What are the Chinese New Year customs in Xinghua, Jiangsu Province? (The more the better)

The Spring Festival is an ancient festival in China, but also one of the most important festivals throughout the year, how to celebrate this festival, in the development of thousands of years of history, the formation of a number of more fixed customs and habits, many of which have been passed down to the present day.

Sweeping dust

"Lunar New Year 24, dust sweeping the house", according to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals", China in the Yao and Shun era, there is a Spring Festival sweeping custom. According to folklore: because the "dust" and "Chen" consonant, dust sweeping in the New Year has "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", the intention is to all the poor luck, bad luck, swept out the door. This custom is a symbol of people's desire to break away from the old and bring in the new and their prayers for the old and the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean up the environment, wash all kinds of appliances, dismantle the bedding curtains, sprinkle clean the courtyard, dust dust cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with joyful health, clean and welcome the new year's happy atmosphere.

Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets, also known as door-to-door, spring stickers, couplets, couplets, peach symbols, etc., it is neat, couplets, concise, sophisticated text depicting the background of the times, expressing the best wishes, is China's unique form of literature. Every Spring Festival, whether urban or rural, every family should select a large red spring couplets posted on the door, for the festival to increase the festive atmosphere. This custom began in the Song Dynasty, began to prevail in the Ming Dynasty, to the Qing Dynasty, the Spring Festival couplets of ideology and artistry have been greatly improved, Liang Zhangzhu prepared the Spring Festival couplets monograph "Threshold Lian series of words" on the origins of the couplets and various types of works of the characteristics of the discourse.

There are many types of spring couplets, which, according to their place of use, can be divided into door centers, frame pairs, horizontal phi, spring strips, doufang, etc. "Door centers" are the most common type of couplets. "Door" in the upper center of the door panel; "frame" on the left and right door frame; "Phi" on the horizontal wood of the door winks; "Chunzhi "according to different content, posted in the corresponding place;" bucket catty "also called" door leaf "for the square diamond, more in the furniture, shadow wall.

Pasted window and upside down "Fu" word

In folklore, people also like to put all kinds of paper cuttings on the window - window flowers. Window flowers not only set a festive atmosphere, but also decorative, appreciative and practical in one. Paper cutting in China is a very popular folk art, for thousands of years by the people's favorite, because it is mostly affixed to the window, so it is also known as "window flowers". Window flowers with its unique generalization and exaggeration of auspicious events, good wishes expressed in the best, the festival decorated with red hot and rich.

At the same time as the Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on the doors, walls and lintels of their houses. The Spring Festival sticker "Fu" character, is China's folk custom from a long time. The character "福" refers to good fortune and good luck, and it expresses people's desire for a happy life and their wish for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wishes, some people simply stick the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived" and "good fortune has arrived". Folk will also be "Fu" word fine as a variety of patterns, patterns have the star, longevity, carp jump Dragon Gate, the five valleys, the dragon and phoenix, and so on.

New Year's paintings

The Spring Festival hanging stickers New Year's paintings in urban and rural areas is also very common, thick black colorful New Year's paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. New Year's paintings are an ancient folk art in China, reflecting the people's simple customs and beliefs, and holding their hopes for the future. New Year's paintings, like spring scrolls, originated as "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of the New Year's paintings has not only limited to monotonous themes such as the God of the Door, become colorful, in some of the New Year's paintings in the workshop produced the "Three Stars of Fortune and Longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "Five Grains and a Plentiful Harvest," "Six Animals Prosperity," "Welcoming the Spring to receive the blessings of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's joyful prayers for the New Year's good wishes. There are three important production areas of Chinese New Year paintings in China: Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong Province; three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

China's current collection of China's earliest New Year's paintings is the Southern Song Dynasty "along with the fair presenting the country of the Fangcheng" woodcut New Year's paintings, the painting is Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Ban Ji and green beads of the four ancient beauties. The most widely circulated folk painting is the one of "The Mouse Marrying Her Marriage". It depicts an interesting scene of a mouse marrying a bride in accordance with the customs of the earth. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng Mantuo of Shanghai combined the lunar calendar and New Year's paintings. This is a new form of New Year's paintings. This combination of two and one of the New Year's paintings, later developed into a wall calendar, and is still popular throughout the country.

Watch the New Year's Eve

Watch the New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's activities, and the custom of watching the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou Chu's "Land and Customs": New Year's Eve night, each with the gift, known as "feed the year"; wine and food invited, known as "don't year"; young and old get together to drink, wishing to complete, known as the "sub year"; everyone all night long to keep the New Year's Eve, the most important activity. "

The first time I saw this is when I was a young man and I had to wait for the day to dawn, so I called it the "New Year's Eve".

"One night even double the year, five days divided into two days", New Year's Eve night, the whole family gathered together, ate the New Year's Eve dinner, light up candles or oil lamps, sitting around the fireplace chatting, waiting for the time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, the all-night vigil, symbolizing all the evil plagues and diseases, according to the run away, and look forward to a new year of good luck. This custom gradually prevailed, to the early Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a "year-keeping" poem: "cold resignation from the winter snow, the warmth of the spring wind". Until today, people are still accustomed to the New Year's Eve to welcome the new year.

Anciently, there are two meanings of year-end vigil: the elderly year-end vigil for the "resignation of the old year", there is the meaning of the treasure of time and light; young people year-end vigil is to extend the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the moment of the transition between the old and new year is usually the middle of the night.

Crackers

Chinese folk "open door firecrackers". That is, at the dawn of the new year, the first thing that families do when they open the door is to set off firecrackers, to beep and blare the sound of firecrackers to get rid of the old and welcome the new. Firecrackers is a Chinese specialty, also known as "firecrackers", "cannonballs", "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, so far has a history of more than two thousand years. Firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, is a kind of festival entertainment, can bring people joy and good luck. With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers is more and more widely used, varieties and colors are also increasingly numerous, every major holiday and festivals, and marriage, building, opening, etc., are to set off firecrackers in order to show the celebration, Figure a good luck. Now, Hunan Liuyang, Guangdong Foshan and Dongyao, Jiangxi Yichun and Pingxiang, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other areas is China's famous hometown of firecrackers, the production of firecrackers colorful, high-quality, not only sells well across the country, but also exported to the world.

Welcome to the New Year

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, each other, wishing good luck for the coming year. Worship a variety of ways, some of them are the same clan leader led a number of people to go door to door to pay tribute to the New Year; there are 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 community used the posters to congratulate each other, which developed into the later "New Year's card".

The Chinese New Year, the late generation should first pay tribute to the elders, wishing the elders a long life and well-being, the elders can be prepared beforehand the New Year's money to the elders, it is said that the New Year's money can be pressed to stop the evil spirits, because the "age" and the "spirit" consonant, the elders get the New Year's money can be a year of peace and security. It is said that New Year's money can keep evil spirits at bay, because "year" and "spirit" sound alike. There are two kinds of New Year's money, one is a colorful rope threaded and braided into the shape of a dragon, placed at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in the "Yanjing Yearly Record"; the other is the most common, that is, wrapped in red paper by the parents of the money given to the children. New Year's money can be rewarded in the evening after the New Year's greetings in public, can also be in the New Year's Eve when the child is asleep, by the parents secretly placed under the child's pillow. Now the elders for the younger generation to send the custom of the new year's money is still prevalent.

Chinese New Year food customs

In the ancient agricultural society, about since the eighth day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, housewives will be busy with the New Year's food. Because it takes a long time to pickle the preserved meat, it must be prepared as early as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of pickling preserved meat, among which the preserved meat in Guangdong Province is the most famous.

Steaming rice cakes has become a must-have for almost every family because of its resonance with the word "nian gao" and its varied flavors. There are square-shaped yellow and white rice cakes, symbolizing gold and silver, which are meant to bring wealth in the New Year.

The flavor of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers enjoy red date rice cakes, white rice cakes and white rice cakes made from river rice or yellow rice. People in Hebei like to add jujubes, small red beans and mung beans to their rice cakes and steam them 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 use 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 so well made that they can be steamed or dipped in egg white and deep-fried.

The night before the real New Year is called the Night of Reunion, when people who are away from home have to travel thousands of miles to come back home, and the whole family has to sit together to make dumplings for the New Year. The dumpling method is to make dumpling skin with flour, and then use the skin to wrap the filling, which is a variety of contents, including various kinds of meat, eggs, seafood, seasonal vegetables, etc., and can be put into the filling, and the orthodox way of eating dumplings is to boil it with water, and then fish it up to be accompanied by vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce. The orthodox way of eating dumplings is to boil them in water and then dip them in soy sauce flavored with vinegar, garlic, and sesame oil. Dumplings can also be deep-fried and cooked (potstickers). This is because the word "he" (和) means "to merge" (合), and the words "饺子" (饺子) and "交" (交), meaning "to merge" and "to merge" (合), mean the same thing. The words "合" and "交" have the meaning of getting together, so dumplings are used to symbolize reunion and happiness; they are also taken as the meaning of a new year's handover, which is very auspicious; in addition, dumplings resemble a Yuanbao (元宝), so eating dumplings on New Year's Day carries the auspicious meaning of "inviting wealth and prosperity" (招财進宝). In addition, eating dumplings on New Year's Day also carries the auspicious meaning of "inviting wealth and prosperity". Families get together to make dumplings and talk about the New Year in a joyful manner