What are the famous traditional festivals in China?

Famous Traditional Festivals in China, what are the customs in these festivals

China has thousands of years of history and culture, the land is vast, and the long-term cultural accumulation has made China have many festivals. Like Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival, Winter Solstice, Qingming Festival are all very famous festivals. From ancient times to the present, each festival has a very good meaning and is the crystallization of Chinese culture, which is worthy of our praise. There are 56 ethnic groups in China, and the culture and customs of each ethnic group are different, which also reflects the diversity of China. Here I will introduce you to some of the famous traditional Chinese festivals, and the customs associated with the festivals.

The Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is a very important festival in China, which is celebrated from the first day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month. Since ancient times the Spring Festival has had a very good meaning, we symbolize the Spring Festival as a new beginning, a new year, so it is this time on the first day of the first month. In ancient times, the New Year was not the first day of the first month, instead it was the Lichun of the four solar terms.

There is a legend of the Spring Festival that there is a monster called Nian, who has horns on his head and is very ugly in appearance, and can cause very great harm to people, so every time this day comes around, people in every household will pack their bags, drive the beasts in their homes, and go to the mountains to hide. This day the village came an old man, this old man looks like a beggar, but the temperament is not extraordinary, but everyone is packing their bags and rushing to escape, no one asked the old man, only the good old grandmother gave the beggar a bowl of rice, the grandmother warned him to hurry to the mountains to escape, the night will be out of the year. The old man laughed loudly, I have a way to drive it away, the grandmother did not believe, or left him alone, alone on the mountain. This old man put red paper on the grandmother's house and kept a light on all night. When the year knocked on the door it crackled another disk of cannons and scared the year away. When the year was gone and the village went down, the old grandmother told the village people about it, and the next year the village people followed the old man's example. They put red paper on the doors of their houses, lit lamps and set off cannons. It turned out that the year was afraid of these three things, but later they celebrated the day by taking the best food and sharing it, walking the streets and visiting friends and relatives. As time progressed, the flavor of New Year became stronger and stronger, and people called it New Year. Han Chinese people regard the Spring Festival as especially important, we will put up Spring Festival couplets, firecrackers, eat dumplings, watch lanterns and flowers, send red envelopes, visit relatives and so on, there are also many ethnic minorities, they also celebrate the Spring Festival, but just in a different form.

February 2nd Dragon Rising

February 2nd Dragon Rising is a traditional festival with a symbol, named after the dragon, which means that they hope that the coming year will be smooth and the crops will grow very well, also known as the Green Dragon Festival. The main purpose is that they hope the divine dragon can bless them in the sky, so on February 2 they will set up the mill, believing that the mill is the embodiment of the dragon, a kind of respect for the dragon. There is another custom that we are very familiar with, that is, "You can't shave your head in the first month of the year, shaving your head will kill your uncle." Therefore, many people will choose to shave their heads on February 2, meaning that they shave the head of the dragon, for good luck. In fact, shaving the head in the first month to die uncle is a blackmail saying. Qing Dynasty people in order to honor the Ming people, they do not want to shave their heads, is a kind of thinking about the old performance, and later thinking about the old was understood by later generations as dead uncle! There is also a rumor that in February 2 day also can not drive a big car, for fear of smashing the dragon waist.

Winter Solstice

Most people in ancient times believed that the winter solstice is the beginning of winter, especially in the Tang Dynasty, many people like to celebrate the winter solstice. Winter solstice is a festival and there are many southerners who will eat hot dumplings on this day.

Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar. In ancient times, people were especially fond of the moon, and the Lantern Festival is the first full moon in the year, which represents good luck, and people would surely celebrate on this day! They would go to see the Lantern Festival, but also eat the Lantern Festival, since the family and harmony, heralding the coming year reunion!

The Qingming Festival

Also known as the Treading Green Festival, it is the 108th day after the winter solstice, and is one of the most important ceremonial festivals, where people go to visit their graves or pay homage to their ancestors. The Qingming Festival has been celebrated since the Zhou Dynasty, more than 2,000 years ago. In China, not only Han Chinese celebrate Qingming Festival, but also many ethnic minorities also celebrate Qingming Festival.

Duanwu Festival

Duanwu Festival is one of the older Chinese festivals, and it is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the year. The original name of the Dragon Boat Festival was Duanwu, but the ancients thought that the month of May was inauspicious, and the fifth day of the month was the fifth day of the month, so in order to avoid the "five", it was renamed to "Wu". There are rumors that the Dragon Boat Festival was established by Qu Yuan, but according to historical records, there was a Dragon Boat Festival in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. China has a long history of traditional culture, and the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated in different ways in different parts of the country. The only similarity is that in this day will eat zongzi, the difference is more, some places the custom is this day the daughter back to her mother's home, insert wormwood, martial arts, eat cake, etc., and some places in this day to race dragon boats, swinging autumn, drinking xionghuang wine, eating fresh fruit and so on. For example, like the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province area of the Korean people, in this day will be put into the wormwood and glutinous rice into a wooden trough, and then with a wooden sledgehammer beat made of rice cake, very ethnic characteristics.

The Chongyang Festival

The Chongyang Festival, also known as the Festival of the Elderly, was celebrated on September 9 every year. The festival existed as early as the Warring States period, and was officially defined as a folk festival in the Tang Dynasty, where many poets wrote poems and sang songs to express their feelings of longing for their relatives. In 1989, China also designated this day as the Elderly Day, which means to honor, love and help the elderly.

New Year's Eve

The last day of the Lunar Calendar is New Year's Eve, which is also known as the "end of the year", and is usually called "New Year's Eve". In addition to the original meaning is to go, the original meaning of the evening for the sunset, meaning the removal of the old year to welcome the new year, so there is the night of New Year's Eve said. This is the most important holiday in China, and it is a night of eating, drinking and fun. Another is to send the New Year's money, the New Year's Eve is also called "Shou Nian", after sending the New Year's money, we will start to paste the God of the Door, and then close the door, the whole family will start to watch the New Year's Eve all night, and then in the early morning of the next day, we will open the door to welcome the God of Wealth. So on this day many families are up all night, after 12:00 a.m. on behalf of the arrival of the first day of the year, and then began to firecrackers to celebrate the welcome to the New Year fortune.

Mid-Autumn Festival

The fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which has been celebrated since the Tang Dynasty, and began to be emphasized by the folk after the Song Dynasty, and later became one of the particularly important festivals in China. Not only in China to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, in Southeast Asia also has the custom of the Mid-Autumn Festival, especially in East Asia and Southeast Asia of the Chinese diaspora, to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival is extremely grand. Since ancient times there has been the custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival, which symbolizes the roundness of the delegation round, sends the longing for the hometown, the longing for the reunion between relatives, and also looks forward to the happiness of the family.

The above are the traditional festivals that have a long history in China, in addition to some of the ethnic minority regions, there are some special festivals, but also has a certain history, such as the Dai Water Festival, the Mongolian Naadam Assembly and so on.