What is the origin of Spring Festival, a traditional festival in China?

The Spring Festival evolved from the ritual activities of praying for the New Year at the beginning of ancient times. In ancient times, after a year of farming, people would hold sacrificial activities at the beginning of the new year to repay the kindness of the gods and ancestors of heaven and earth and pray for a bumper harvest. Later it gradually developed into the Spring Festival.

In different dynasties, the date and name of the Spring Festival are different. After the Revolution of 1911 in China, the first day of the first lunar month was fixed as the Spring Festival every year, officially called "Spring Festival", which has been in use ever since.

In fact, among the people, there has been a "taste of the year" since the 23 rd day of the twelfth lunar month, until the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month (people call the fifteenth day of the first full moon of the year the Lantern Festival, which is a festival to eat Lantern Festival and solve riddles on lanterns). New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month are the climax of the festival. For thousands of years, the Spring Festival has been a traditional festival for people of all ethnic groups in China.

Han Dynasty is an era in which science and superstition go hand in hand. People gradually came out of primitive beliefs, and some areas even broke the blind worship of nature since the pre-Qin period, creating conditions for rich festivals. Basic contents such as Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Double Ninth Festival were all shaped in this period.

It was not until the Tang Dynasty that festivals were liberated from the original taboos, superstitions and mysteries, and entertainment and etiquette activities occupied a dominant position. For example, firecrackers, originally said to exorcise ghosts, later symbolized celebration. Today's festivals coincide with the special dates in the lunar calendar, probably because people often hold some activities on these special days, which are passed down from generation to generation year after year, thus forming today's festivals.