What are the customs and habits in Shanxi during the Spring Festival?

Dragon Head Raising Day (Dragon Head Raising Festival)

According to legend, the second day of the second lunar month is the day when everything recovers. On February 2nd, the dragon looked up. This is a popular festival in Shanxi. In Shanxi, people are used to having their hair cut on this day, while in rural areas, they shave their heads to get rid of the filth of the past and welcome the prosperity in the coming year. Generally speaking, in the countryside, on February 2nd, we always improve our food and eat jiaozi, fried dough twists and pancakes.

Tim Cang Festival

Tiancang Festival is a unique festival in Shanxi. The specific date of Tim Cang Festival is the 25th day of the first lunar month every year. Adding a warehouse means that farmers add food to the warehouse. It is on the basis of the original grain output that we want to increase the harvest and increase production, which has pinned people's good wishes for a bumper harvest in the coming year. Different places in Shanxi celebrate Lantern Festival in different ways. Some places symbolically add grain to the granary on the day of Tim Cang Festival, and some places eat spring cakes and pancakes on the day of Tim Cang Festival, and put cakes into the granary, which is called filling and adding warehouses. Some places make "rain lanterns" on the festival of jiacang. These lanterns are made of cereal flour, and twelve are as big as a small bowl. There is a lamp at the top of each lamp and a small gap at the edge of the lamp. Each gap represents a month in the four seasons of the year. After the lamp was steamed, it proved that there was the most soda in the lamp in the months when the pot was boiled. Then, according to the situation that crops need rain most in that month, what will be harvested this year is inferred as the basis for sowing this year.

Peach Flower Festival

March 1 day is the Peach Blossom Festival, which is really a special festival. This festival is in the peach blossom season. During the Peach Blossom Festival, unmarried women, young women and even children will put on dresses embroidered with "peaches", which are filled with garlic and herbs, sewn with pink cloth and embroidered with various silk threads, symbolizing youth and beauty, and metaphorically avoiding disaster, because the homophonic "escape" of peaches plays the role of amulet. Folk saying is, with the "Fu Tao", you can spend a year safely.

Cold Food Festival

The day before in Tomb-Sweeping Day, people in Jinzhong did not make a fire or cook, but ate cold food on this day. Locals call this day "Cold Food Festival". The Cold Food Festival lasted for more than two thousand years. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin Xiangong's son Zhong Er became the monarch of Jin and Jin Wengong. When the minister was enfeoffed, I forgot the old minister Jiezitui who "cut the shares to serve the king". When someone sent someone to ask Jiezitui, Jiezitui had been hiding behind Mianshan's mother in Wuxian County. Zhong Er ordered the mountain to be burned in an attempt to force the meson to push the mother and son out of the mountain, but it backfired. The meson pushed him to death and died in the forest, with his mother holding a tree. Jin Wengong was remorseful, that is, he changed Mianshan to Jieshan, changed Wuxian to Jiexiu, and set meson on fire, that is, the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day, as the "Cold Food Festival".

Let's go.

Walking with wheat is a unique custom in southern Shanxi. Walking with the wheat is a new son-in-law. After harvesting the local wheat, he steamed the ground flour into a jiaozi in the shape of a big moon to see his mother-in-law. It means wishing your parents-in-law a happy and healthy family and a bumper harvest.

Qixi Festival

Beggar's Day is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. On the evening of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, folk girls and young women have the custom of begging from Joe. Because the main participants in this festival are women, people also call it "Daughter's Day" and "Girls' Day". Shaanxi is one of the birthplaces of the Chinese nation, and the folk custom of Begging Qiaojie Festival is also quite popular. In the south of Shanxi, it is an ancient Hedong area in the history of China. Often on Tanabata, it is customary to make proper fruit watermelon with oil molasses to worship the Cowherd and Weaver Maid and beg for ingenuity. Now, folks often eat watermelons for the whole family as a souvenir on Qixi night. Also, on the night of Qixi, the girl's daughter-in-law brought a sewing kit and burned incense in her own yard and the ancestral temple in the village to ask for help from the Weaver Girl.

Gong beating festival

In Tianchichuan, loufan county, Taiyuan City, there is a small river called Tianchi River, and there are dozens of villages on both sides of the river. Every year in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, there is a custom of "celebrating the festival". From the first day to the end of the month, villages celebrate festivals every day. On holidays, like the Spring Festival every year, couplets are put on the doors of every household. During the day, men, women and children beat gongs and drums, danced yangko in fashionable clothes, sang songs wishing a bumper harvest and congratulating the world on peace, and sang and danced happily; In the evening, like a wedding, every household lights a fire, sets off firecrackers, hangs lanterns on the doors, and plays eight concerts from house to house until midnight. Because of the "Festival", every village beats gongs and drums, so the locals named this festival here "Gong Knocking Festival".

Ghosts'Festival

The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is the Mid-Autumn Festival. It's time for the climate to turn cold this lunar season. People have superstitions, so they call this Mid-Autumn Festival "Ghost Festival". In the countryside at this time, people tied paper and sent clothes to their dead relatives. On the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival, most families will steam steamed buns and dough sculptures of various shapes. Most farmers will go to graves, sweep graves and burn paper at this time to pay homage to their old friends. This custom has lasted for thousands of years.

Excessive singing

In the suburbs of Taiyuan, there is a rural custom, which the people call "singing opera". When singing, the villagers will invite the troupe in the city to perform in the countryside. Singing is usually once a year. There are many choices on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the eighth day of April, the sixth day of June, the fifteenth day of July and the fifteenth day of August, and there are also other times. The busy farming season is staggered, forming a relatively fixed program. Singing is not only a traditional folk custom, but also an important cultural lifestyle in rural areas. It is also a holiday to visit relatives and friends in the countryside, and it is still very prosperous.