asked the family to sew a small generation, filled with cornelian cherry, tied to the arm, climbed the mountains, drink chrysanthemum wine, to take refuge. Huanjing this day the whole family mountaineering, home at night, really home chickens, dogs, sheep all dead. Since then, the folk have been in the Chongyang Festival do Cornus generation, drink chrysanthemum wine, hold a temple fair, climb high and other customs. Because "high" and "cake" sound the same, so the Chongyang Festival and eat "Chongyang cake" custom. Wang Wei, a poet of Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem "Remembering Shandong Brothers on the 9th day of the 9th month of the 9th year of the 9th lunar month", which reads: "Being a stranger in a foreign land, I think of my relatives twice as much at festivals. I know from afar where my brothers are climbing up, and I have less Cornus officinalis to plant." The poem records the customs of the time. The poem is still popular today because of its sincerity of feeling.)

The winter solstice is a very important festival in China's lunar calendar and a traditional festival, and there are still many places that have had the custom of the winter solstice festival. The winter solstice is commonly known as the "winter festival", "long solstice festival", "YaYu", etc. As early as two and a half thousand years ago, the winter solstice was the most important festival in the Chinese lunar calendar. As early as two thousand five hundred years ago in the Spring and Autumn Period, our country has used the earth to observe the sun to determine the winter solstice, it is the twenty-four solar terms in the earliest development of a. The time in December of each year, the solar calendar. The time is between December 22nd or 23rd on the solar calendar every year.

The winter solstice is the day with the shortest day and the longest night in the northern hemisphere throughout the year, and after the winter solstice, the day will get longer day by day. Ancient people on the winter solstice is: the Yin pole of the arrival, Yang Qi began to grow, the day south to the shortest day to the longest shadow of the sun, so it is said "winter solstice". After the winter solstice, the climate around the world have entered one of the coldest stage, which is often referred to as "into the nine", China's folk "cold in the three nine, hot in three volts," said.

Modern astronomical science, the winter solstice, the sun shoots directly at the Tropic of Capricorn, sunlight on the northern hemisphere is the most tilted, the northern hemisphere, the shortest day, the longest night, after this day, the sun and gradually move north.

In our country in ancient times on the winter solstice is very important, the winter solstice is treated as a large festival, there was a "winter solstice is as big as the year," said, and there is a celebration of the winter solstice custom. The book of han said: "winter solstice yang qi up, juntao long, so congratulations." People think: after the winter solstice, the day is longer than one day, Yang Qi rise, is the beginning of a cycle of festivals, is also an auspicious day, should be celebrated. The Book of Jin" on the record "Wei Jin winter solstice day by all the countries and bureaucrats to congratulate ...... its instrument subdivided into the first day." This shows the importance of the winter solstice in ancient times.

Now, some places still take the winter solstice as a festival. Northern regions have the custom of slaughtering sheep, eating dumplings and wontons on the winter solstice, while southern regions have the habit of eating winter solstice rice balls and winter solstice long thread noodles on this day. Various regions also have the custom of sacrificing to the sky and ancestors on the winter solstice.

The eighth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar: Lunar Festival

(Anciently, the December sacrifice to the "gods" was called Lunar, so the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is called Lunar. On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the old custom to drink Laha congee. Legend has it that Siddhartha Gautama attained Buddhahood on this day, so monasteries cooked congee for the Buddha every day, and then the folk followed the custom until today.)

The Spring Festival, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, also known as the lunar year, commonly known as "New Year". It is one of the grandest and most lively traditional festivals in China. The Spring Festival has a long history, which originated in the Yin Shang period at the end of the year to sacrifice to the gods and ancestors.

The Spring Festival is here, meaning that spring will come, the recovery of grass and trees renewed, a new round of sowing and harvest season will begin. People have just passed through the long cold winter of ice and snow, and have long been looking forward to the days of spring, when the new year comes, naturally, full of joy, singing and dancing to meet this festival.

Over the centuries, people make the New Year celebrations have become very colorful, every year from the 23rd day of the lunar month to the 30th, the folk called this period of time "Spring Day", also known as the "dust day", in the Spring Festival before the dust to engage in sanitation, is a traditional habit of our people. Our people have traditional habits.

Then it is the family to prepare for the New Year's goods, about ten days before the festival, people began to busy purchasing items, New Year's goods, including chickens, ducks, fish and meat, tea, wine, oil and soy sauce, North and South fried goods, sugar bait and fruits, to buy enough, but also to prepare for some of the New Year's Eve when visiting friends and relatives when the gift, the children to add a new coat and a new hat, ready to wear on New Year's Day.

Prior to the festival in the residence of the door to paste the red paper and yellow letters of the New Year message, that is, written in red paper Spring Festival couplets. Inside the house posted brightly colored auspicious New Year's paintings, clever girls cut out beautiful window flowers pasted on the windows, hanging red lanterns or sticking the word "Fu" and the God of Fortune, the God of the Door, etc., the word "Fu" can also be posted upside down, passers-by read the word "Fu" upside down, that is, the blessing of the arrival of the festival, all of these activities are to add enough to the festivities of the atmosphere of festivities.

Another name for the Spring Festival is the New Year. In past legends, Nian was an imaginary animal that brought bad luck to people. When the year came. Trees wither and no grass grows; once the year passes, everything grows and flowers are everywhere. How can the year pass? Need to bombard with firecrackers , so there is the custom of burning firecrackers, which is actually another way to bake a lively scene.

The Spring Festival is a happy and peaceful holiday, but also the reunion of loved ones, children away from home in the Spring Festival to go home to celebrate. The night before the New Year's Eve, is the old year's Lunar New Year's Eve, also known as New Year's Eve, also known as the reunion night, in this time of transition between the old and the new, the New Year's Eve is one of the most important annual activities, New Year's Eve night, the whole family stay up to keep watch together, get together to drink soundly, *** enjoy the joy of family, the northern region in the New Year's Eve to eat dumplings, dumplings, dumplings is the first way and the face, and the word is the together; dumplings and dumplings and cross the resonance of the together and cross the meaning, but also take more years to meet! The dumplings have the meaning of "getting together" and "turning over the year". In the south, it is customary to eat New Year's cake on New Year's Day, a sweet and sticky cake that symbolizes the sweetness of life in the new year.

To the first rooster crows, or the New Year's bells ringing, the street firecrackers, loud and clear, the family is full of joy, the new year began, men and women, young and old, dressed in festive attire, the first to the elders of the family New Year's Eve wishes, the festival there are to the children of the New Year's Eve money to eat New Year's Eve dinner, the second and third began to go to relatives to see their friends and to pay tribute to each other, congratulations on the blessing, say some Congratulations to the new happy, Congratulations on the new year, congratulations, congratulations, good New Year and other words, ancestor worship and other activities.

The warm atmosphere of the festival is not only overflowing in every household, but also full of streets and alleys, some places on the market there are lions, dragon lanterns, fireworks, swim in the flower market, temple and other customs. During this period of lanterns all over the city, the streets are full of tourists, bustling, unprecedented, straight to the first month of the 15th Lantern Festival, the Spring Festival is really the end.

The Spring Festival is the most important festival of the Han Chinese people, but the Manchu, Mongolia, Yao, Zhuang, white, mountain, Hezhe, Hani, Daur, Dong, Li and a dozen other ethnic minorities also have the custom of the Spring Festival, but the form of the festival is more of their own national characteristics, more flavorful.

The Spring Festival and the concept of the year, the original meaning from the agricultural, the ancient people of the growth cycle of the grain called "year", "said the text. Wo Department": "year, the grain is also ripe:. In the Xia and Shang dynasties produced the summer calendar, the cycle of the moon for the month, a year divided into twelve months, each month to not see the moon for the day for the first day of the first month of the first day of the month of the son of the time is called the head of the year, that is, the beginning of the year, also known as the year, the year's name is from the Zhou Dynasty, to the Western Han Dynasty to formally fixed, and has been continued to the present day. But the first day of the first month in ancient times was known as "New Year's Day", until China's modern Xinhai Revolution victory, the Nanjing Provisional Government in order to comply with the farming season and facilitate statistics, the provisions of the summer calendar in the civilian population, in the government agencies, factories, mines, schools and organizations in the implementation of the Gregorian calendar to the Gregorian calendar for the first day of the first month of New Year's Day, the first day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, known as the Spring Festival.

September 27, 1949, the founding of the new China, in the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, adopted the use of the world's common calendar, the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar as New Year's Day, commonly known as the solar year; the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar is usually in the spring before and after the start of the Lunar Calendar, the first day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar is designated as the "Spring Festival ", commonly known as the year of the lunar calendar.

Traditionally, the Spring Festival refers to the period from the Lunar New Year festival on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, or the Zaos Festival on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, until the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, which culminates in New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month of the lunar year. In the Spring Festival this traditional holiday period, China's Han Chinese and most ethnic minorities have to hold a variety of celebrations, most of these activities to worship God and Buddha, ancestors, in addition to the old and the new, to welcome Jubilee to receive the blessing, praying for a good year as the main content. The activities are colorful, with strong national characteristics.

One of the legends of the Spring Festival: the year-old

The year-old, that is, in the last night of the old year, do not sleep, stay up to meet the arrival of the new year's custom, also known as the New Year's Eve, commonly known as the "year-old". Explore the origins of this custom, in folklore is an interesting story:

The ancient times, there is a ferocious beast, scattered in the mountains and forests, people called them "year". It is hideous, ferocious nature, specializing in eating birds and beasts, scales and insects, a day to change a flavor, from knocking insects have been eaten to the living, so that people talk about the "year" color change. Later, people slowly mastered the "year" of the activities of the law, it is every three hundred and sixty-five days scurrying to the crowd of places to taste a mouthful of food, and the time of the infestation are in the dark, and so on, until the cock crows at dawn, they will return to the mountains and forests to go.

Calculating the date of the "New Year" rampage, the people will be this terrible night as a pass to brake, called "New Year's Pass", and came up with a whole set of New Year's Pass approach: every night, every family is ahead of time to do a good job of dinner, extinguish the fire! Net stove, and then all the chicken coop cattle pen tethered to the front and back doors of the mansion are sealed, hiding in the house to eat "New Year's Eve dinner", because this dinner has the meaning of bad luck and uncertainty, so organized very sumptuous, in addition to the whole family to eat together to express the harmony and reunion, but also have to be in the meal before the sacrifice to the ancestors, praying for the blessing of the gods of the ancestors, and the gods of the ancestors, and the gods of the ancestors. Peacefully through the night, after dinner, who do not dare to sleep, sitting together in a crowded chatting courage. Gradually formed the habit of New Year's Eve to stay up to keep the New Year's Eve.

The custom of keeping the New Year's Eve rose in the North and South Dynasties, and many literati in the Liang Dynasty had poems about keeping the New Year's Eve. "One night is even a double year, and the fifth night is divided into two years." People light up candles or oil lamps and keep vigil all night, symbolizing that all evil plagues and epidemics are driven away, looking forward to an auspicious new year. This custom has been passed down to this day.

The Spring Festival Legend No. 2: Wannian created the calendar

Legend has it that, in ancient times, there was a young man named Wannian, saw that the festival was very chaotic at that time, and had the intention of trying to set the festival on the right track. But he could not find a way to calculate the time, one day, he went up the mountain to cut firewood tired, sitting under the shade of a tree to rest, the movement of the tree shadow inspired him, he designed a sundial measuring sun and shadow counting the time of day, determine the time of the day, and later, the dripping springs on the cliffs inspired him, and he did it to make a five-tiered funnel pot to calculate the time. Over time, he realized that every 360 days or so, the seasons rotated and the length of the day was repeated.

The king of the country at that time, named Zu Yi, was also often distressed by the unpredictability of the weather and wind. When Wannian learned of this, he took a sundial and a funnel pot to the emperor and explained to Zuyi the reasoning behind the operation of the sun and the moon. Zu Yi listened to the dragon's face, felt reasonable. So left Wannian, in front of the Temple of Heaven to build the Sun and Moon Pavilion, built the sundial and funnel kiosk. And he hoped to measure the laws of the sun and the moon, to project the exact time of morning and evening, to create the calendar, and to benefit the people of the world.

On one occasion, Zu Yi went to learn about the progress of the Ten Thousand Years Test Calendar. When he ascended to the Altar of the Sun and the Moon, he saw a poem engraved on the stone wall beside the Temple of Heaven:

Sunrise and sunset are three hundred and six, and the cycle begins again and again from the beginning.

The grass and trees wither and prosper in four seasons, and there are twelve rounds in a year.

Knowing that Wannian's creation of the calendar had come to fruition, he personally ascended to the Sun and Moon Pavilion to see Wannian. Wannian pointed to the sky and said to Zuyi: "It is now the twelve full months, the old year is over, the new spring begins again, pray for the king of the country to set a festival". Zu Yi said, "Spring is the first day of the year, let's call it Spring Festival". This is said to be the origin of the Spring Festival.

Winter to spring, year after year, Wannian after a long period of observation, careful projection, developed an accurate solar calendar, when he presented the solar calendar to the succeeding king, already full of silver beard. The king of the country was y touched, in order to commemorate the achievements of Wan Nian, the solar calendar named "Wan Nian Calendar", Wan Nian as the sun and moon life star. Later on, people put up a picture of the star of longevity on New Year's Day, which was said to be in honor of the highly respected Wannian.

The Third Legend of the Spring Festival: Posting Spring Festival Couplets and Door Gods

The custom of posting Spring Festival Couplets is said to have begun more than a thousand years ago in the period of the Later Shu, which is supported by history. In addition, according to the Jade Candle Canon and the Yanjing Yearly Record, the original form of the Spring Festival couplets was what was known as the "Peach Symbol".

In ancient Chinese mythology, there was a world of ghosts, in which there was a mountain with a peach tree covering 3,000 miles, and on the top of the tree there was a golden chicken. Whenever the golden rooster crowed in the morning, the ghosts that had gone out to roam at night would be rushed back to the ghost world. The gate of the Ghost Realm was situated in the northeast of the peach tree, and by the gate stood two godmen named Shentan and Yubi. If a ghost did something harmful at night, the gods would immediately find it, catch it, tie it up with a rope made of mango reeds, and feed it to the tiger. Therefore, all the ghosts in the world were afraid of Shentian and Yubi. So the folk used peach wood to carve into their likeness and put it in front of their house to avoid evil and prevent harm. Later, people simply carve the name of God Tantui and Yubi on the mahogany board, thinking that this can also suppress the evil to go to the evil. This kind of peach wood board was later called "peach talisman".

To the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on the mahogany board, without losing the significance of the mahogany to suppress evil, the second is to express their good wishes, the third is to decorate the portal, in order to beautiful. And in the red paper symbolizing the joy and auspiciousness of writing couplets, the new year on both sides of the doors and windows, to express people's prayers for good luck in the coming year.

In order to pray for a family's well-being, people in some places still retain the habit of sticking door gods. It is said that if two door gods are posted on the front door, all demons and ghosts will be afraid. In folklore, the door god is a symbol of righteousness and force, the ancients believe that people with strange looks often have magical endowments and extraordinary skills. They are upright and kind-hearted, to catch ghosts and demons is their nature and responsibility, people look up to the ghost hunter Zhong Kui, that is, this kind of strange looks. So the folk god of the door is always angry eyes, grim-looking, holding a variety of traditional weapons, ready to fight with the ghosts and demons that dare to come to the door. Since the doors of our houses are usually two open doors, the door gods are always in pairs.

After the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the previous two generals Shentian and Yubi, people also took Qin Shubao and Yuchigong, two Tang Dynasty military generals, as door gods. Legend has it that when Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty was sick, he heard the ghosts and demons outside his door calling out and had no peace all night. So he asked these two generals to stand beside the door with weapons to guard it, and the next night there were no more ghosts to disturb him. Later, Tang Taizong let the two generals image painted down on the door, this custom began to be widely spread in the folklore.