Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional stories - 2011 Spring Festival Gala Handbook
2011 Spring Festival Gala Handbook
Table of Contents
Introduction
History
Legend of the New Year's Eve Observance
Wannian Creation of the Calendar
Posting of Spring Festival Couplets and Door Goddesses
Legend of Peach Symbols
Ancient New Year's Card
Processes of Lunar New Year's Day
Lunar New Year's Day, Lunar New Year's Eve and Lunar New Year's Eve
The first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year
People are invited to attend this event. >First day of the first month
Twelfth day of the first month
Third day of the first month
Fifth day of the first month
Seventh day of the first month
Eighth day of the first month
Ninth day of the first month
Tenth day of the first month
Tenth day of the first month
First day of the first month
Food Customs Lahai congee
Nian gao (New Year's rice cake)
Dumplings
Yuanxiao
Spring Cake
Significance
Related Leap Chinese New Years
Earliest and Late Chinese New Years
Introduction
History
Legends Staying up to keep the New Year's Eve
The theory that ten thousand years created the calendar
Posting Spring Festival Couplets and Door Goddesses
Legend of Peach Symbols
Ancient New Year's cards
Process Lunar New Year's card 23rd and 24th of Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year's card 29th and 30th of Lunar New Year
The first day of the first month
The second day of the first month
The third day of the first month
The fifth day of the first month
The seventh day of the first month
The eighth day of the first month
The ninth day of the first month
The tenth day of the first month
The eleventh day of the first month
The fifteenth day of the first month
Food Customs Lapa congee
Nian Cake
Dumplings
Yuanxiao
Spring Cake
Significance
Related Leap Chinese New Year
Earliest and latest Chinese New Years
Expansion Introduction
Spring Festival The Spring Festival, commonly known as the "New Year's Festival", is the grandest traditional festival of the Chinese people. Since the first year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the first day of the first month of the summer year (lunar calendar) is the "first day of the year" (i.e., "Nian"), and the date of the festival has been fixed and continues to this day. The New Year's Day was called "New Year's Day" in ancient times, and after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, when the solar calendar was adopted to count the year, the first day of January in the Gregorian calendar was called "New Year's Day", and the first day of the first month in the lunar calendar was called "Spring Festival". The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar was called "Spring Festival". The festivals of the year are also called "traditional festivals". They have a long history, are widely spread, and are characterized by great popularity, mass popularity, and even universal popularity. New Year's Day is the day to get rid of the old and bring in the new. Although it is held on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, the activities of the festival do not end on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar. From the Lunar New Year's Day on the twenty-third (or twenty-fourth), people will begin to "busy New Year": sweeping the house, washing hair and bathing, and prepare for the New Year's Day utensils and so on. All these activities, there is a **** the same theme, that is, "out with the old and in with the new". People welcome the New Year and spring with great ceremony and enthusiasm. New Year's Day is also a day of worship and prayer. Ancient people said that a cooked grain for a "year", the harvest for the "great year". In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was already an annual celebration of the harvest. Later, praying to heaven became one of the main contents of the New Year's custom. Moreover, gods such as the God of the Stove, the God of the Door, the God of Wealth, the God of Happiness, the God of the Well, etc., all enjoyed the incense on earth during the New Year's festivals. People take this opportunity to thank the gods for their past care and pray for more blessings in the new year. New Year's Day is also a time for family reunions and ancestor worship. New Year's Eve, the whole family gathered together, ate the "New Year's dinner", the elders to the children to distribute "New Year's money", the family sat down "to observe the New Year". At the time of the New Year's Eve, firecrackers went off, and the activities of saying goodbye to the old year and welcoming the new year reached a climax. Each family burns incense to pay homage to heaven and earth, sacrifices to the ancestors, and then pays New Year's greetings to their elders, followed by congratulations from relatives and friends of the same clan. After the New Year's Day, they begin to visit friends and relatives and give each other gifts to celebrate the New Year. The New Year's Day is also a festival of popular entertainment and revelry. After the New Year's Day, a variety of colorful recreational activities competing: play lion, dragon dance, twisting rice-planting songs, stilt walkers, juggling plays, etc., for the New Year's Day added a rich 欢度春节
喜庆气氛. At this time, just before and after the "spring", the ancient times to hold a grand ceremony to welcome the spring, whip the bull to welcome the spring, praying for wind and rain, a good harvest. Various social fire activities to the first month of the fifteenth, again forming a climax. Therefore, a set of prayers, celebrations, entertainment as one of the feast of the New Year Festival has become the most important festival of the Chinese people. To this day, the main customs of the New Year's Day have been inherited and developed intact, except for the activities of worshiping the gods and ancestors, which have been somewhat diluted compared with the past. The Spring Festival is an important carrier of the excellent traditions of the Chinese culture, which contains the wisdom and crystallization of the Chinese culture, unites the pursuit of life and emotional attachment of the Chinese people, and passes down the concepts of family ethics and social ethics of the Chinese people. After thousands of years of accumulation, the colorful Spring Festival folklore has formed a deep and unique Spring Festival culture. In recent years, with the improvement of the material standard of living, people's demand for spiritual and cultural life is growing rapidly, and the thirst for affection, friendship, harmony and fulfillment is even stronger, and traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival are receiving more and more attention and concern from all walks of life. To vigorously carry forward the Spring Festival condensed by the excellent traditional culture, highlighting the old and welcome the new, blessing reunion peace, prosperity and development of the theme, and strive to create family harmony, stability and unity, joy and peace of the festive atmosphere, and to promote the Chinese culture is everlasting, constantly developing and expanding. [1]
History
The first day of the Chinese lunar year is called the Spring Festival. It is the grandest traditional festival of the Chinese people, and also symbolizes unity, prosperity and new hopes for the future. According to records, the Chinese people have been celebrating the Spring Festival for more than 4,000 years. There are many theories about the origin of the Spring Festival, but one of them, which is generally accepted by the public, is that the Spring Festival was initiated by Yu Shun. On a day over 2,000 B.C., Shun became the son of heaven and led his men to worship heaven and earth. Since then, people have taken this day as the first day of the year. This is said to be the origin of the Lunar New Year, which was later called the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival used to be called New Year's Day. The month of January in which the Spring Festival falls is called New Year's Day. The date of New Year's Day in China through the ages is not consistent: the Xia Dynasty with the first month of Mengchun for the first month, the Shang Dynasty with the waxing (December) for the first month, Qin Shi Huang united the six countries to October for the first month, the early Han Dynasty along with the Qin Oil Painting Dr. Sun Yat-sen inaugurated as the temporary president
Calendar. Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, felt that the calendar is too chaotic, and ordered the ministers Gongsun Qing and Sima Qian to create a "solar calendar", which stipulates that the first month of the lunar calendar for the first year, the first day of the first month for the first day of the year, that is, New Year's Day. Since then, China has been using the summer calendar (lunar calendar, also known as the lunar calendar) to celebrate the year, until the Qing Dynasty, up to 2080 years. Spring Festival has different names in different times. In the pre-Qin Dynasty, it was called "on the day", "the first day", "change the year", "dedicate the year", etc.; in the two Han Dynasty, it was called "the three dynasties". was called "three dynasties", "the first day of the year", "the first day", "the first day"; Wei, Jin and North and South Dynasties called the "yuan Chen", "yuan day", "yuan head", "year dynasty", etc.; to the Tang, Song and Yuanming, it is called "New Year's Day", "Yuan", "Year Day", "Xinzheng", "Xinyuan "and so on; and the Qing Dynasty, has been called" New Year's Day "or" New Year's Day ". Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing in 1912 when he took office as the provisional president of the Republic of China, announced the abolition of the old calendar to the solar calendar (i.e., the Gregorian calendar), with the Republic of China chronology. And decided to January 1, 1912 for the Republic of China on January 1, the first year. January 1 was called New Year's Day, but not New Year's Day. However, the people still use the old calendar according to tradition, that is, the summer calendar, still in the year on February 18 (the first day of the first month of the year of polyoxyethylene) to celebrate the traditional New Year's Day, and other traditional festivals are also the same as before. In view of this, in 1913 (Republic of China two years) in July, by the Beijing government at that time, the chief of internal affairs to the president Yuan Shikai submitted a report of the four seasons of the holiday, said: "our old custom, the four seasons of the year, that is, it should be expressly provided for, and to be set on the lunar New Year's Day as the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival for the Summer Festival, Mid-Autumn for the Autumn Festival, the winter solstice for the Winter Festival, where I have to rest for all the nationals, in the public service, but also permitted to holiday One day." But Yuan Shikai only approved the first day of the first month for the Spring Festival, agreed to the Spring Festival routine vacation, the following year (1914) began to implement. Since then, the first day of the summer calendar year was called "Spring Festival". On September 27, 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) decided to adopt the world's common Gregorian calendar while establishing the People's Republic of China (PRC). In order to distinguish between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar two "years", but also because of the 24 solar terms of the year "spring" just before and after the lunar year, so the solar January 1 called "New Year's Day", the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar Officially renamed "Spring Festival". The earth around the sun a week, the calendar called a year, the cycle, never-ending. However, according to the different seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, people take the first day of the first month of the summer calendar, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
as the beginning of the year. The Spring Festival officially comes after midnight on December 30 (the 29th day of the second month) of the lunar calendar. As the Spring Festival approaches, people pick up New Year's goods, and on New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers together for New Year's Eve dinner. New Year's paintings and spring scrolls are put up to welcome the new year. With the establishment of the new China, the Spring Festival celebrations have become more colorful. Not only retained the folk customs of the past, eliminated some activities with feudal superstitions, and added a lot of new content. So that the Spring Festival has a new flavor of the times. December 23, 1949, the Chinese people's *** and the People's Government of the People's Republic of China provided for the annual Spring Festival holiday for three days. China is a multi-ethnic country, each ethnic group to celebrate the New Year in different forms. The Han Chinese, Manchu and Koreans celebrate the Spring Festival in much the same way, with family reunions, eating rice cakes, dumplings and a variety of hearty meals, displaying lanterns and colorful decorations, setting off firecrackers, and wishing each other well. The celebrations during the Spring Festival are extremely rich and varied, including lion dances, dragon juggling, stilt walking, and running on dry boats. In some areas people follow the past ancestor worship God activities, praying for a new year of wind and rain, peace, harvest. Ancient Mongolia, the Spring Festival called "white festival", the first month called white month, is the meaning of good luck. The Tibetans celebrate the Tibetan New Year. The Hui, Uyghur and Kazakhs celebrate the Gulbang Festival. The Spring Festival is also a grand festival for the Miao, Boys, and Yao. [2]
Legend
The Legend
Watching the New Year
Watching the New Year
Watching the New Year is the custom of staying awake on the last night of the old year and staying up all night to welcome the arrival of the new year, which is also called New Year's Eve Wishing for the New Year's Eve, commonly known as "Wishing for the New Year". Explore the origins of this custom, in folklore circulated an interesting story: the ancient times, there is a fierce beast, scattered in the mountains and forests, people call them "year". It is hideous, ferocious nature, specializing in eating birds and beasts, scales and insects, a day to change a taste, from knocking insects have been eaten to the living, so that people talk about the "year" color change. Later, people slowly mastered the "year" of the law of activities, it is every three hundred and sixty-five days scurrying to the crowd of places to taste a mouthful of food, and the time of the infestation are in the dark, and so on, until the rooster breaks the dawn, they will return to the mountains and forests to go. Calculated the date of the "year" rampage, the people will be this terrible night as a gate to brake, called "New Year's Eve", and came up with a set of New Year's Eve approach: every night, every family is done in advance of the evening meal, put out the fire and clean the stove, and then put the chicken coop Cattle fences all tied up, the front and back doors of the house are sealed, hiding in the house to eat "New Year's Eve dinner", because this dinner has the meaning of bad luck and uncertainty, so it is very rich, in addition to the whole family to dine together to express the harmony and reunion, but also have to be in the meal before the sacrifice to the ancestors, praying for the blessing of the gods of the ancestors, and peacefully through the night, and after eating dinner, no one will have a good time, and then the fire will be turned off. After dinner, no one dares to sleep, sitting together in a crowded chat. Gradually formed on New Year's Eve to stay up to keep the New Year's custom. The custom of keeping the New Year's Eve rose in the North and South Dynasties, and many literati in the Liang Dynasty had poems about keeping the New Year's Eve. "One night is even a double year, and the fifth night is divided into two years." People light candles or oil lamps and keep vigil all night long, symbolizing to drive away all evil plagues and diseases and looking forward to an auspicious new year. This custom has been passed down to this day.
Wannian created the calendar
Legend has it that in ancient times, a young man named Wannian saw that the seasons were very chaotic at that time, and had the intention of trying to set the seasons right. But bitterly unable to find a way to calculate the time, one day, he went up the mountain chopping wood tired, sitting under the shade of a tree to rest, the movement of the shadow of the tree inspired him, he designed a sundial measuring the shadow of the sun counting the time of day, determine the time of day, and later, the drip of the spring on the cliffs inspired him to do a five-tiered funnel pot to calculate the time. Over time, he realized that every 360 days or so, the seasons rotated and the length of the day was repeated. The Longevity Figure
The king of the country at that time was called Zu Yi, and he was also often distressed by the unpredictability of the weather winds and clouds. Knowing this, Wannian took the sundial and the funnel pot to the emperor and explained to Zuyi the reasoning behind the operation of the sun and the moon. Zu Yi listened to the dragon's face, felt reasonable. So left Wannian, in front of the Temple of Heaven to build the Sun and Moon Pavilion, built the sundial and funnel kiosk. And hope to be able to measure the sun and moon law, project the accurate morning and evening time, create the calendar, for the benefit of the people of the world. Once, Zu Yi went to find out the progress of the Ten Thousand Years Test Calendar. When he ascended to the Altar of the Sun and the Moon, he saw a poem engraved on the stone wall beside the altar of heaven: The sun rises and the sun sets in three hundred and six days, and the cycle begins again and again from the beginning. The grass and trees wither and prosper in four seasons, and there are twelve rounds in a year. Knowing that Wannian had created the calendar, he personally climbed up to the Sun and Moon Pavilion to visit Wannian. Wannian pointed to the sky and said to Zuyi: "It is now the fullness of twelve months, the old year is over, the new spring begins again, I pray that the king of the country to set a festival". Zu Yi said, "Spring is the first day of the year, let's call it Spring Festival". This is said to be the origin of the Spring Festival. As winter turned to spring, year after year, Wannian, after a long period of observation and careful projection, formulated an accurate solar calendar, which was full of silver whiskers when he presented it to the succeeding ruler of the country. The king of the country was y touched, in order to commemorate the achievements of Wan Nian, the solar calendar named "Wan Nian Calendar", Wan Nian as the sun and moon life star. Later on, people put up the picture of the Longevity Star on New Year's Day, which is said to be in honor of the highly respected Mannian.
Posting Spring Festival Couplets and Door Gods
It is said that the custom of posting Spring Festival Couplets began about a thousand years ago in the period of Hou Shu, which is supported by history. In addition, according to the Jade Candle Canon and the Yenching Times Record, the original form of the Spring Festival couplets was the so-called "Peach Symbol". In ancient Chinese mythology, there is a world of ghosts, in which there is a mountain with a big peach tree covering 3,000 miles, and a golden rooster at the top of the tree. Whenever the golden rooster crowed early in the morning, the ghosts that had gone out to roam at night would be rushed back to the ghostly realm. The gate of the Ghost Realm was situated in the northeast of the peach tree, and by the gate stood two godmen named Shentan and Yubi. If a ghost did something harmful at night, the gods would immediately find it, catch it, tie it up with a rope made of mango reeds, and feed it to the tiger. Therefore, all the ghosts in the world were afraid of Shentian and Yubi. So the folk used peach wood to carve into their likeness and put it in front of their house to avoid evil and prevent harm. Later, people simply carve the name of God Tantui and Yubi on the mahogany board, thinking that this can also suppress the evil to go to the evil. This kind of peach wood board was later called "Peach Amulet". Qin Shubao and Yuchigong
In the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on the mahogany boards, without losing the significance of mahogany as a means of suppressing evil spirits, expressing their own good wishes, and decorating the portals for aesthetic purposes. And write couplets on red paper to symbolize the joy and auspiciousness of the New Year, posted on both sides of the doors and windows, to express people's prayers for good luck in the coming year. In order to pray for a family's well-being, people in some places still retain the habit of sticking door gods. It is said that if two door gods are posted on the front door, all demons and ghosts will be afraid. In folklore, the door god is a symbol of righteousness and force, the ancients believe that people with strange looks often have magical endowments and extraordinary skills. They are upright and kind-hearted, to catch ghosts and demons is their nature and responsibility, people look up to the ghost hunter Zhong Kui, that is, this kind of strange looks. So the folk god of the door is always angry eyes, grim-looking, holding a variety of traditional weapons, ready to fight with the ghosts and demons that dare to come to the door. Since the doors of residential houses in China usually open in pairs, the door gods are always in pairs. After the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the previous two generals Shentian and Yubi, people also took Qin Shubao and Yuchigong, two Tang Dynasty military generals, as door deities. According to legend, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was sick and heard the ghosts and demons outside his door, which made him feel uneasy all night long. So he asked these two generals to stand beside the door with weapons to guard it, and the next night there were no more ghosts to disturb him. Later, Emperor Tang Taizong had the two generals' images painted and pasted on the door, and the custom began to spread among the people.
The Legend of Peach Symbol
Peach Symbol
Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty wrote in the poem "New Year's Day", "On the day of a thousand doors and ten thousand households, new peaches are always exchanged for old symbols." , describing the light of the first day. The words "peach" and "talisman" in the poem are intertextual, meaning that new peach talismans are always exchanged for old ones - getting rid of the old and bringing in the new. There is a beautiful legend about the Peach Symbol. A long time ago, Dushuo Mountain in the East China Sea had a beautiful scenery, and there was a peach forest on the mountain, in which there was a huge peach tree with thick branches and leaves, which was curved and coiled for 3,000 miles, and the peaches were so big and sweet that a person who ate the peaches from this tree could be turned into a god. One dark night, some ghosts with green faces and fangs, red hair and green eyes tried to steal the peaches. The two brothers, Shentan and Yushi, who owned the peach forest, used peach branches to defeat the ghosts and fed them to a tiger watching the mountain with a straw rope. From then on, the two brothers were so famous that the ghosts and monsters were afraid of them, and after their death, they became immortals specializing in punishing evil spirits. In later times, people used one-inch wide and seven to eight-inch long peach wood boards to paint the images of the two immortals, Shentan and Yubi, and hung them on both sides of their doors to drive away ghosts and evil spirits, and these boards were called "peach amulets". With the change of the times, the peach charm itself is also changing, and later people will write the names of the two gods in the peach charm, instead of the picture, and then later, and then developed to the "title of the peach charm", that is, the number of words is equal, the structure of symmetry, the meaning of the corresponding short poems written in the peach charm, which is the predecessor of the Spring Festival Couplets.
Ancient New Year's Cards
The New Year's cards that are common in modern society were already practiced in ancient China. As early as in the Song Dynasty, the royal aristocrats and scholars of the family and relatives have been used between the special New Year's greeting piece, called "name prick" or "name stickers". 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 throws the name sticker at the door book, which means to pay respect to the New Year. The meaning is the same as the modern New Year's card. [3]
Process
Lunar New Year 23, 24
Small New Year Zaoshen (16 pictures) Lunar New Year 23 or 24, also known as the "Small New Year", is the day of the folk festival of the stove. The folk song "23, sugar melon sticky" refers to the annual Lunar New Year 23 or 24 days of the sacrificial stove. There is a saying that "the government three, the people four, the boat family five", that is, the government on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, the general people on the twenty-fourth day of the month, the water family for the twenty-fifth day of the festival of the stove. Xiao Nian is the beginning of the Spring Festival celebrations, and there are two main activities: sweeping the New Year's Eve and sacrificing to the stove. In addition to this, there is the custom of eating Zao sugar, and in some places, there is also eating fire roast, sugar cake, oil cake, and tofu soup. Zao Ceremony Zao Ceremony is a very influential and widely spread custom in Chinese folklore. In the old days, almost every house had a "Zao Wang" god in the stove. People called this god "Sifu Bodhisattva" or "Zaojun Sifu". Legend has it that he was appointed by the Jade Emperor as the "Zaowang Fujun, the Sifu of the East Kitchen in the Nine Heavens", who was responsible for controlling the fire of the stoves of each family, and was worshipped as the protector of the family. He is responsible for the management of each family's stove fire, and is worshipped as the protector god of a family. Most of the Zaowang niches are located in the north or east of the stove room, with the idol of Zaowang in the center. For those who don't have a Zaowang niche, there are also those who put the idol directly on the wall. In some cases, the idol depicts only one person, while in others, there are two persons, a man and a woman, and the goddess is called "Zaowang Granny". The celebration of Zao on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year is closely related to the New Year's Eve. On the night of Lunar New Year's Eve, one week later, Zaowang (灶王) comes to earth together with other gods and goddesses to steam steamed steamed buns (19 pictures), bringing good fortune and bad luck to the family. The God Zao is believed to lead the way for the gods in the sky. While the other gods ascend to heaven again after the New Year, only Zao Wangwang stays in people's kitchens for a long time. The ceremony of welcoming the gods is called "receiving the gods", and for Lord Zao it is called "receiving the stove". The ceremony is usually much simpler on New Year's Eve, when the new stove lamps are replaced and incense is burned in front of the stove niche, and that's the end of it. As the saying goes, "men don't worship the moon, women don't sacrifice to the stove". In some places, women don't worship the stove. It is said that Zaowang master looks like a small white man, afraid of female sacrificial stove, there is "male and female suspicion". Stove festival folk preaching eating dumplings, meaning "send off dumplings to welcome the wind face". Mountainous areas eat cake and buckwheat. Southeast Jin, the popular custom of eating fried corn, folk proverb "twenty-three, do not eat fried, the beginning of the year - a pot down" said people like to fry corn with maltose bonded together, frozen into a large block, eat crispy and sweet. Steam steamed buns After Lunar New Year's Day 23, every family should steam steamed buns. They are divided into two types: those for honoring the gods and those for visiting relatives. The former is solemn and the latter is flowery. In particular, a large jujube mountain should be made for the worship of Zaojun. "When a family steams flower buns, the four neighbors come to help." This is often a great opportunity for folk women to show off their dexterity, and a flower bun is a handicraft. Writing Spring Festival Couplets After the 23rd day of the Lunar New Year, every household has to write Spring Festival Couplets. Folklore is concerned that every god must be posted, every door must be posted, and every object must be posted, so the Spring Festival couplets are the most numerous and the most complete. The couplets in front of the deities are especially elaborate, mostly words of worship and prayers. Common god couplets are: "Heavenly grace is as deep as the sea, and the virtue of the earth is as heavy as the mountain"; land god couplets: "White jade is created from the earth, and gold comes out of the earth"; god of wealth couplets: "Lord of the heavenly source of wealth, and god of the earthly blessing and fortune"; well god couplets: "The god of the well is the god of the earth, and the god of the earthly blessing and fortune is the god of the earth". "The God of Wealth's couplet reads, "The well can connect to the four seas, and the family can reach the three rivers". Face grain silos, corrals and other places in the Spring Festival couplets, are expressed warmly celebrate and hope, such as "grain harvest, six animals thrive"; "rice and noodles as thick as a mountain, oil and salt as deep as the sea"; "cattle like a tiger in the South Mountain, the horse like the North Sea Dragon "; "sheep year after year, lamb month after month," and so on. In addition, there are some single couplets, such as each indoor sticker "head up to see joy", the door across the sticker "out of the door to see joy", the fire on the sticker "Wang Qi Chong Tian", the yard sticker "Full of gold in the yard", "deep roots" on the tree, "White Tiger" on the stone mill, and so on. The couplets on the main door are the face of a family, and they are especially emphasized, either expressing emotions or writing scenes, rich in content, and full of wonderful phrases. Eat Zao sugar Zao sugar is a kind of malt sugar, sticky, it is drawn as a long sugar stick called "Guandong sugar", pulled into a flat round type is called "sugar melon". Put it outside the house in winter, because of the cold weather, sugar melon solidified solid and some tiny bubbles inside, eat it crunchy, sweet and crispy, unique flavor. The real Guandong sugar hard, drop can not be broken, eat must be split with a kitchen knife, the material is very heavy and very fine. Slightly sour taste, no honeycomb in the middle, each piece weighs one or two, two or four, the price is also more expensive. Sugar melon with sesame and no sesame two kinds of sugar made into melon shape or melon shape, the center is empty, the skin is less than five points thick, although the size of the different, but the transaction is still calculated by the amount of large sugar melon weighing one or two pounds, but used as a front to buy very few people. Dust Sweeping After the Zao Festival, preparations for the New Year officially begin. Sweeping the dust is the end-of-year cleaning, called "sweeping the room" in the north and "dusting" in the south. In the Spring Festival before the dust to engage in health, is the Chinese people vegetarian stickers (19) have traditional habits. Outdoors, inside the house, in front of the house, thoroughly cleaned, clean to welcome the New Year. The custom of "dusting and sweeping the house on the twenty-fourth day of the Lunar New Year" has a long history, according to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals", there was a custom of dusting in the Spring Festival during the Yao and Shun Dynasties in China. According to folklore, because of "dust" and "Chen" homophonic, dust sweeping in the New Year has "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", and its intention is to put all the "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck", "poor luck" and "poor luck". ", "bad luck" are swept out. This custom is the desire of the people to break the old, and the wish of the old and welcome the new prayers.
Lunar month 29, Lunar New Year's Eve
Every year, the evening of the last day of the Lunar month, the last day of the lunar year (the month of the 30th, the month of the 29th), known as "New Year's Eve". It is connected with the Spring Festival (the first day of the first month), is the people's old days to welcome the new. Due to the lunar calendar, there are thirty days in the big month and only twenty-nine days in the small month, so the date of New Year's Eve is also different from twenty-nine and thirty. However, this day is often referred to as "New Year's Eve" regardless of whether it is the 29th or 30th day of the lunar month. New Year's Eve night family reunion to eat the New Year's Eve dinner (the last meal of the year in the lunar calendar), New Year's Eve dinner after the New Year's money and stay up the New Year's Eve (vigil) custom, said from the last day of the current year of the lunar calendar to the first day of the next year. Zhou, Qin period of the end of each year, the palace to hold a "large exorcism" ceremony, beat the drum to expel the plague of ghosts, known as "by the removal of", and later called the day before the New Year's Eve for the small in addition to the small New Year's Eve; New Year's Eve for the big in addition to the big New Year's Eve. Placement of the Table of Heaven and Earth Legend has it that this is the night when the gods of heaven come down to the world, so there is a folk custom of receiving the gods. The Heaven and Earth Table is a temporary offering table, which is set up on New Year's Eve mainly for the purpose of receiving the gods. It is especially important for families without a large Buddha Hall because they usually make fewer offerings to the Buddha, and at the end of the year when the year is over, they have to pay a big reward to the gods and the Buddha. The contents of the heaven and earth table and the permanent Buddha Hall is different, in addition to *** have hanging money, incense and candles, five for, big supply, the worship of the idol is mostly temporary, such as "100 percent", is a woodcut version of the picture book of the gods; "heaven and earth and the three worlds of the eighteen Buddhas and gods", a with a large yellow burlap woodcut watercolor. Large yellow burlap woodcut watercolor printing of the whole God code; three stars of fortune and longevity portraits and so on. Some of the above images are incinerated after receiving the gods, such as the "hundred percent", while others have to be incinerated only on the 5th day of the 5th month, or even on the Festival of Lights. The location of the table of heaven and earth is not uniform, if the hall is large, it can be placed in the middle of the house; if there is no land in the house, it will be placed in the middle of the courtyard. Eat New Year's Eve dinner Watch the Spring Festival Gala (6) children playing with firecrackers, but also is the housewives in the kitchen the busiest time, New Year's dishes are done in the first few days, and New Year's Eve dinner always have to be in the New Year's Eve on the day of the kitchen to do it out. In the north, the dumplings on the first day of the New Year are also wrapped up on the evening of the thirtieth. At this time the cutting boards of the families are thumping and busy chopping meat and vegetables. At this time, the sound of cutting boards coming from every house, the sound of firecrackers coming from the streets and alleys, the sound of the abacus coming from small stores and the sound of the accounts, mixed with the sound of jokes and laughter everywhere, one after another, the ocean is full of ears, interweaving into the New Year's Eve joyful music. The New Year's Eve dinner is the most lively and enjoyable time of the Spring Festival for all families. On New Year's Eve, the sumptuous New Year's dishes on the table, the family reunion, sitting around the table, *** eat a reunion dinner, the heart of the fullness is really hard to describe. People are enjoying the table full of delicacies, but also to enjoy the happy atmosphere, the table has a big dish, cold pots, stir-fry, snacks, generally less two things, one is hot pot． One is fish. Hot pot boiling, steaming, warm and provocative, indicating that the red hot; "fish" and "Yu" resonance, is a symbol of "auspicious celebration of surplus", but also a metaphor for "year after year". It is also a metaphor for "having more than enough for every year". There are also turnips, commonly known as "choy tau" (菜头), which is a wish for good luck, and fried foods such as lobster and popping fish, which is a wish for good luck in the family, such as "blazing fire cooking oil". Finally, a sweet dish is served to wish for sweet days ahead. Even those who don't know how to drink on this day drink a little. New Year's Eve dinner has a lot of names, different from the north and south, there are dumplings, wontons, long noodles, Lantern, and so on, and each has its own instructions. People in the north are used to eating dumplings on New Year's Eve (the custom of eating dumplings has been passed down from the Han Dynasty), which is taken to mean the change of the old and the new, "the change of the year, the change of the son". Because white dumplings are shaped like silver dollars, they are brought to the table in pots to symbolize "a prosperous new year, with dollars rolling in". When some dumplings are wrapped, several coins sterilized in boiling water are wrapped into them, saying that whoever eats them first will earn more money. New Year eat wontons, is to take the beginning of its meaning. Legend has it that before the world was created, it was chaos, and it was only when Pangu opened up the sky and the earth that there was a four-sided universe. Long noodles, also known as longevity noodles, are eaten on New Year's Day to wish for longevity for a hundred years. Watching the Spring Festival Gala Although this is not an ancient custom, after the 1980s, due to the popularization of television, the Spring Festival Gala became an essential cultural "feast" for the Chinese, with more than one billion people watching it every year on television or on the Internet. New Year's Eve Watching Since the Han Dynasty, the transition between the old and the new year is usually in the middle of the night, and the New Year's Eve Watching is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities. The custom of observing the New Year's Eve has a long history, and the earliest record of it can be found in the Western Jin Dynasty's Zhou Chu's "The Records of Customs and Lands": on the night of New Year's Eve, each of them gives gifts to each other, which is known as "feeding the New Year's Eve"; inviting each other to enjoy food and wine is known as "parting with the New Year's Eve"; the elders and children get together to drink, and wishing for the completion of the celebrations is called "sharing the New Year's Eve"; all of them end up having a good time. The whole night, waiting for the morning, is called "keeping the New Year's Eve". "One night even the year (5) double years, five days divided into two days", New Year's Eve night, the whole family gathered together, ate the New Year's Eve dinner, light up candles or oil lamps, sitting around the stove chatting, waiting for the time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, the all-night vigil, symbolizing all the evil plague and disease Zhao run away, looking forward to a new year of good luck and good fortune. This custom gradually prevailed, to the early Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a "year-keeping" poem: "Cold resigned from the winter snow, the warmth of the spring wind". Until today, people are still accustomed to the New Year's Eve to welcome the new year. In ancient times, there were two meanings of keeping the New Year's Eve: the older people kept the New Year's Eve for "resigning from the old year", which had the meaning of cherishing the time; and the younger people kept the New Year's Eve for prolonging the life of their parents. The gods of the old and new years were separated, but the time of the gods of the old and new years was not very uniform. In some cases, the ceremony starts as soon as it is midnight, in others, it starts at midnight, and in some cases, it starts after midnight. After the sacrifice of the stove, the gods are back to the Palace of Heaven, ignore the ordinary affairs on earth, to the New Year's Eve, that is, after midnight, that is, when the new year comes, and then descended to the earth to govern. The ceremony of receiving the gods is held in front of the heaven and earth table, and is presided over by the eldest member of the family. Because the gods reside in different heavenly directions, the natural direction of the world to come is different, as to receive what God, God from where to come, to check in advance the "constitutional book", leading the family to raise incense in the courtyard according to the direction to receive the gods. After kowtowing in accordance with the direction of the ceremony, stood at attention to be incense, and then kowtow, and finally the root of the incense, statues, such as ingots, put into the yard has been prepared for the money in the food bowl burned, with the burning of pine branches, sesame seed stalks, and so on. When receiving the god, firecrackers are fired, and the atmosphere is very strong. Treading on Souls After receiving the gods, the sesame straw from the street door to the door of the house, people walk on it, crackling, known as "tread on the age", also known as "tread on Souls". Because of the "broken" and "Soun" God of Fortune
Fifth day of the first month, commonly known as the broken five. Folk have the custom of eating dumplings, symbolizing the attraction of wealth. In accordance with the old custom to eat "water dumplings" (the north called "boiled meat and potatoes") for five days, now some people only eat three or two days, some every other day to eat, however, no not eat, ancient times from the princes and dacha to the streets and alleys of the small households are, even to treat the guests so. Women are no longer jealous of the door, began to visit each other to pay tribute to the New Year, congratulations. Newly married women in this day to return to peace. Folklore said that many taboos before the break five over this day can be broken. A said broken five this day should not do things, or this year in the event of failure. Broken five customs in addition to the above taboos, mainly to send poor, welcome the God of Fortune, the opening of the market trade. Offerings to the God of Fortune (South) Southern people in the first five days of the first month of sacrifice to the God of Fortune. Folklore, the God of Fortune, that is, five-way God. The so-called five road, refers to the east and west, north and south, meaning that out of the five roads, all can get wealth. Every New Year's Eve, people are in the first five zero hours and zero minutes, open the door and windows, burning incense and firecrackers, fireworks, to the God of Fortune to welcome. Received the God of Fortune, we also have to eat road head wine, often eat until dawn. Everyone is full of hope for wealth, hope that the God of Wealth will bring home the gold and silver treasure, in the new year, a great deal of wealth. Commonly thought to receive the road head, the earlier the better, the earliest received is the true God, especially spiritual, so called "grab the road head". Some places, really in the first four days of the New Year will "rush to grab the head of the road", and has become a custom. Send poor
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