What are the customs of the ancients different from ours and what are the same as ours?

The Spring Festival, also known as Yuanri, New Year's Day, the Reform Movement of 1898, Chen Yuan, Yuanshuo, Nian Egg, Sui Nian, Nianchao, Xinzheng, Shouzuo, Sanyuan or Nian and New Year, is the first day of the summer calendar. Due to the different calendars, the first day of the first month of each generation is different: the first day of the first month of Xia Dynasty, the first day of December of Shang Dynasty, the first day of November of Zhou Dynasty, the first day of October of Qin Dynasty and the first day of the first month of Han Dynasty, which have continued to this day.

"Spring Festival" has different meanings from generation to generation. The Han Dynasty refers to the day of beginning of spring, the Southern and Northern Dynasties refers to the whole spring, and only modern times refers to the first day of the first month. It is a traditional festival with the longest history, the richest activities, the grandest etiquette, the most spectacular scenes and the most exquisite food in China. Among the 56 ethnic groups in China, 53 ethnic groups (except Tibetans, Bai people and Dai people) have to hold a grand family banquet or ethnic banquet to celebrate, so it is also called "Daqing Banquet on January 1st".

The Origin of the Spring Festival

According to historical records, the Spring Festival was celebrated in Tang Yu, Sui in Xia Dynasty, Si in Shang Dynasty and Nian in Zhou Dynasty. The original meaning of "nian" refers to the growth cycle of grain, which is hot every year, so the Spring Festival is once a year, which means cool breeze. It is also said that the Spring Festival originated in "La Worship" at the end of primitive society. At that time, whenever the twelfth lunar month in spring came to an end, the ancestors slaughtered pigs and sheep, sacrificed ghosts and gods and ancestors, and prayed for good weather in the new year to avoid disasters. Their faces were painted with vermilion and bird feathers, and they sang, danced, ate and drank, which was very lively. about

Mutual New Year greetings began in the early Han Dynasty and were recorded in Tongdian.

Dietary Customs of Spring Festival in Past Dynasties

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, ancestor worship was an important activity and custom during the Spring Festival. According to Cui Ti's Four-person Monthly Order, "the first day of the first month is the day. ※. Bow to your wife and worship your ancestors. On the day of worship, when drinking wine, the family members are humble, regardless of size, ranking second in the ancestors. Children and daughters-in-law all serve Chili wine to their parents, saying that they are beaming. "

During the Southern Dynasties, families visited each other during the Spring Festival and held banquets and entertainment activities. According to the Chronicle of Jingchu written by Zong Ba of Liang Chao, "On the first day of the first month, ... young people and old people learned to dress up and pay tribute to them. ※. Pepper and cypress wine, peach soup Into the Tu Su wine, rubber teeth, and five spicy dishes. " There are also games such as drawing chickens, burning firecrackers, hanging ropes and making wishes.

During the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the etiquette elements in the Spring Festival diet custom gradually increased. According to the Southern Song Dynasty-Shou's Liang Lumeng, "Doctors everywhere congratulate each other, fine men and women wear new clothes and pay New Year greetings to each other", and Brahma Lu Conglu records that "men and women take turns to pay homage to their elders, and the master leads their children out to visit relatives and friends, or stops sending their children to pay New Year greetings"; Qingbo Magazine said: "During the reign of Song Yuanyou, servants were often used to stab people in their name during the New Year". When relatives and friends pay New Year's greetings, the host family must hold a banquet, and the wine and meat are extremely rich. According to the "Jia Tai Hui Ji" records: "On New Year's Day, both men and women are happy, and it is a grand thing for lay people to set up wine and fruit drinks, and men and women worship in order. In order to congratulate their loved ones, they buy wine and food and take a vacation every five days. " In the Qing Dynasty, Ji Sheng said at the age of Emperor Jing: "The house of the gentry, add clothes, wear them, worship the gods and ancestors;" After burning silks, the family got together, offered pepper plates, poured cypress wine, helped steam cakes and sipped noodle soup. It was delicious. Go out to greet the relatives, go to the medicine temple, visit the cinema and celebrate Cambodia's birthday. Lu Yu's relatives and friends, then fell to, and wish "New Year's Day is the Spring of New Year", even if you don't kiss, you will have three glasses of wine. If you are forgetful, why don't you get drunk! As the saying goes, it is better to go to a thousand than to sit in one. And the horses and chariots are noisy, and chasing the sun is a very temporary victory. "

Dietary customs around the Spring Festival

Generally speaking, Chinese people eat rice cakes, jiaozi, Ciba, glutinous rice balls, poached eggs, big meat, whole fish, wine, oranges, apples, peanuts, melon seeds, sweets, fragrant tea and dishes. Accompanied by dusting, washing bedding, preparing new year's goods, pasting Spring Festival couplets, pasting New Year pictures, pasting paper-cuts, pasting blessings, lighting candles, lighting fires, setting off firecrackers, keeping old, giving lucky money, paying New Year greetings, visiting relatives and friends,

Many activities, such as visiting ancestral graves, visiting flower markets and raising social fires, are extremely enjoyable. For example, the New Year's Eve is particularly important: first, the whole family should get together, and those who have not returned for some reason should leave a seat and a set of tableware to show their reunion; Second, the food is rich, pay attention to "oral color", call the rice cake "step by step", jiaozi "Wanshun", wine "running water", eggs "big gold ingot" and goldfish "more than a year"; This kind of fish is not allowed to eat. It is called "Kanyu" and must be eaten until the first day of school. In areas where there are no fish in the north, carved wooden fish are mostly used instead; Third, the seats are orderly, mostly for ancestors. Grandchildren are in the middle, and their parents are in a lower position. Men, women and children should drink. Close the door when eating, and the excitement will be gone.

The home-cooked dishes of New Year's Eve have their own characteristics in different places. In the past, in Beijing and Tianjin, people usually cooked rice, stewed pork, beef and mutton, stewed chicken and cooked several dishes. Shaanxi family banquets are generally four or eight bowls. Four bowls are stir-fried dishes and cold dishes, and eight bowls are mainly stewed dishes and cooked food. Only meat dishes in southern Anhui include braised pork, tiger skin, meatballs, moo Shu pork, steamed pork, braised pork, pork liver, pork heart and pork belly products, as well as all kinds of fried pork slices and shredded pork. Eastern Hubei is "three steamed", "three cakes" and "three pills". "Three steaming" means steaming whole fish, whole duck and whole chicken; The "three cakes" are fish cakes, meat pies and sheep cakes;

"Three pills" are fish pills, meatballs and lotus root pills. Generally, people in Harbin fry eight dishes, 10 or 12 or 16. The main ingredients are nothing more than chicken, duck, fish and vegetables. The New Year's Eve dinner in Gannan is usually 12 dish. Some places in Zhejiang are generally the "top ten bowls", seeking the color of "complete happiness", mainly chicken, duck, fish and various vegetables. Nanchang, Jiangxi generally has more than a dozen dishes, paying attention to four cold dishes, four hot dishes, eight big dishes and two soups.

All over the country, there are one or several indispensable dishes on New Year's Eve, and these dishes often have some auspicious meanings. For example, in Suzhou, there must be vegetables (then happy dishes), bean sprouts (Italian food) and celery (hard-working) on the table. There must be a carp weighing about 1 kg in central and southern Hunan, called "Tuannian Fish", and a pig elbow weighing about 3 kg, called "Tuannian Elbow". There are two fish on the dining table in central and southern Anhui. One is the whole carp, which can only be seen but not eaten. It shows respect for ancestors, and it also means more than one year. The other is silver carp, which is edible and symbolizes the prosperity of children and grandchildren. The first bowl of Lai in Qimen family banquet is "Zhonghe", which is made of tofu, mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, shrimp skin and fresh meat, meaning "harmony is precious".

There is a bowl of "chicken catches beans" on the dining table in Hefei, which means "grab money and get rich". The housekeeper wants to eat a chicken leg, which is called "grasping the money claw", which means making a fortune in the coming year. Anqing's head should eat a bowl of noodles before meals, which is called "money standard" Nanchang area must eat rice cakes, braised fish, fried rice noodles, eight-treasure rice and boiled thick soup, which in turn means annual rise, fish every year, abundant crops, string rice, eight-treasure rice and prosperity every year.

Northern areas like to eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival, which means unity, good luck and welcoming the New Year. In order to increase the atmosphere and fun of the festival, people in the past dynasties have put a lot of effort into dumpling stuffing. People keep their wallets in jiaozi. Whoever eats them will make a fortune next year. Wrap honey in jiaozi, and whoever eats it will represent the sweetness of life in the coming year and so on.