What are the customs of Chinese people during the Spring Festival?

Overview of the Spring Festival The Spring Festival is an ancient traditional festival in my country and the most important festival throughout the year. Therefore, the customs of the Spring Festival are also diverse.

Because it is said that the Nian beast is afraid of the color red, fire and noise, people have customs such as posting Spring Festival couplets, setting off firecrackers, and beating gongs and drums.

The customs of different periods, different regions and different ethnic groups are different.

Spring Festival Customs The Spring Festival is an ancient traditional festival in my country and the most important festival throughout the year. How to celebrate this festival has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits over thousands of years of historical development, and many of them are still passed down to this day!

There are many ancient customs, such as giving out lucky money.

Spring Festival: In primitive society, there was the ritual of "December Sacrifice": after the autumn harvest, people would worship their ancestors to thank the gods for their blessings and ancestors' shelter, and to pray for another good harvest in the coming year.

Over time, it became a custom.

Since the time of Yao and Shun, people have been celebrating the Spring Festival.

The Spring Festival falls at the beginning of the year, which is the first day of each year.

In ancient times, the times at the beginning of the year were different.

The beginning of the year in the Xia Dynasty was on the first day of the first lunar month, in the Shang Dynasty it was the first day in the twelfth lunar month, in the Zhou Dynasty it was the first day in the eleventh lunar month, and in the Qin Dynasty it was the first day of the tenth lunar month. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty re-established the first day of the first lunar month in the lunar calendar.

At the same time, the "Taichu Calendar" is adopted, which stipulates that the first day of the first lunar month is New Year's Day, commonly known as "New Year".

In addition, it is also called "Zhengdan", "Kainian", "Kaisui", "Fangsui", "Huasui", etc. Among many titles, "New Year's Day" is the most common and longest-lasting.

After the victory of the Revolution of 1911, the Nanjing Provisional Government stipulated the adoption of the Gregorian calendar and designated the first day of the first lunar month of the Gregorian calendar as New Year's Day.

In this way, the Spring Festival became the title of the first day of the first lunar month.

In fact, the name Spring Festival has existed since ancient times, and it refers specifically to the beginning of spring.

Since the first day of the first lunar month is called the Spring Festival among the people, the beginning of spring is no longer called the Spring Festival.

——Beautiful——Editor Xueying How to eat during the Spring Festival in "Old Beijing": Beijing folk song: "Tanggua is offered as a sacrifice to the stove, and the New Year is coming." The first foods to enter the festival are snacks such as sugarmelon and Guandong sugar, which are used to "sacrifice the stove" and are made from glue.

Made from maltose, it is sweet and slightly sour. It was an excellent delicacy in an era when life was not so affluent.

Moreover, the presence of Tanggua and Guandong sugar at home indicates that the Spring Festival is not far away.

Of course, the "Kitchen Lord" does not eat the fireworks of the world. This kind of "bribery" in the hope that the "Kitchen Lord" will "say good things to God and ensure peace in the lower world" has naturally become a favorite among children.

Old Beijingers pay special attention to "Celebrating the New Year", so they have this saying: "Children, don't be greedy, it's the New Year after Laba Festival, drink Laba porridge for a few days, it will be twenty-three, twenty-three, Tanggua Guan,

Twenty-four, clean the house, twenty-five, fried tofu, twenty-six, stew mutton, twenty-seven, kill the rooster, twenty-eight, make the dough, twenty-nine, steam the buns, and stay up all night on the thirtieth night.

The ballad of "Twist, twist..." on New Year's Day.

Laba porridge, fried tofu, stewed mutton, etc. listed in the folk song are all delicacies of old Beijing during the Spring Festival.

Today, these are commonplace meals, but in the 1950s and 1960s, they could only be enjoyed during the Chinese New Year.

There are only the above types of food during the Spring Festival, which of course is not considered rich. Pastries such as Mi Gong and Shaqima, which were used to worship gods and ancestors in ancient times, are not only foods of Manchu and Mongolian ethnic minorities in Beijing, but also must-haves in Beijing people’s homes.

prepared food.

Some well-off Beijingers still had the custom of eating fish on New Year's Eve.

The fish must be carp. It was originally used as a sacrifice to the gods, but later it was associated with the auspicious saying of "good luck and good fortune". Fish is both a delicacy and an offering.

As for the dumplings on New Year's Eve, the dumplings with vegetarian fillings are used to worship the gods, while the dumplings that everyone eats are filled with meat. People who are not well-off use a mixture of meat and vegetables as fillings.

Even for the poorest families, there is no shortage of "procedures" for eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year.

In addition to the well-known delicacies such as dumplings and rice cakes, people in "old Beijing" also make "douerjiang" - a cold dish made of pork skin, dried tofu, soybeans, green beans, water mustard, etc., with a color like

Amber, similar to "aspic".

There is also "mustard dumpling", which is a cold dish used to accompany wine and appetizers.

People eat a lot of greasy food during festivals, which tends to cause fire and phlegm. These cold dishes can make up for this shortcoming.

When all kinds of meat and vegetable dishes are ready, Beijingers also prepare candies, dried fruits, melon seeds and "mixed fruits". The so-called "mixed fruits" are today's assorted preserved fruits.

In those days, these snacks were delicacies for people to sit around the fire and bid farewell to the New Year.

Today, almost all the offerings and traditional foods in the name of worshiping ancestors and gods have been preserved, but they are not so eye-catching.

As for today's Spring Festival, the dining table can only be summed up by the word "abundant". Sichuan and Shandong cuisine and fresh seafood will appear on ordinary people's New Year's Eve dining tables.

People who believe in "new style" will also go to big restaurants to "have a meal" to welcome the New Year!

Eating Laba Rice Porridge: On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the most important thing for every household is to cook Laba Rice Porridge.

There are several different theories about the origin of Laba porridge: some say it is to worship Shennong, some say it is to commemorate Yue Fei, and some say it is passed down from Zhu Yuanzhang.

But the most widely spread is the saying in memory of Buddha.

According to the Buddhist "Pu Yao Sutra", after Sakyamuni escaped from the palace and became a monk in Mount Jiasi, he studied the classics and spent six full years in the mountains.

When he graduated from school, it was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in China, which is what most Buddhists call "the day when Sakyamuni attained enlightenment."