Customs and habits related to Chinese characters

The custom of "nian" in Chinese characters

As the biggest festival in China, the customs of the Spring Festival vary from place to place and are rich and colorful. However, in the course of thousands of years of historical development, the Chinese nation has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits, which distinguish us from other nationalities in the world and become the symbol of our Chinese nation. Some customs and habits are also recorded and reflected in ancient Chinese characters.

Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They describe the background of the times and express their best wishes in neat, dual, concise and exquisite words. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of bright red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. Spring Festival couplets are a unique traditional culture in China, which fully embodies the wonder of Chinese characters and is closely related to them. A common cross section in Spring Festival couplets is "Three Yang Kai Tai", which is often written as "Three Yang Kai Tai". Which is the correct spelling? "Sanyang" comes from the Book of Changes. The ancients took the sun as the sun and the night as the shade. In the lunar calendar, the daytime is the shortest from the winter solstice in November, and then the daytime becomes longer, so people think that the yin gradually disappears from the yang, so the winter solstice is called "one yang", December is called "two yang" and the first month is called "three yang opens Thailand". This shows that "Three Yang Kaitai" is the correct writing. However, why do many people write it as "three sheep"? Just because of the convenience of writing and the common animal "sheep"? I'm afraid the answer is not that simple. This kind of mistake in writing benevolence actually conveys some cultural information to us. There are special "sheep", "beauty" and "goodness" in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, which are all listed under this department. Shuo Wen Jie Zi Yang Bu: "Beauty is sweet. From sheep to big. Sheep mainly eat six animals. " In ancient times, sheep should be the main meat source of people at that time. Therefore, the word "beauty", originally meaning delicious, is understood as "sheep" and "big". People have the same feeling about the beauty of things. Mr. Hong Chengyu once said: "As a representative of food, the word' sheep' has been extended from the beauty of food to the meaning of good luck as early as in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Furthermore, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the Yin Ruins of Jin Zutong, was quoted as saying: "The ancients regarded sheep as delicious, good and beautiful, so sheep had auspicious meaning. "