What are the customs of the Spring Festival?

Customs of the Spring Festival include sweeping the dust, observing the New Year's Eve, paying homage to the New Year, putting up spring couplets, window decorations and the word "blessing", posting New Year's paintings, blessings and longevity, burning firecrackers, and organizing New Year's goods.

Sweeping dust

"On the 24th day of the Lunar New Year, dusting and sweeping the house", according to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals", China in the Yao and Shun era, there is a Spring Festival custom of sweeping dust. According to folklore: because the "dust" and "Chen" harmonized, the Spring Festival dust sweeping "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", the intention is to all the poor luck, bad luck, swept out the door. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean up the environment, cleaning all kinds of appliances, dismantle and wash the bedding curtains, sweeping six courtyard, dusting dust cobwebs, dredging nullahs and dark ditches.

There is a joyful atmosphere of hygiene and cleanliness everywhere.

Watch the New Year's Eve

Watch the New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's activities, the custom of watching the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty, Zhou Zhi's "Land and Customs": New Year's Eve night, each with the gift, known as "feed the year"; wine and food invited, known as the "other year"; young and old get together to drink, wishing to complete, known as the "sub-year"; all night, everyone is the most important activity. "

Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese people have been waiting for the daybreak to come, which is known as the "New Year's Eve".

Since the Han Dynasty, the time of the transition between the old and new year is usually the middle of the night.

New Year's greetings

New Year's cards, which are common in modern society, were already practiced in ancient China. As early as the Song Dynasty, the royal aristocratic scholar's family and relatives have been used between the special New Year's greeting piece, called "name prick" or "name sticker". It is the plum blossom paper paper cut into about two inches wide, three inches long card, written on their names, addresses. A red paper bag is glued to the door of each house, called the "door book", on which is written the name of the owner to receive the name sticker (name sticker). The worshipper casts his name sticker in the door book, which means to pay tribute to the New Year, and the meaning is the same as that of modern New Year's cards.

Posting Spring Festival couplets

The custom of posting Spring Festival couplets, which began about a thousand years ago in the Later Shu period, is supported by history. Spring Festival couplets, also known as door pairs, spring stickers, couplets, pairs, peach charms, etc., which depict the background of the times and express good wishes in neat, pairwise, concise and exquisite words, are a unique form of literature in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in the city or in the countryside, every family has to choose a big red Spring Festival couplet to paste on the door, to increase the festive atmosphere for the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty, began to prevail in the Ming Dynasty, to the Qing Dynasty, the Spring Festival couplets of ideology and artistry have been greatly improved, Liang Zhangzhu prepared the Spring Festival couplets of monographs, "Threshold Lian series of words" on the origins of the couplets and various types of works of the characteristics of the discourse. There are many kinds of spring couplets, according to its use place, can be divided into door heart, frame pair, horizontal phi, spring strip, bucket square and so on. The "door heart" is pasted in the center of the upper part of the door panel; the "frame pair" is pasted on the left and right door frames; the "horizontal phi" is pasted on the horizontal wood of the door winks; the "spring strip" is pasted on the horizontal wood of the door winks; the "spring strip" is pasted on the horizontal wood of the door winks according to different contents. "According to different contents, posted in the corresponding place;" bucket catty "also called" door leaf "for the square diamond-shaped, more in the furniture, shadow wall.

Window and "lucky" character

In folklore, people also like to put all kinds of paper cuttings on the window - window. Window flowers not only bring out the festive atmosphere, but also combine decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in China, which has been loved by people for thousands of years, because it is mostly pasted on the windows, so it is also called "window flowers". With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window decoration expresses auspicious events and good wishes, and decorates the festivals with red-hot splendor. At the same time of putting up Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on the door, wall and lintel of their houses. Putting up the character "福" in the Spring Festival is a long-established custom in Chinese folklore. The character "福" refers to good fortune and luck, and is a symbol of people's desire for a happy life and their wish for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wishes, some people simply stick the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived" and "good fortune has arrived". Folk there will be "Fu" word fine as a variety of patterns, patterns of longevity, longevity peach, carp jump Dragon Gate, the five valleys, the dragon and phoenix, and so on.

Posting New Year's Paintings

The Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, black and colorful New Year's Paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. New Year paintings are an ancient folk art in China, reflecting the people's simple customs and beliefs, and holding their hopes for the future. New Year paintings, like spring scrolls, originated as "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of New Year's paintings has not only been limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, become colorful, in some of the New Year's paintings workshop produced the "Three Stars of Fortune, Lust and Longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "Five Valleys of Good Fortune," "Six Animals Prosperity," "Welcome the Spring and Receive the Blessings," such as the exquisite colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's wishes for the New Year's celebration and prayers. There are three important production areas of Chinese New Year paintings in China: Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong Province; and three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

Fu Lu Shou

The earliest New Year's painting collected in China is the woodcut New Year's painting of the Southern Song Dynasty, "With the Mysterious Presentation of the Fascinating Beauty of the Country", which depicts four ancient beauties, namely, Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Banji and Lvzhu. The most widely circulated folk painting is the one of "The Mouse Marrying Her Marriage". It depicts an interesting scene of a mouse marrying a bride in accordance with the customs of the earth. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng Mantuo of Shanghai combined the lunar calendar and New Year's paintings. This is a new form of New Year's paintings. This combination of two and one of the New Year's paintings, later developed into a wall calendar, and is still popular throughout the country.

Burning firecrackers

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers". That is, at the dawn of the new year, the first thing that families do when they open the door is to set off firecrackers to beep and blare the sound of firecrackers to get rid of the old and welcome the new. Firecrackers is a Chinese specialty, also known as "firecrackers", "cannonballs", "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, so far has a history of more than two thousand years.

Firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, is a holiday entertainment, can bring joy and good fortune. With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers is more and more widely used, varieties and colors are also increasingly numerous, whenever a major festival and festivities, and marriage, building, opening, etc., are burning firecrackers in order to show the celebration, Figure a good luck. Hunan Liuyang, Guangdong Foshan and Dongyao, Jiangxi Yichun and Pingxiang, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other areas of China's hometown of firecrackers, the production of firecrackers colorful, high-quality, not only sells well across the country, but also exported to the world.

Ordering New Year's goods

Chinese families have to buy a lot of "New Year's goods" before the New Year, such as Spring Festival couplets, lucky charms, new clothes, and food during the period of New Year's (the market is mostly closed during the period of New Year's). Lunar New Year shopping is an important activity for Chinese people during the Spring Festival. Compared to the past, the way Chinese people do Lunar New Year shopping has become more modern and less traditional.