Chinese culture - festival culture of the Spring Festival

The concept of the Spring Festival and the year, the original meaning comes from agriculture, the ancient people called the growth cycle of the grain "year", "Shuowen. Wo Department": "year, the grain is also ripe:. In the Xia and Shang dynasties produced the summer calendar, the cycle of the moon for the month, a year divided into twelve months, each month to not see the moon for the day for the first day of the first month of the first day of the month of the son of the time known as the first of the year, that is, the beginning of the year, also known as the year, the name of the year is from the Zhou Dynasty, to the Western Han Dynasty to formally fixed, and has been continued to the present day. But the first day of the first month in ancient times was known as "New Year's Day", until China's modern Xinhai Revolution victory, the Nanjing Provisional Government in order to comply with the farming season and facilitate statistics, the provisions of the summer calendar in the civilian population, in the government agencies, factories, mines, schools and organizations in the implementation of the Gregorian calendar to the Gregorian calendar for the first day of the first month of New Year's Day, the first day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, known as the Spring Festival.

September 27, 1949, the new China was founded, in the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, adopted the use of the world's common calendar calendar, the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar as New Year's Day, commonly known as the solar year; the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar is usually in the spring before and after the start of the first lunar month, and thus the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar is designated as "Spring Festival ", commonly known as the year of the lunar calendar.

Traditionally, the Spring Festival refers to the period from the Lunar New Year festival on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, or the Zaos Festival on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, until the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, which culminates in New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month of the lunar year. In the Spring Festival this traditional holiday period, China's Han Chinese and most ethnic minorities have to hold a variety of celebrations, most of these activities to worship God and Buddha, ancestors, in addition to the old and the new, to welcome Jubilee to receive the blessing, praying for a good year as the main content. The activities are colorful, with strong national characteristics.

One of the legends of the Spring Festival: the year of the year

The year of the year, that is, in the last night of the old year, do not sleep, stay up to meet the arrival of the new year's custom, also known as the New Year's Eve year-observation, commonly known as the "year of the year". Explore the origins of this custom, in folklore is an interesting story:

The ancient times, there is a ferocious beast, scattered in the mountains and dense forests, people call them "year". It is hideous, ferocious nature, specializing in eating birds and beasts, scales and insects, a day to change a flavor, from knocking insects have been eaten to the living, so that people talk about the "year" color change. Later, people slowly mastered the "year" of the activities of the law, it is every three hundred and sixty-five days scurrying to the crowd of places to taste a mouthful of food, and the time of the infestation are in the dark, and so on, until the cock crows at dawn, they will return to the mountains and forests to go.

Calculating the date of the "New Year" rampage, the people will be this terrible night as a pass to brake, called "New Year's Pass", and came up with a whole set of New Year's Pass approach: every night, every family is ahead of time to do a good job of dinner, extinguish the fire! Net stove, and then all the chicken coop cattle pen tethered to the front and back doors of the mansion are sealed, hiding in the house to eat "New Year's Eve dinner", because this dinner has the meaning of bad luck and uncertainty, so organized very sumptuous, in addition to the whole family to eat together to express the harmony and reunion, but also have to be in the meal before the sacrifice to the ancestors, praying for the blessing of the gods of the ancestors, and the gods of the ancestors, and the gods of the ancestors. Peacefully through the night, after dinner, who do not dare to sleep, sitting together in a crowded chatting courage. Gradually formed the habit of New Year's Eve to stay up and keep the New Year's Eve.

The custom of keeping the New Year's Eve rose in the North and South Dynasties, and many literati in the Liang Dynasty had poems about keeping the New Year's Eve. "One night is even a double year, and the fifth night is divided into two years." People light up candles or oil lamps and keep vigil all night, symbolizing that all evil plagues and epidemics are driven away, looking forward to an auspicious new year. This custom has been passed down to this day.

The Spring Festival legend of the second: Wannian created the calendar said

Legend, in ancient times, there is a young man named Wannian, see the festival was very chaotic, there is a desire to set the festival of the intention. But bitterly unable to find a way to calculate the time, one day, he went up the mountain chopping wood tired, sitting under the shade of a tree to rest, the movement of the shadow of the tree inspired him, he designed a sundial measuring the shadow of the sun counting the time of the day, determine the time of the day, and later, the dripping springs on the cliffs inspired him, he made a five-tiered funnel pot, to calculate the time. Over time, he realized that every 360 days or so, the seasons rotated and the length of the day was repeated.

The king of the country at that time, named Zu Yi, was also often distressed by the unpredictability of the weather and wind. When Wannian learned of this, he took a sundial and a funnel pot to the emperor, and explained to Zuyi the reasoning behind the operation of the sun and the moon. Zu Yi listened to the dragon's face, felt reasonable. So left Wannian, in front of the Temple of Heaven to build the Sun and Moon Pavilion, built the sundial and funnel kiosk. And he hoped to measure the laws of the sun and the moon, to project the exact time of morning and evening, to create the calendar, and to benefit the people of the world.

On one occasion, Zu Yi went to learn about the progress of the Ten Thousand Years Test Calendar. When he ascended to the Altar of the Sun and the Moon, he saw a poem engraved on the stone wall beside the Temple of Heaven:

Sunrise and sunset are three hundred and six, and the cycle begins again and again from the beginning.

The grass and trees wither and prosper in four seasons, and there are twelve rounds in a year.

Knowing that Wannian's creation of the calendar had come to fruition, he personally ascended to the Sun and Moon Pavilion to see Wannian. Wannian pointed to the sky and said to Zuyi: "It is now the twelve full months, the old year is over, the new spring begins again, pray for the king of the country to set a festival". Zu Yi said, "Spring is the first day of the year, let's call it Spring Festival". This is said to be the origin of the Spring Festival.

Winter to spring, year after year, Wannian after a long period of observation, careful projection, developed an accurate solar calendar, when he presented the solar calendar to the succeeding king, already full of silver beard. The king of the country was y touched, in order to commemorate the achievements of Wan Nian, the solar calendar named "Wan Nian Calendar", Wan Nian as the sun and moon life star. Later on, people put up a picture of the star of longevity on New Year's Day, which was said to be in honor of the highly respected Wannian.

The Third Legend of the Spring Festival: Posting Spring Festival Couplets and Door Gods

The custom of posting Spring Festival Couplets is said to have begun about a thousand years ago in the period of the Later Shu, which is supported by history. In addition, according to the Jade Candle Canon and the Yanjing Yearly Record, the original form of the Spring Festival couplets was what was known as the "Peach Symbol".

In ancient Chinese mythology, there was a world of ghosts, in which there was a mountain with a peach tree covering 3,000 miles, and on the top of the tree there was a golden chicken. Whenever the golden rooster crowed in the morning, the ghosts that had gone out to roam at night would be rushed back to the ghost world. The gate of the Ghost Realm was situated in the northeast of the peach tree, and by the gate stood two godmen named Shentan and Yubi. If a ghost did something harmful at night, the gods would immediately find it, catch it, tie it up with a rope made of mango reeds, and feed it to the tiger. Therefore, all the ghosts in the world were afraid of Shentian and Yubi. So the folk used peach wood to carve into their likeness and put it in front of their house to avoid evil and prevent harm. Later, people simply carve the name of God Tantui and Yubi on the mahogany board, thinking that this can also suppress the evil to go to the evil. This kind of peach wood board was later called "peach talisman".

To the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on the mahogany board, without losing the significance of the mahogany to suppress evil, the second is to express their good wishes, the third is to decorate the portal, in order to beautiful. And in the red paper symbolizing the joy and auspiciousness of writing couplets, the New Year on both sides of the doors and windows, to express people's prayers for good luck in the coming year.

In order to pray for a family's well-being, people in some places still retain the habit of sticking door gods. It is said that when two door gods are posted on the front door, all demons and ghosts will be afraid. In folklore, the door god is a symbol of righteousness and force, the ancients believe that people with strange looks often have magical endowments and extraordinary skills. They are upright and kind-hearted, to catch ghosts and demons is their nature and responsibility, people look up to the ghost hunter Zhong Kui, that is, this kind of strange looks. So the folk god of the door is always angry eyes, grim-looking, holding a variety of traditional weapons, ready to fight with the ghosts and demons that dare to come to the door. Since the doors of our houses are usually two open doors, the door gods are always in pairs.

After the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the previous two generals Shentian and Yubi, people also took Qin Shubao and Yuchigong, two Tang Dynasty military generals, as door gods. Legend has it that when Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty was sick, he heard the ghosts and demons outside his door calling out and had no peace all night. So he asked these two generals to stand beside the door with weapons to guard it, and the next night there were no more ghosts to disturb him. Later, Emperor Tang Taizong had the images of the two generals painted and pasted on the door, and this custom began to spread in the folklore

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