What are the famous festivals in Zhongshan?

When you say Zhongshan, do you mean Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province? They mainly have these festivals:

the Spring Festival; Chinese New Year

That is, the Lunar New Year. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), it is customary to call the Lunar New Year the first day of the Spring Festival. From midnight to early morning, people often worship their ancestors with incense sticks and vegetarian dishes and set off firecrackers. The new Spring Festival couplets are posted in front of every household, which means getting rid of the old cloth and welcoming the new year. During the Spring Festival, men, women and children pay attention to dressing up and say congratulations when they meet. The elders should give the younger generation or unmarried people "benefits" (red envelopes). Many families are used to eating vegetarian food on New Year's Day. Xiaolan also likes to eat sugar cakes and sweets. Pay New Year greetings to elders and close relatives after dinner. There is a happy scene everywhere in urban and rural areas.

Chinese New Year

Commonly known as "opening the year" and "opening (doing)" (commonly known as opening the teeth). People kill more cocks to worship their ancestors and pray for family peace in the new year. Everyone's spirit is refreshing. On this day, the whole family ate meat, which was more abundant than usual. Married women are used to returning to their parents' home on the same day to celebrate the New Year with their husbands and children.

New Year's Day

Vulgar calls red mouth. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, people liked to open doors in the morning, splash water, scatter rice and set off firecrackers, praying that there would be no trouble all the year round. This day is generally not a New Year's greeting and rarely goes out. There is no such bad habit today.

The seventh day of the lunar new year

People usually call this day a birthday. Many people are used to cooking porridge and fried powder at noon that day. Xiaolan residents eat birthday porridge cooked with various meats and vegetables in the morning; There are also birthday sugar teas made of lotus seeds, lilies, peanuts, sesame seeds, olive kernels, vermicelli and dried fruits. Hakka people like to stir shredded radish and rice flour to make radish cake for lunch.

Since 1988, every year on the seventh day of the first lunar month, a new folk custom named "Charity for the People" has appeared in Shi Qi, Zhongshan City. That night, men, women and children from all walks of life inside and outside the city, accompanied by folk art teams such as Gone with the Wind, lion dance, dragon dance and crane dance, formed a huge parade of 10,000 people, starting from the western suburbs and walking along Sun Wen Road to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. There are thousands of people along the way, the lights are brilliant, and there is a lively and peaceful holiday atmosphere.

The fifteenth day of the first month is Lantern Festival.

Commonly known as Lantern Festival. In the past year, the old custom gave birth to a boy's family. On this day, they hung lanterns on ancestral temples or land altars, calling for turning on the lights or hanging them. Only when they were in Tomb-Sweeping Day did they take them down and burn them, which was called Deng Jie. This custom has been rare since the founding of the People's Republic of China, but it still exists in some rural areas. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was a Lantern Festival in Xiaolan area. That night, some non-governmental organizations held a lantern parade decorated with traditional folk stories. Young men and women held lanterns and sang together, commonly known as singing lantern songs. In the past, Xiaolan still had the custom of holding a gun for sixteen times, that is, putting a self-made gun with red bamboo strips in the open space in front of the temple, and the villagers scrambled to hold the red strips scattered in the air, so that they could get a mirror screen symbolizing the red "gun", indicating good luck for one year. There is no such custom today. The Lantern Festival will end on the evening of the next day (the 16th day of the first month), which is called scattered lanterns. At the same time, it also marks the end of the Spring Festival activities.

On the second day of February, the land was born

Before liberation, many rural areas in Zhongshan paid public sacrifices to the shrine (the land Lord, known as the earth protector in ancient times) on this day, praying for good weather. At night, a huge fireworks made of straw bundles was lit, including two small cannons, which were called "pig cannons". According to legend, those who found them showed signs of increasing their lives. This custom has been abolished today. Before the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), people also offered sacrifices to the land gods on the second and sixteenth days of the second lunar month, which was called "sacrifice". In recent years, businessmen have resumed this custom.

Qingming Festival

Tomb-Sweeping Day is 0/60th day from the winter solstice/kloc-. Before the festival, willow branches were inserted in front of people's houses, ancestral tablets were inserted in the houses, and they were pulled out after the festival. It is said that evil spirits can be exorcised. The period from Qingming to long summer is ***30 days, commonly known as worship, climbing, hiking, pressing paper, shoveling grass and so on. Before liberation, clans or families usually made an appointment to pay homage to the graves of their ancestors. Sacrifices generally include roast pigs, ducks, buns, sugar cane, fruits, tea, rice and wine. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the custom of offering sacrifices to mountains in Tomb-Sweeping Day remained. Before liberation, on the 30th day after Tomb-Sweeping Day, commonly known as "closing the tomb", people's families put wine to worship their ancestors before nightfall. In recent years, this custom has gradually revived.

Bathing Buddha Festival on the eighth day of April

Xiaolan is called Longxing Festival. The Buddha Bath Festival was originally a Buddhist festival (the birthday of Buddha Sakyamuni). Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was a folk entertainment custom of turning wooden dragons (also known as turning drunken dragons), which has now been abolished. However, many farmers still have the custom of steaming Luanxi leaf cakes for the whole family to taste on that day, and most of them are sold by vendors in the city. It is said that moon cakes have the function of clearing away heat and toxic materials. Xiaolan people are interested in spring outing on the third day of the third lunar month, picking mugwort leaves, rose leaves and Luanxi leaves to make layered powder cakes and sugar cakes.

The fifth day of May is Dragon Boat Festival.

Also known as Duanyang, Chongwu and Dila Festival. Zhongshan people are used to eating zongzi with their families on that day. They start making zongzi two or three days before the festival. There are two kinds of zongzi for Zhongshan people: alkaline zongzi and Huang Dan (or red bean) bacon zongzi. They like to use the leaves of Ludou, a perennial plant in Liliaceae. The leaves are tough and fragrant when cooking, so they are called Ludou Zongzi. Many people still cook five-color sweet porridge (porridge cooked with five different colors of beans) for lunch on the same day. It is said that it can detoxify and prevent epidemics. There were also many places to hold dragon boat races that day. The dragon boat race in Shi Qi is concentrated in Qijiang, and the participating teams are always enthusiastic. On this day, dragon boats gathered in Qijiang, gongs and drums were loud and colorful flags were flying; Crowds crowded on both banks, and cheers shook both banks of the Qijiang River. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xiaolan people used yellow paper and small bamboo branches to tie ducklings to exile in the river, and each male tied one to symbolize the release of evil spirits. It has been abolished now.

Qixi Qiaoqi Festival in July.

Legend has it that Cowherd and Weaver Girl met in the Milky Way. Before liberation, there was a custom that women arranged their elaborate offerings at night to worship Seven Sisters and show them to others, hoping to beg for sewing skills. There is no such custom today, but people with infants at home still like to brew rice seedlings (commonly known as fairy seedlings) by washing rice and soaking in water, and come to Yue Bai (also known as worshipping Seven Sisters) to dry them for later use. It is said that it is a good medicine for treating infant summer heat.

Mid-Autumn Festival in July 15.

Also known as Ghost Festival, it was originally the Buddhist Pan Yulan Club (Zhongshan people call it Yulan Victory Club). Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shi Qi and Xiaolan set up land and water altars around temples, called "public servants", as a sacrificial ceremony, and arranged a ship cruise. Folk custom is to kill ducks to worship ancestors on July 14 of the lunar calendar, and burn paper and clothes in the street to worship ghosts on the night of July 15. This custom was abolished after liberation, but it revived in the late 1980s. Married women in Zhangjiabian have the custom of "giving birth to fourteen". They are the main labor force of local families and can't return to their parents' home until the summer harvest is over every year. Because you have to bring fresh fish, pork and other foods when you go back to your mother's house, there is a saying of "bringing fourteen".

Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th.

This is a big festival for the people of Zhongshan. From the beginning of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, there are all kinds of Mid-Autumn moon cakes on the market, and people scramble to buy them as gifts for relatives and friends or to honor their elders. In the evening, children play in the street with colorful Mid-Autumn Lantern, while housewives put delicious food (including fish porridge or chicken porridge, moon cakes, snails or snails, taro, water chestnut and various fresh fruits) on the open-air table, and eat Yue Bai cakes while enjoying the moon. Xiaolan and Dongsheng people also like to eat raw fish when enjoying the moon, which is called "fishing raw fish"; People in Shaxi and Dayong like to eat glutinous rice balls and enjoy the moon.

Double Ninth Festival in September

The autumn in September of the lunar calendar is crisp, and Zhongshan people have always had the custom of climbing mountains on September 9. Before War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Shi Qi was still interested in flying kites (paper kites). At that time, a nursery rhyme about Chongyang was popular in Shi Qi: "On September 9, go climbing, hold a kite high and watch the sky flow, stay in the sun (decline) and live a long life." At that time, some Shiqi people deliberately entangled other people's kites, or threw away the string when it was placed at a certain height, or tied a lighted candle at a proper position on the string to burn it. In short, they all want their kites to fly far away. This custom was first recorded in Xiangshan County during Daoguang period. After liberation, this custom gradually faded, but it resurfaced in the early 1980 s, from crawling in the daytime to crawling in the middle of the night, and it dispersed at dawn. Climbers are mostly young and middle-aged, mostly in Dajian Mountain in the suburbs and Yandun Mountain in the urban area. But climbers no longer pray for good luck by flying kites.

Winter solstice

Folk people like to worship their ancestors with three kinds of animals (chicken, pig and fish), while Xiaolan area likes glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with chrysanthemum meat (known locally as Shui Yuan and Shuilan). Ancestral shrines of various clans in Xiaolan are popular in spring and summer. After offering sacrifices to ancestors, they will give meat to their descendants. This custom has been abolished today. In addition, on the day of winter solstice, Dongsheng people also like to cook a dish called "Weidong" with mustard, sweet potatoes and pork, which means welcoming the arrival of winter.

Lunar New Year's Eve on December 24th.

People usually call the kitchen King's Day. On this day, it is a folk custom to "send a stove" (or "thank a stove"). A piece of sugar, sugar cane, rice and glutinous rice balls are prepared to sacrifice to the kitchen god, and then the throne of the kitchen god is removed and cremated with paper. Dongsheng raw carp, arrowhead, longan, sugar, sugarcane, etc. This custom is rare today.

1New Year's Eve on February 30th.

Commonly known as New Year's Eve or reunion dinner. Zhongshan people are used to choosing a "reunion dinner" from the end of the year to the end of the year. It is the size of Japanese families, including married women who also go back to their parents' home for the holidays, and have a family reunion dinner, which is very lively. Visiting the flower market is an entertainment activity for Zhongshan people on New Year's Eve. The annual flower market starts on the 27th or 28th of the twelfth lunar month and reaches its climax before midnight on New Year's Eve. People melt their best wishes for the coming year into their choice of flowers, so they buy their favorite flowers and oranges to add a little joy to their families during the Spring Festival.