The origin, legends, stories and customs of traditional festivals in China.

The origin and customs of traditional festivals in China;

Dragon Boat Festival

Every year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. According to the Chronicle of Jingchu, it is midsummer when the sun is on the mountain and it is midsummer in May. Its first afternoon is a sunny day to climb mountains in the sun, so the fifth day of May is also called "Duanyang Festival". In addition, the Dragon Boat Festival is also called "Noon Festival, May Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Bathing Orchid Festival". Mid-Autumn Festival, Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival are also called the four traditional festivals of the Han nationality in China.

2. Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in China. According to historical records, the word "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the book Zhou Li. To the Wei Dynasty, there was a record of "telling Shangshu Town about cattle confusion, crossing the river in mid-autumn, and traveling incognito around". It was not until the early years of the Tang Dynasty that the Mid-Autumn Festival became a fixed festival. The Book of Emperor Taizong recorded the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15. The prevalence of Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Song Dynasty, and it became one of the major festivals in China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This is also the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival. Since the Mid-Autumn Festival, there have been customs such as offering sacrifices to the moon, enjoying the moon, Yue Bai, eating moon cakes, enjoying osmanthus and drinking osmanthus wine, which have been passed down to this day and lasted for a long time.

3. Spring Festival

The Spring Festival originated from the activities of offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors in the beginning and end of the Shang Dynasty. It is the biggest, most lively and most important ancient traditional festival in China. In China, the traditional Spring Festival refers to the sacrificial ceremony from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month or the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month to the 15th of the first lunar month in La Worship, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month as the climax. Eating rice cakes in the Spring Festival, "it is better to take the year to pray for it." It means that every year goes well. The types of rice cakes are: white rice cakes and yellow rice cakes in the north; There are water mill rice cakes in Jiangnan; There is glutinous rice in the southwest; There are red turtle cakes in Taiwan Province province. "Gao" has been called in Han dialect, which was popular in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Jia Sixie's Book of Qi Yaomin records the production method.

4. Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival, also known as Shangyuan Festival, Xiaoyuanyuan Festival, Yuanxi Festival or Lantern Festival, is the first important festival after the Spring Festival. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar. The ancients called the night "dawn", so the fifteenth day of the first full moon in a year was called the Lantern Festival. Sima Qian founded the taichu calendar, which listed the Lantern Festival as a major festival. "Sui Shu Music" Day: "Every January, countries come to the DPRK and stay at Jianguomen outside Duanmen for fifteen days, stretching for eight miles. It is a theater." Tens of thousands of people participated in singing and dancing, from faint to dark. Traditional customs include going out to enjoy the moon, lighting lanterns and setting off flames, liking solve riddles on the lanterns, eating Yuanxiao and pulling rabbit lanterns. In addition, in many places, traditional folk performances, such as playing dragon lanterns, playing lions, walking on stilts, boating, yangko dancing and playing Taiping drums, have all joined the Lantern Festival.

5. Tomb-Sweeping Day

Tomb-Sweeping Day, also known as the outing festival, is one of the traditional festivals in China, and it is also one of the most important sacrificial festivals. It is at the turn of mid-spring and late spring, that is, 104 days after the winter solstice. This is the day to worship ancestors and sweep graves. The name of Tomb-Sweeping Day is related to the weather and climate characteristics at this time. The Western Han Dynasty's "Huainanzi Astronomical Training" said: "On the fifteenth day after the vernal equinox, the bucket refers to B, and the Qingming wind is coming." "Qingming Wind" is a refreshing and clear wind. "When I was in 100 questions" said, "Everything grows at this time, clean and bright. So it is called Qingming. " Although Qingming, as a festival, was only formed in the Tang Dynasty, Tomb-Sweeping Day Qi, as a symbol of time sequence, has long been known by the ancients and clearly recorded in the Han Dynasty.

6. Double Ninth Festival

Double Ninth Festival, the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, is called "Double Ninth Festival". There is a folk custom of climbing mountains on this day, so the Double Ninth Festival is called "Mountaineering Festival". There are also sayings such as Double Ninth Festival, Cornus officinalis and Chrysanthemum Festival. Because the homonym of "99" on the ninth day of September is "long" and has a long meaning, it is often used to worship ancestors and carry out activities to respect the elderly. The Double Ninth Festival and the three festivals of "the first day", "the Qing Dynasty" and "Chongqing" are also the four major festivals for ancestor worship in Chinese traditional festivals. 20 12 February 28th 12 The law makes it clear that the ninth day of the ninth lunar month is the festival for the elderly. Many important books, such as Beginners in the Tang Dynasty and Taiping Yu Lan in the Song Dynasty, all recounted this story in Wu Jun's "Continuation of Qi and Harmony of Things", arguing that the custom of women tying dogwood bags on their arms to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters came from this.

7. Chinese Valentine's Day

Chinese Valentine's Day, also known as Qiqiao Sister's Day, Qiqiao Sister's Day or Seven Sisters's Birthday, originated in China and is a traditional festival in China and East Asian countries. The festival comes from the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month (after the Meiji Restoration, it was changed to the seventh day of the Japanese solar calendar). China Valentine's Day takes the folklore of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl as the carrier, expressing the feelings of married men and women who never give up and grow old together, and abiding by their commitment to love. With the development of time, Qixi became the Valentine's Day in China. There are also records of Petunia and Weaver Girl in Historical Records Tianguanshu and Hanshu Tianwenzhi. In the story "The Years of Jingchu" written by Zong Huai in the Jin Dynasty, it is said that the Weaver Girl is the granddaughter of the Emperor of Heaven and met Petunia in the Milky Way on the night of July 7, which outlines a clear outline for this love story.

8. Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival, usually called Ghost Festival, falls on July 30th, Shigu, the official land festival or Lent Festival, on July 15 of the lunar calendar every year (July 14 in some areas). In the Han Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was a festival to celebrate the harvest and repay the earth in early autumn. Some crops are ripe, so people are asked to worship their ancestors and offer sacrifices such as new rice to report Qiu Cheng to their ancestors. Taoism believes that the Mid-Autumn Festival is the birthday of local officials. On this day, they pray for forgiveness, all ghosts will be released from the underworld, and the deceased ancestors can go home for reunion, so it is also the Ghost Festival, which is called Bonne Festival in Buddhism. Folk people generally carry out activities such as offering sacrifices to ghosts, ancestors and recommending food. Sacrificing ancestors and timely recommending food are also called "Zhaihe Valley" in Nanjing and Jianghuai areas of China. In the old days, monks crossed the dead by the river and put paper lotus lanterns into the river, so it was also called "Zhaihe Valley".

9. New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve, also known as New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve and Black Day, is the night on the last day of the Lunar New Year, that is, the night before the Spring Festival. December of the lunar calendar is mostly a big month with 30 days, so it is also called New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve. 1February 29th sunset, some areas will be renamed 29th. The original meaning of the word "except" in "New Year's Eve" is "go", which is extended to "easy", that is, alternating; The original meaning of the word "evening" is "sunset" and it is extended to "night". So "New Year's Eve" means that the old year will be removed the next night and the new year will be replaced tomorrow. Elimination in pre-Qin period. According to Lu Chunqiu Ji, the ancients used drums to drive away the "plague god" on the day before the New Year, which is the origin of the "New Year's Eve" festival.

10. Cold Food Festival

Cold Food Festival: 105 Summer to the future, one or two days before Tomb-Sweeping Day. When the first day of the day is a holiday, smoking is forbidden and only cold food is eaten. In the development of later generations, the customs of sweeping, climbing, swinging, cuju, hooking hands and fighting cocks were gradually increased, and the Cold Food Festival lasted for more than 2,000 years. The origin of the Cold Food Festival, according to historical records: During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhong Er, the son of the State of Jin, fled to other countries and lived in exile for 19 years. Minister Jiezitui always followed around and never gave up; Even "cutting stocks." But meson tui didn't want to make a fortune, so he lived in seclusion with his mother in Mianshan. Jin Wengong ordered the release of Yamakaji to force him out of the mountain, but meson was determined not to go out of the mountain and eventually died in a fire. Bearing in mind his ambition to be a loyal minister, Jin Wengong buried him in Mianshan, built a shrine and a temple, and ordered the fire and cold to be banned on the day of the festival to show his grief. This is the origin of the "Cold Food Festival". The Cold Food Festival originated from the records of the burning of Mianshan in Jiexiu, which was first seen in Huan Tan's New Argument Volume XI Legacy in the Western Han Dynasty, and then in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the Biography of Zhou Ju, the Criminal Order of Cao Caoming, the Book of Jin and the Biography of Xerox.

Traditional festivals in China are diverse in form and rich in content, and they are an important part of the long history and culture of the Chinese nation. It is a legal system of "civilized society ruled by law". It is the basic framework of regional civilized countries.

The origin and development of festivals is a "cultural process of gradual formation and perfection" of human society, and it is the product of the evolution of civilization from apes to humans. The traditional festivals in China are loaded with myths, legends, astronomy, geography, numbers, calendars and other humanistic and natural cultural contents.

Documentary records can be traced back at least to Zheng Xiao and Shangshu in Xia Dynasty. By the Warring States period, a year was divided into 24 solar terms, which was basically completed. Later traditional festivals are closely related to these solar terms.