What are the different traditions and customs in the north and south of China during the Spring Festival?

The first day of the Chinese lunar year is called the Spring Festival. It is the grandest traditional festival of the Chinese people and symbolizes unity, prosperity and new hopes for the future. According to records, the Chinese people have been celebrating the Spring Festival for more than 4,000 years, and it was initiated by Yu Shun. On a day more than 2,000 years B.C., Shun became the son of heaven and led his men to worship heaven and earth. Since then, this day has been regarded as the first day of the year and is considered the first day of the first month. This is said to be the origin of the Lunar New Year, which was later called the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival used to be called New Year's Day. The month of January in which the Spring Festival falls is called New Year's Day.

However, the date of New Year's Day in China is not consistent throughout the ages: the Xia Dynasty used the first month of Bengchun as the first month, the Shang Dynasty used the month of Lunar New Year (December) as the first month, the first emperor of Qin Shi Huang united the six kingdoms in October as the first month, and the early Han Dynasty followed the Qin calendar. Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, felt that the calendar was too chaotic, so he ordered his ministers Gongsun Qing and Sima Qian to create a "solar calendar", which stipulated that the first month of the lunar calendar would be the first day of the year and the first day of the first month of the lunar year would be the first day of the year, that is, New Year's Day. Since then, China has been using the summer calendar (the lunar calendar, also known as the Lunar Calendar) until the end of the Qing Dynasty, a period of 2,080 years.

When Dr. Sun Yat-sen assumed the office of provisional president of the Republic of China in Nanjing in 1912, he announced that China had switched to the world's common calendar, also known as the solar calendar and the new calendar. And he decided to take January 1, 1912 AD as January 1 of the first year of the Republic of China. January 1 was called New Year's Day, but not New Year's Day.

On September 27, 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) decided to adopt the world-universal A.D. calendar while establishing the People's Republic of China (PRC). In order to distinguish between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar two "years", but also because of the 24 solar terms of the year "spring" just before and after the lunar year, so the solar calendar January 1 called "New Year's Day", the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar was officially renamed "Spring Festival".

Earth around the sun, the calendar called a year, the cycle, never-ending. However, according to the different seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, people take the first day of the first month of the summer calendar as the first year of the year. After midnight (12 o'clock) on December 30 (29th day of the small month) of the lunar calendar every year, the Spring Festival is officially here.

As the Spring Festival approaches, people pick up new year's goods, and on New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers together for New Year's Eve dinner. New Year's paintings and spring scrolls are put up to welcome the new year.

With the establishment of the new China, the Spring Festival celebrations are more colorful. Not only retained the folk customs of the past, eliminated some activities with feudal superstitions, but also added a lot of new content. Make the Spring Festival has a new flavor of the times. December 23, 1949, the People's Government of the People's Republic of China *** and the People's Republic of China provides for an annual Spring Festival holiday of three days.

China is a multi-ethnic country, the form of New Year's Day varies from one ethnic group to another. The Han Chinese, Manchu and Koreans celebrate the Spring Festival in much the same way, with family reunions, people eating rice cakes, dumplings and a variety of hearty meals, putting up lanterns and colorful decorations, setting off firecrackers, and wishing each other well. The celebrations during the Spring Festival are extremely rich and varied, including lion dances, dragon juggling, stilt walking, and running on dry boats. In some areas people follow the past ancestor worship God activities, praying for a new year of wind and rain, peace, harvest. Ancient Mongolia, the Spring Festival called "white festival", the first month called white month, is the meaning of good luck. The Tibetans celebrate the Tibetan New Year. The Hui, Uyghurs and Kazakhs celebrate the "Gulbang Festival". The Spring Festival is also a grand festival for the Miao, Boy and Yao ethnic groups.

Customs of the Spring Festival

Sweeping the dust -- the folk proverb says: "On the 24th day of the Lunar New Year, dust and sweep the house". The north is called sweeping the house, the south is called dusting. Indoor and outdoor, room after room, thoroughly cleaned, clothes and utensils, scrubbed, clean to welcome the New Year.

Door painting - according to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" said: Tang Taizong Li Shimin was sick, often heard the sound of ghosts crying and howling in his dreams, so that the night does not sleep. At this time, the general Qin Shubao, Yuchigong two volunteers, fully clothed to stand on both sides of the palace door, the results of the palace is really safe and sound, Li Shimin that the two generals are too hard, the heart of the heart, and then ordered the painter will be the two of them, the image of the mighty painted in the palace door, known as the "door god". East Han Cai Yong, "Dictatorship" records, the Han Dynasty folk have been posted on the door "Shentan", "Yubi" idol, to the Song Dynasty evolved into woodblock prints. Later, the folk competed with each other to follow suit, and after several evolutions, formed their own unique style, which is now the New Year's Paintings. China's earliest surviving New Year's paintings are the Song version of the "Sui Dynasty Myrtle Presented to the Kingdom of the Fangcheng Tu".

Chinese New Year scrolls evolved from the "peach stalks" of the Warring States period more than 2,000 years ago. According to the Huainanzi, peach symbols (i.e., peach stalks) were carved from peach wood. It was engraved with the incantation to extinguish blessings, and was changed once a year. When Emperor Meng Chang of Shu had a whim during the Spring Festival in the Five Dynasties, he had a peach tree sliced and he wrote a couplet on it: "New Year's Day is a blessing for all, and the festive season is an everlasting one". This is the earliest Spring Festival couplet in China. As for the official birth of the name of Spring Festival couplets, it was in the Ming Dynasty. Ming Dynasty founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang built the capital of Jinling, had in the new year's eve when the decree: "public officials and the common people's families, must write a pair of spring couplets to decorate the new year". Later, the Spring Festival couplets were popularized and inherited to this day on New Year's Day, every household has to post Spring Festival couplets.

Blazing firecrackers - the custom of burning firecrackers in the Spring Festival began in the Han Dynasty. According to the South Liang people Zong懔撰写的 "荆梦岁时记 "记载："The first day of the first month ...... chicken song up, first in front of the court firecrackers from the mountain demon evil spirits." In ancient times, firecrackers, is to use bamboo into the fire burning, due to heat expansion of the air inside the bamboo, it will send out "crackling" sound, in order to ward off evil spirits, praying for the coming year auspicious and happy. After the Tang and Song dynasties, the firecrackers made of gunpowder were developed.

Welcome to the New Year--according to the Ming Dynasty Lu Rong "Beans Garden Miscellany" records, the New Year's Eve custom was first practiced in Kyoto in the Ming Dynasty. Officials, regardless of whether they know each other to pay respect to each other, the people pay respect to friends and relatives. In the Qing Dynasty, it was fashionable to send a "worship box" during the Spring Festival, in which a New Year's invitation was placed in an exquisite and beautifully decorated box and sent to friends and relatives to show the solemnity of the occasion. Today, Chinese folk, "New Year" has become a traditional custom, the most dear friends and colleagues, home to home, door to door to pay tribute to the New Year, greetings to each other.

In ancient times, it was popular for literati to give each other New Year's diamonds. The New Year's diamond is the New Year's card today, which is evolved from the ancient business card. According to the Qing Dynasty Zhao Yi test, the Western Han Dynasty, there is no paper, cut bamboo and wood for the thorns, on the book name, called "name thorns". Later also used red floss in brocade embroidered words for "business card". After the Eastern Han Dynasty, paper was used instead of wood, called "name paper". Six Dynasties, referred to as "name", the Tang Dynasty called "door". Song Dynasty, also known as "hand prick", "door prick". Ming and Qing dynasties had called "inch Chu", "red single".

Chinese New Year food customs

Lapa congee - initially a Buddhist religious festival food. The Chinese New Year Food Customs states that before Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, he traveled through the famous mountains and rivers of India in search of the true meaning of life. He arrived in the north of India's Magadha country, due to tired and hungry, fainted on the ground, when a shepherdess saw the scene, rushed to bring their own lunch out, bite by bite to feed Siddhartha Gautama. The shepherdess's lunch was a mixture of various foodstuffs, including all kinds of wild fruits. Siddhartha Gautama ate this fragrant lunch and his vitality was restored. Later, he took a bath in the Nilian River, went to the Bodhi tree to meditate, and attained Buddhahood on the eighth day of the twelfth month. Since then every year to the "seven" this day, the monastery monks have to take fresh and dried fruit, put into the clean vessel all night to simmer until dawn. The porridge will be boiled to offer to the Buddha, at that time, the monks of the monastery chanting performance of the law, and then drink porridge to commemorate. This is the origin of Laha congee. Buddhism in our country spread very far and inherited this custom. As for the Laha congee ingredients, the Northern Song Dynasty to almonds, peach kernels, dried fruit, rice, soybeans, beans, etc.; Southern Song Dynasty to walnuts, pine nuts, persimmons, chestnuts and so on; the Yuan Dynasty porridge color is crimson, also known as red porridge, vermilion congee, red beans, lotus seeds, peanuts, jujubes and so on, to the red raw materials.