What are the folk customs of the northern people?

6. Eating dumplings.

The custom of eating dumplings at the Spring Festival has been quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Dumplings are usually wrapped before 12:00 pm on the night of the thirtieth year, to be eaten in the middle of the night, when it is the beginning of the first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, eating dumplings to take the meaning of "more years of the cross", "Zi" for the "Zi time! The word "zi" means "time", and the word "dumpling" harmonizes with it, meaning "joyful reunion" and "good luck".

7. Firecrackers.

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers" said. That is, the arrival of the new year, the first thing to open the door of every household is to set off firecrackers, to beeping firecrackers to get rid of the old and welcome the new. Firecrackers is a Chinese specialty, also known as "firecrackers", "cannonballs", "firecrackers".

8. New Year's greetings.

On the first day of the New Year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dressed neatly, go out to visit friends and relatives, pay respects to each other, wishing good luck in the coming year. Worship a variety of ways, some of them are the same patriarch led a number of people to go door to door to pay tribute to the New Year; some colleagues invited a few people to pay tribute to the New Year; there are also get together to congratulate each other, known as the "group worship". Because of the time-consuming and labor-intensive door-to-door New Year's greetings, some of the upper-class people and the scholarly elite later used the posters to congratulate each other, which developed into the later "New Year's greeting tablets".

9 Spring Festival food customs.

Eating rice cake, eating rice cake flavor varies from place to place. Beijing people like to eat jujube rice cake made of river rice or yellow rice, hundred fruit rice cake and white rice cake. Hebei people like to add jujube, small red beans and mung beans in the rice cake steamed together. Northwestern Shanxi in Inner Mongolia and other places, New Year's Eve used to eat yellow rice flour fried rice cakes, some also wrapped with bean paste, date paste and other fillings, Shandong people with yellow rice, red dates steamed rice cakes. Northern rice cakes are mainly sweet, or steamed or fried, some people simply dip sugar to eat. In the south, rice cakes are both sweet and salty, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of round-grained rice and have a light flavor. In addition to steaming and deep-frying, they can also be sliced and stir-fried or boiled in soup. Sweet rice cakes are made from glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, roses, osmanthus, mint, and veggie paste, and are delicately crafted and can be steamed or dipped in egg white and deep-fried. The night before the actual New Year's Eve is called the Night of Reunion, when people who have been away from home have to travel thousands of miles to come back home, and the whole family has to sit around and make dumplings for the New Year.

Second, the Lantern Festival

Every year on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, the Spring Festival has just passed, ushered in the traditional Chinese festival - the Lantern Festival.

The first month of the lunar calendar is the first month of the year, the ancient people called the night "night", so the first month of the fifteenth for the Lantern Festival. The 15th day of the first month is the first full moon of the year, but also the beginning of the year, the night of the earth back to spring, people celebrate this, but also to celebrate the continuation of the New Year. The Lantern Festival is also known as the "Festival of the New Year".

According to Chinese folk tradition, on this day the moon is high in the night, people have to point up ten thousand colored lanterns, to show the celebration. Go out and enjoy the moon, light up the lanterns and set off the fireworks, guess the lantern riddles, *** eat the Lantern Festival, family reunions, celebrating the festival together, and have a good time.

The Lantern Festival is also known as the Festival of Lights, Lantern Lantern custom from the Han Dynasty, to the Tang Dynasty, more prosperous activities to enjoy the lights, the palace, hanging lights everywhere on the street, but also to establish a tall lamp wheel, lamp building and lamp tree, the Tang Dynasty poet Lu Zhaolian was in the "fifteenth night to watch the lights" in this way to describe the Lantern Festival Lantern Festival, "the Han suspected that the stars fall, according to the building seems to be hanging moon.

The Song Dynasty attached more importance to the Lantern Festival, more lively lantern-appreciation activities, lantern-appreciation activities to be carried out for five days, the style of the lamp is also more abundant. Ming Dynasty to 10 days of continuous lantern viewing, which is China's longest lantern festival. Although the Qing Dynasty lantern-viewing activities only 3 days, but the lantern-viewing activities on a large scale, unprecedented, in addition to burning lights, but also fireworks to help.

"Guess the lantern riddles", also called "playing lantern riddles", is an activity added after the Lantern Festival, appeared in the Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the capital city of Lin'an made riddles every Lantern Festival, and there were a lot of people guessing riddles. At the beginning of the riddles were written on strips of paper and pasted on colorful lanterns for people to guess. Because the riddles can inspire wisdom and interest, so the process of circulation is very popular among all social classes.

The folk custom of eating Lantern Festival. Lanterns are made of glutinous rice, either solid or with filling. The fillings include bean paste, sugar, hawthorn, and various kinds of fruits, etc. They can be boiled, fried, steamed, or deep-fried when eaten. At first, people called this food "floating rounds", and later called "soup dumplings" or "soup dumplings", the names "reunion

Three, Qingming Festival, also known as the ancient "Tree Planting Festival", "Treading Spring Festival", "Smart Festival". China's traditional folk festival.

Ching Ming is also one of China's twenty-four solar terms. Because the twenty-four solar terms reflect more objectively the changes in temperature, rainfall, and physical climate throughout the year, the ancient working people used it to arrange agricultural activities. However, Qingming, as a festival, is different from a pure festival. The festival is a sign of the changes in climate and the order of the seasons in our country, while the festival contains certain customary activities and some kind of commemorative significance.

The Qingming Festival is a traditional festival in China and the most important festival of worship, a day of ancestor worship and tomb-sweeping. Tomb-sweeping is commonly known as visiting the graves, an activity to honor the dead. Most Han Chinese and some ethnic minorities sweep their tombs on Qingming Day.

According to the old custom, when sweeping tombs, people should bring wine, food, fruits, paper money and other items to the graveyard, offer the food in front of their loved ones' graves, then incinerate the paper money, cultivate new soil for the graves, fold a few young green branches and stick them on the graves, and then kowtow and worship, and then eat the wine and food and go home at last. Du Mu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem entitled "Qingming": "The rain falls one after another during the Qingming Festival, and the pedestrians on the road want to break their souls. Where can I find a tavern? The shepherd boy points to the apricot blossom village." It writes about the special atmosphere of Qingming Festival.

The Qingming Festival, also known as the Treading Green Festival, according to the solar calendar, it is between April 4 and 6 every year, it is the bright and beautiful spring grass and trees spit out the green season, but also it is the people of the spring tour (ancient called trekking) a good time, so the ancients have the Qingming trekking, and to carry out a series of sports activities of the custom.

Till today, the Qingming Festival to pay homage to ancestors, mourning the deceased relatives of the custom is still very prevalent.

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, there have been customs such as "eating Qingming dumplings", "sending a hundred bugs" and "playing in the water". Due to the Qingming and "smart" consonant, it is also known as "smart festival", Jiangnan folk have this day to give birth to the best saying. Nowadays, Qingming has ancestor worship, tomb sweeping, martyrs' graves, tree planting, trekking and eating green dumplings and other customs.

Four, Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, commonly known as "Dragon Boat Festival". Duan is the "beginning", "first" meaning. The first five can be called the end of the five. The Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional festival of the Han Chinese people in China. The essential activities of this day gradually evolved into: eating zongzi, dragon boat racing, hanging calamus, moxa, fumigation Cangzhu, Angelica dahurica, drink xionghuang wine. It is said that eating rice dumplings and dragon boat racing, is to commemorate the Qu Yuan, so after the liberation of the Dragon Boat Festival was named "Poet's Day" to commemorate the Qu Yuan. As for hanging calamus, moxa leaves, fumigate Cangzhu, Angelica dahurica, drink Xionghuang wine, it is said to be in order to suppress the evil spirits. Although the Dragon Boat Festival every year, but about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, but not very clear, summarized, roughly the following said. 1, to commemorate Qu Yuan said. 2, to welcome Tao God said. This is from the Eastern Han Dynasty "Cao E Stele". Wu Zixu, a loyal minister of Wu during the Spring and Autumn Period, after the death of injustice, into the Tao God, the world mourned and sacrificed, so there is the Dragon Boat Festival. 3, the Dragon Festival said. This argument comes from wen yiduo's "Dragon Boat Festival", and "the history of the Dragon Boat Festival education". He believes that the fifth day of May is the ancient Wuyue region, "dragon" of the tribe held a totem sacrifice day. 4, said the evil day. In the pre-Qin era, it is generally believed that May is a poisonous month, the fifth is a bad day. 5, the summer solstice said. Wandering Dragon Boat Festival dumplings Dragon Boat Festival to eat dumplings, now people only know that this is to commemorate the great poet Qu Yuan. But according to expert testimony, zongzi is nothing more than ordinary folk food, initially ate zongzi is not fixed in the Dragon Boat Festival; said the Dragon Boat Festival food zongzi is the sacrifice of qu yuan, is attached to the formation of the later, only reflecting the wishes of the people only. In fact, in order to commemorate the Spring and Autumn period of the State of Jin and the formation of folk custom of the "cold food festival" (the day before the Qingming Festival) to eat rice dumplings, the origin of rice dumplings than the Dragon Boat Festival early. To date, many places still pass the day before Qingming and Qingming food dumplings folk custom. Dragon Boat Festival food dumplings as a national custom first appeared in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou wrote "the land record": "mid-summer Dragon Boat Festival, cooking wassail corn." By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, zongzi has become the essential food of the Dragon Boat Festival. Nowadays, the zongzi is a thousand kinds of products, brilliant and varied. Today's zongzi, generally with Ruo shell package glutinous rice, but the connotation of color according to the local specialties and customs, the famous cinnamon zongzi, meat zongzi, crystal zongzi, lotus seed paste zongzi, candied fruit zongzi, chestnut zongzi, spicy zongzi, sauerkraut zongzi, ham zongzi, salted egg zongzi, and so on. Fifth, the Tanabata Festival every year on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is the traditional Han Festival Tanabata. Because the main participants in the activities of this day is a young girl, and the content of the festival activities is to beg mainly, so people call this day for the "Begging for coincidence festival" or "Maiden Festival", "Daughter Festival". The Tanabata Festival is one of the most romantic traditional festivals in China, and it was also the most important day for girls in the past. On the night of this day, women wear needles to beg for coquettishness, pray for blessings and longevity activities, worship the seven sisters, the ceremony is pious and grand, display of flowers and fruits, women's red, all kinds of furniture, utensils are exquisite small, attractive. 2006 May 20, Tanabata Festival was included in the State Council in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. It is now considered to be the "Chinese Valentine's Day".

Sixth, Mid-Autumn Festival

Moon Appreciation

In the Mid-Autumn Festival, China since ancient times, there has been the custom of enjoying the moon, the "Book of Rites" recorded in the "Autumn sunset," that is, to worship the moon god. By the Zhou Dynasty, every Mid-Autumn Festival night is held to welcome the cold and moon sacrifice. A large incense burner was set up and seasonal fruits such as mooncakes, watermelons, apples, plums, grapes, etc. were placed on the table, among which mooncakes and watermelons were absolutely indispensable. The watermelon is also cut into lotus shapes.

During the Tang Dynasty, it was quite popular to enjoy and play with the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the Song Dynasty, the mid-autumn moon festival is even more prevalent, according to the "Tokyo Dreaming Records" records: "Mid-autumn night, the noble family decorative platforms and pavilions, the folk compete to occupy the restaurant to play the moon". Every this day, the capital of all the stores, restaurants are to redecorate the facade, the pagoda on the silk hanging color, selling fresh fruit and refined food, the night market is bustling, the people more than on the platform, some rich families in their own pavilions and pavilions to enjoy the moon, and set up food or arrange a feast, reunion of the children, *** with the moon to talk.

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival Moon Festival customs remain the same, many places have formed a burning incense, tree Mid-Autumn Festival, point tower lamps, sky lanterns, walk the moon, dance fire dragon and other special customs.

Eating moon cakes

China's urban and rural masses over the Mid-Autumn Festival have the custom of eating moon cakes, as the saying goes: "August 15, the moon is round, Mid-Autumn Moon Festival mooncakes fragrant and sweet". Mooncake is initially used to worship the moon god's offerings, "mooncake" word, first seen in the Southern Song Dynasty Wu Zimu's "Dream Liang Records", at that time, it is just like the diamond flower cake like cake-shaped food. Later, people gradually combined the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival with mooncakes, a symbol of family reunion.

Mooncakes were initially made at home, and Yuan Mei of the Qing Dynasty recorded the practice of mooncakes in his "Sui Yuan Food List". In modern times, there are workshops specializing in the production of moon cakes, moon cake production more and more fine, the filling is exquisite, beautiful appearance, in the moon cake is also printed on the outside of a variety of exquisite patterns, such as "Chang'e Moon", "Galaxy Night Moon", "Three Pools of the Moon" and so on. To the moon of the round omen people of the reunion, to the cake of the round omen people of the life, with the moon cakes to send thoughts of home, missing the feelings of relatives, praying for a good harvest, happiness, have become the world's people's wish, the moon cakes are also used as gifts to send friends and relatives, liaison feelings.

Seven, Chung Yeung Festival climbing in ancient times, folk in the Chung Yeung has the custom of climbing, so the Chung Yeung Festival is also known as the "Festival". Legend has it that this custom began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, there were many poems written by literati, most of which were about the custom of Chung Yeung Festival; Du Fu's "Ascending to the Heights" is a famous piece of writing about the Chung Yeung ascent to the heights. There is no standardized rule on where to go, but generally it is to climb high mountains and towers. There is also the custom of eating "Chrysanthemum Cake".

Eating Chrysanthemum Cake

According to historical records, the Chrysanthemum Cake is also known as the flower cake, chrysanthemum cake, five-color cake, the system is not fixed, more random. September 9 when the sky is bright, to piece of cake on the forehead of the children, the mouth read the words, wishing the children all things are high, is the ancient people in September for the cake's original intention. The delicate Chongyang cake to be made into nine layers, like a pagoda, the top is also made into two small sheep, in line with the meaning of Chongyang (sheep). Some also inserted a small red paper flag on the cake, and light candles. This is probably the "light", "eat cake" instead of "high" meaning, with a small red paper flag instead of cornelian cherry. Today's Chongyang cake, there is still no fixed varieties, all over the Chongyang Festival to eat the fluffy cakes are called Chongyang cake.

Appreciating chrysanthemums and drinking chrysanthemum wine

The Chrysanthemum Festival is the time of the year when chrysanthemums are in full bloom, and it is rumored that the practice of appreciating chrysanthemums and drinking chrysanthemum wine originated with Tao Yuanming, a great poet of the Jin Dynasty. Tao Yuanming was famous for living in seclusion, famous for poetry, famous for wine, and famous for his love of chrysanthemums; later generations followed his example, and then there was the custom of enjoying chrysanthemums at the Chrysanthemum Festival. In the old days, the literati combined chrysanthemum-appreciation with banquets and drinks in order to get closer to Tao Yuanming. In Kaifeng, the capital of Northern Song Dynasty, the chrysanthemum-appreciation style was prevalent, and there were many varieties of chrysanthemums with a variety of shapes and sizes. Folk also called the ninth month of the lunar calendar "the month of chrysanthemums", and in the Chrysanthemum Festival where chrysanthemums blossomed in the frost, viewing chrysanthemums became an important part of the festival. After the Qing Dynasty, chrysanthemum appreciation is especially prosperous, and is not limited to the ninth day of the ninth month, but is still the most prosperous before and after the Chrysanthemum Festival.

Inserting Cornus and Hairpin Chrysanthemums

The custom of inserting Cornus on the Chongyang Festival was already common in the Tang Dynasty. Ancient people believed that inserting cornelian cherry on the day of Chung Yeung Festival could protect against disasters; or wear it on the arm, or make an incense bag to put the cornelian cherry inside and wear it, and also insert it on the head. Mostly women, children wear, some places, men also wear. Eight, Laha Festival Laha this day have eaten Laha congee custom, Laha congee is also called "seven treasures five flavors porridge". It is said that Lapa congee from India. The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, was the son of King Jinyi of Gavilavi country in the northern part of India (now in Nepal), who saw all beings suffer from the pain of birth, old age, sickness and death and was dissatisfied with the theocratic rule of the Brahmins at that time, gave up his throne and went out to cultivate his family. After six years of asceticism, he attained enlightenment and became a Buddha under the Bodhi tree on the eighth day of the waxing moon. During these six years of asceticism, he ate only one flax and one rice a day. Later generations did not forget his suffering, and ate congee on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year every year to commemorate the occasion. The history of drinking Laha congee in China has been more than a thousand years. All over China, the pattern of Laha congee, competition, a variety of varieties. One of the most elaborate to Beiping, mixed in the white rice in more items, such as dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, cinnamon, hazelnuts, grapes, white fruits, horn, green silk, roses, red beans, peanuts ...... no less than a total of twenty kinds. People in the evening of the seventh day of the first month of the lunar calendar, began to get busy, washing rice, soaking fruit, plucking skin, removing the nucleus, fine picking and then in the middle of the night to start cooking, and then stewed with a slight fire, has been stewed to the early morning of the next day, Lapa congee is considered to be simmering well.