Customs and Habits of Genghe Town, Gaoming District, Foshan City

[Edit this paragraph] Customs and customs and traditional snacks

In traditional folk festivals in Genghe Town, urban and rural residents mostly prepare their own traditional snacks for the festival. The more common ones are as follows:

Sesame noodles, dumplings, fried rice dumplings, soup balls, wrapped steamed rice dumplings, sticky rice sticks, noodle sticks, spring noodles, taro, taro cake, radish cake, sweet potato buns, and sponge cake. Among them, the rice noodle and steamed rice dumpling snacks are very famous. They won the title of Gaoming's top ten famous snacks in the 2004 Gaoming Food Festival competition.

There are also some famous delicacies in Genghe Town, such as Heshui dog meat and delicious and crispy mountain snails.

Customs of the time

(1) Spring Festival

Residents of Genghe Town call New Year’s Eve and Spring Festival (the first day of the lunar calendar) the Chinese New Year. Before the festival, villagers, whether rich or poor, try their best to buy new year's goods and prepare festive food. Specifically, they include: steamed rice dumplings, rice dumplings, fried dumplings, fried rice cakes, and fried rice cakes. On New Year's Eve, the whole family has a reunion dinner together. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, people dress brightly and greet each other "congratulations on getting rich". The elders distribute red packets to the younger ones. Everyone smiles to avoid quarrels. Every village beats gongs and drums, and lions visit every house to pay New Year greetings. On this day, people are forbidden to clean, work in the fields, or visit relatives and friends. The second to sixth day of the Lunar New Year is a day for visiting relatives and friends.

(2) Qingming Festival

Qingming Festival is a festival for every household in Genghe Town to commemorate their deceased relatives. Local people have the habit of going to their ancestors' graves to worship on the Tomb Sweeping Day, commonly known as "Xingzhengqing". People bring roasted pigs, cakes, and incense candles to their ancestors' graves to pay homage to their ancestors and pray for their family's safety while remembering their deceased friends. Since the funeral reform, people have changed from worshiping in ancestral graves to worshiping in cemeteries.

(3) The Jiaozi Eating Festival on the third day of the second lunar month

On this day, every household prepares Jiaozi (snacks) to entertain visiting relatives and friends (mostly married women who return to their natal homes to eat Jiaozi) ), the types of horns include oil horns, sticky rice horns, and moxa horns (moxa horns have the same pronunciation as "to endure", which means that eating moxa horns will make you strong, able to work well, and energetic).

(Thursday) March 3rd

Some villages will cook fried glutinous rice dumplings (also known as puzheng) on ??the third day of the third lunar month, which symbolizes family harmony and unity.

(5) Ghost Festival

The 14th day of the seventh lunar month is commonly known as the Bon Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival. At night, women burn incense and candles in front and behind their houses, and spread wine. Rice and fruits are served, and five-color paper is burned. However, some villages in Heshui do not celebrate the festival on the 14th day of the seventh lunar month. Instead, they burn incense and clothes before the 14th day of the seventh lunar month to celebrate the festival.

(6) Winter Solstice

On the day of Winter Solstice, people have the custom of eating soup balls (also called winter balls). In ancient times, there was a saying of "Winter New Year", which has been Married women are not allowed to celebrate the festival at their parents' home. In some villages, there is a custom of "eating raw fish and dog meat during the winter solstice".

There are other festivals such as the Lantern Festival, the Ox King’s Birthday on the eighth day of April, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Double Ninth Festival, etc. The celebration methods are similar to those in other towns and villages.