56 nationalities traditional festivals, life customs, food culture.

Traditional Festivals of 56 Ethnic Groups in China

New Year's Eve, known as "New Year's Eve" in the Zhuang family, is the last day of the lunar year. It is the grandest traditional festival of the year for the Zhuang people in Nanning. At the beginning of the month to do a variety of New Year's preparations, New Year's Eve, each family is busy cleaning the courtyard house, change clothes, kill chickens, fish, fried oil tofu, dumplings, steamed rice cakes. Before the dinner, each family will make offerings of pork, chicken, wine, rice, etc., to worship the gods and spirits of the ancestors; and then burn paper money and firecrackers. After the sacrifice, the reunion dinner begins. The food is plentiful, and everyone drinks to reward the year's hardships and family happiness, and the dishes of this meal should be left over to show that "there are more than enough for every year".

Spring Festival

The Spring Festival begins in the early morning hours of the first day of the month and continues until the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the month, with the first five days of the month being the most lively. When the first morning dawn comes, each family competes in setting off fireworks and firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. At dawn, the women of all families competed to the river well "grab new water", to be the first to draw new water for good luck. The women use the "new water" to cook ginger-sugar water and soup dumplings, which they use to pay homage to their ancestors, and then the whole family eats and drinks. On the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, there are no visits to each other's homes. After breakfast, young people dressed in costumes, each invited their friends and companions to participate in various recreational activities nearby. In the past, Nanning also held a spring festival ceremony, "Fuzhou County, arranged color pavilion, set up cattle, to welcome the spring in the eastern suburbs"; "ceremonial ceremonies are very prosperous, where from the county within twenty miles, men, women, children, old and young, competing teams to watch, to the lively". The countryside is also popular in the lion dance, dragon dance and spring bull dance and other activities. The lion dance team walks through the village, drums and gongs, firecrackers; children follow, and have a good time. Whenever the lions arrive at a house, the hosts reward them with envelopes and exchange congratulations. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, no one is killed, lunch is vegetarian, and the leftovers from the year before are eaten for dinner. Adults give children New Year's money. From the second day of the year, relatives will begin to interact with each other to pay tribute to the New Year, carrying gifts are mainly rice dumplings, rice cakes, pork and other things, for days on end. Guests brought gifts, the host family only half of each share of the collection, leaving half or change their own New Year's goods to bring back. After the first five days, friends and relatives will gradually reduce the visit to celebrate the New Year, each family began to plan the year's preparation for farming. At the Lantern Festival, each family kills chickens and prepares meat, worships their ancestors, and prays for good weather, good life, and prosperous livestock. The Spring Festival is over.