What are the customs of the Spring Festival?

The Spring Festival, commonly known as "New Year's Day" and "New Year's Day", is a grand and distinctive ancient festival in China, and one of the most lively traditional festivals. Spring Festival, in a narrow sense, means the first day of the first month, the first of the new year; in a broad sense, the Spring Festival is from the Lunar New Year or the small year has been to the first year of the first month of the nineteenth, are regarded as the Spring Festival. Here are some of the customs during the Spring Festival, see how many you know?

1, sweeping dust

"Twenty-four, sweeping the house", according to the "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals" records, China in the Yao and Shun era, there is a Spring Festival dust sweeping custom. According to folklore: because the "dust" and "Chen" consonant, dust sweeping in the New Year has "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", the intention is to all poor luck, bad luck all swept out the door. This custom is the desire of people to break the old and bring in the new and the prayers of the old and welcome the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean up the environment, wash all kinds of appliances, dismantle the bedding curtains, sprinkle clean the courtyard, dust dust cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with joyful health, clean and welcome the new year's atmosphere of joy.

2, posting Spring Festival

Spring Festival couplets, also known as the door to the spring, couplets, couplets, couplets, peach symbols, etc., it is neat, couplets, concise, sophisticated text depicting the background of the times, expressing the best wishes, is unique to China's form of literature. Every Spring Festival, whether urban or rural, every family should select a large red Spring Festival couplets pasted on the door, for the festival to increase the festive atmosphere. 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 monograph "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 types of spring couplets, which, according to their place of use, can be divided into door centers, frame pairs, horizontal phi, spring strips, and doufang. "Door" in the upper center of the door panel; "frame" on the left and right door frame; "Phi" on the horizontal wood of the door winks; "Chunzhi "According to different contents, posted in the corresponding place;" bucket catty "also known as" door leaf ", for the square diamond-shaped, mostly posted in the furniture, shadow wall.

3, ancestor worship

New Year's Day for the first year, the first thing is to worship ancestors. This ritual is called "worshiping the family" in some places, because the ancestors are called "family relatives" rather than gods.

Ancestor worship is usually done at home. In some places, families hang pictures of their ancestors in their halls, but in most areas, the ancestors' tablets are kept. Around midnight on New Year's Eve, before the door is opened and firecrackers are set off, the ancestor worship begins. In front of the ancestors' tablets, wine, food and seasonal fruits are set out for the ancestors to enjoy; after lighting joss paper and candles, parents and grandchildren perform the ritual of kowtowing.

The significance of the New Year's ancestor worship is to pay careful attention to the end of the year, honor the ancestors and pray for their blessing on future generations to be prosperous and have good luck in everything, which is a manifestation of the traditional ethical thinking of the Chinese people.

4, the New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities, the custom of the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou Zhi's "customs": the night of New Year's Eve, 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 long to keep watch. "; we stay up all night, waiting for the dawn, called "keep the year". Since the Han Dynasty, the time of the transition between the old and the new year is usually the middle of the night.

5, New Year's paintings

The Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, heavy ink and colorful New Year's paintings add a lot of prosperity and joyful festive atmosphere to thousands of households. New Year's 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's paintings, like spring scrolls, originated as "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of the New Year's paintings has not only limited to monotonous themes such as the God of the Door, become colorful, in some of the New Year's paintings in the workshop produced the "Three Stars of Fortune and Longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "Five Grains and a Plentiful Harvest," "Six Animals Prosperity," "Welcoming the Spring to receive the blessings of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's joyful prayers for the New Year's good wishes. There are three important production areas of Chinese New Year paintings in China: Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong Province; three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

China's earliest collection of New Year's Paintings is the Southern Song Dynasty "with the fairness of the country's face" woodcut New Year's Paintings, the painting is Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Ban Ji and green beads of the four ancient beauties. 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 calendar, and is still popular throughout the country.

6, firecrackers

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers". That is, the arrival of the new year, the first thing that families open the door is to set off firecrackers, to beep, bla bla bla 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 festive entertainment activities, can bring people joy and good fortune.

With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers is more and more widely used, varieties and colors are also seeing more and more, whenever a major holiday and festivities, and marriage, building, opening, etc., are to set off firecrackers in order to show the celebration, figure an auspicious.

7, New Year's Eve dinner

The whole family ate a reunion dinner together is an important custom of New Year's Eve. As the most important traditional festival in China, the Spring Festival is a great opportunity for the whole family to have a reunion, especially as many people become busier and busier at work. The reunion meal on New Year's Eve is also called the New Year's Eve dinner, and according to the Zong Security Department's "Jing Chu Yearly Records", the custom of having a New Year's Eve dinner existed at least during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In the past, families used to cook a sumptuous dinner at home. Nowadays, some families avoid the hassle by simply putting the New Year's Eve dinner in a restaurant. No matter where they eat, the theme of reunion will never change.

8, New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is one of the most important activities and customs of the Spring Festival. On the morning of the first day of the New Year, adults and children are wearing new clothes, wearing new hats, visiting friends and relatives, pay respects to each other, wishing a prosperous New Year. The New Year's greetings generally start from their own homes, the younger generation to the elders after the New Year's greetings, people meet on the way out, and then smilingly congratulate each other on the New Year.

In fact, as we get older, we feel that the flavor of the New Year is not as strong as it was when we were young. Maybe it's because you've got the burden of raising a family and the anticipation of New Year's Eve isn't as strong as it was when you were a kid. I'm in a hurry to return and leave home again. And those traditional customs of the older generation, the young people are not willing to learn, the form of the rules of the New Year is also increasingly simplified. And what are the customs you remember about the Spring Festival like.