Folklore related to the Qingming Festival 1500 Words

The Qingming Festival

In Chinese history, it has long been customary to forbid fires during the cold food period and to pay tribute to the ancestors. After the Tang Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival gradually declined, and tomb-sweeping and ancestor-worshiping on Qingming Festival became an ongoing customary tradition since then. Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his poem "Cold Food Day": "The crows and magpies are noisy and faint the trees, who is crying during the cold food of Qingming Festival? The wind blows the paper money flying in the wilderness, and the ancient graves are full of green spring grass. The flowers of the pear tree are reflected in the white poplar tree, all of which are the places of separation between life and death. I can't hear the weeping at the heavy spring in the darkness, and people go back to their homes in the evening rain." Gao Juqing, a poet of the Song Dynasty, also wrote in a poem, "There are many graves on the hills in the north and south, and the Qingming Festival is full of different ceremonies. Paper ashes fly as white butterflies, and tears stain red azaleas. Foxes sleep on the mound at sunset, and one drop never reaches the Nine Springs!" In today's society, people still have the custom of visiting the graves around the Ching Ming Festival to pay homage to their ancestors: shoveling out weeds, placing offerings, offering incense and prayers in front of the graves, burning paper money and gold ingots, or simply offering a bouquet of flowers, in order to express their nostalgia for their ancestors.

Trekking

Ching Ming time, when spring returns to the earth, people are due to take advantage of the convenience of sweeping the graves of the family of young and old in the mountains and countryside between the wild play some, go home by hand to fold a few branches of leaf buds blossoming willow branches to wear on the head, happy and happy. There are also people deliberately during the Qingming Festival to the nature to appreciate and appreciate the vibrant spring scenery, hiking in the countryside, a Lyric in the harsh winter since the depression of the chest, this kind of trekking is also known as the spring tour, the ancient called the spring, looking for spring. The meaning of the foot is to step on the grass, playing in the countryside, viewing the spring color.

Before and after the Qingming Festival is a good time for trekking, so it has become an important part of the Qingming Festival. In ancient times, women could not travel on weekdays, Qingming tomb sweeping is a rare opportunity to step on the green, so the women in the Qingming Festival than men play more fun, folk "women's Qingming men's year" said.

Plugging willow

The Qingming Festival is the time of the willow sprouting and greening, the folk have folded willow, wearing willow, willow custom. When people step on the green hand folded a few branches of willow, can be held in the hands to play, can also be woven into a hat to wear on the head, can also be taken home inserted in the lintel, the eaves. Proverbs have "Qingming do not wear willow, red face into white head" "Qingming do not wear willow, after death into yellow dog" said, indicating that the Qingming folding willow in the old days is a very common custom. It is said that the willow branch has the function of warding off evil spirits, then the willow wear willow is not only fashionable decoration, and have the effect of praying for blessings and warding off evil spirits. Qingming willow may also be related to the past Cold Food Festival to willow branches to beg for new fire customs. Today, it seems that randomly taking willow branches is a damage to the trees, is not appropriate to promote.

The custom of planting trees on the Qingming Festival is said to commemorate the invention of a variety of agricultural tools and had "tasted a hundred herbs" of Shennong's; another said to be the willows held at the time of the death of mesquite push was later resurrected, the Duke of Jin gave the name of the Qingming Willow and folded the willow into a circle to be worn on the head, the custom was passed into the folk. Although there are different allusions to the origin, but these customs still do not leave people on the spring back to the joy of the earth.

Ching Ming Festival

Ching Ming Festival, in addition to the above tomb-sweeping and ancestor worship, the custom of stepping on the green willow, there are a large number of purely recreational customs, for thousands of years, doubly popular, such as the continuation of the pulling of hooks, kite-flying and swinging, etc., and there was also once popular for a while, but no longer seen today, the shooting of willows and Cuju (pronounced: cù jū).

Drawing hooks

"Drawing hooks" is an ancient name for the modern sport of tug-of-war. It is said that during the Spring and Autumn Period, the state of Chu used the sport of pulling hooks to strengthen the people's physique in order to attack the state of Wu. It is mainly a hemp rope, the two ends are divided into many small rope, the game, to a large flag as a boundary, a command, both sides of the force of the rope, drums and music, both sides of the cheering and shouting, lively and extraordinary.

Flying kites

Flying kites is one of the favorite activities of the Qingming Festival. Ancient people believed that if someone was sick, he or she could write or draw his or her illness on a kite, tie the kite with a string and fly it in the air, let it fly to a high altitude and pull the string to cut it, so that the illness and disaster would fly away along with the kite. Later, the kite also gradually developed into a popular recreational activities.

The Qing Dynasty's Pan RongHang's book, "Imperial Capital Years and Years of Record", recorded that: "During the Qingming Festival, men and women come out of the four suburbs to visit the tombs, and they carry paper kites and spools of paper kites to offer sacrifices to the gods and to the people. Each carries a paper kite spool, and after sweeping, it is put in front of the grave to win." Ancient people also think that the wind of Qingming is very suitable for kite flying. The Qingjia Records said, "Spring wind from the bottom up, the paper kite because of it, so there is a 'Qingming put off the harrier' of the proverb." In ancient times, kite-flying was not only a kind of amusement activity, but also a kind of witchcraft behavior: they believed that kite-flying could let go of one's own dirty qi. So when many people flew kites during the Qingming Festival, they wrote all the calamities and diseases they knew on the paper kite, and when the kite was flying high, they cut the kite string and let the paper kite float away with the wind, symbolizing that they let their own illnesses and filthiness be taken away by the kite.

Swinging

The earliest swing is called "Qianqiu", which is said to have been introduced by Duke Huan of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period from the northern nation of Shanrong, and became a folk game for Qingming and other festivals, such as Dragon Boat Festival and Cold Food Festival, after the Han Dynasty. Swing is initially a rope, to grasp the rope and swing, after the development of a wooden frame hanging two ropes, under the tie horizontal board and become.

The play of swing has been popular in the North and South Dynasties. Jing Chu chronicle recorded: "spring hanging long rope in the high wood, women in colorful clothes sitting on it and push the lead, called playing the swing." Tang Dynasty swinging has been a very common game, and become an important part of the Qingming Festival customs. Because of the Qingming swing everywhere, the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties set Qingming Festival for the Swing Festival, the palace also set up swings for the queen, concubines, court ladies to play.

Today's parks and playgrounds still have swings for children to play.

Shooting willow

Shooting willow is a game of practicing archery skills. According to the Ming Dynasty, it involves putting pigeons in a gourd and hanging the gourd high in a willow tree, bending the bow to shoot the gourd, and the pigeons flying out, with the height of the pigeons flying to determine the winner.

Cuju

The Qingming Festival in addition to ancestor sweeping, there are a variety of outdoor activities, such as trekking, picnicking, swinging, etc., in the memorial memorial of the sentimental side, but also a blend of joy to enjoy the atmosphere of spring. Among these activities, "Cuju" is a very interesting activity. Cuju, is now the predecessor of soccer, the ball skin is made of leather, the ball with hair stuffed tight. Legend has it that cuju as early as the Shang Dynasty has, the Warring States period into the folk, to the Han Dynasty has become the military to practice martial arts, and listed in the book of arms.

"Cuju" is to kick the ball with the foot, originated in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period of the former capital of Qi, Linzi, the Tang and Song dynasties are most prosperous, often appearing "the ball does not fall all day long", "the ball is not away from the foot, the foot is not away from the ball, the Huating The scene of "Song Taizu Cuju" depicts the scene. Du Fu's poem "Qingming" wrote, "Ten years of Cuju will be far away, thousands of miles of the same custom", also shows the popularity of Cuju activities at that time. In the context of the traditional culture of "mediocrity", Cuju gradually evolved from a confrontational game to a performance competition. In the Qing Dynasty, there are very few records of Cuju activities in history.

The birthplace of cuju, Zibo, Shandong Province, and the rise of cuju fever, many citizens to participate in them, not only exercise the body, but also inherited more than 2,000 years of folklore.

Cockfighting

Cockfighting games were prevalent in the ancient Qingming, cockfighting by the beginning of Qingming, fighting until the summer solstice. The earliest record of cockfighting in China is found in Zuo Zhuan. To the Tang Dynasty, cockfighting has become a trend, not only is the civil cockfighting, even the emperor also participated in cockfighting. Such as Tang Xuanzong favorite cockfighting.

Silkworms will

Silkworms will be "Silkworms will be" is a unique folk culture of the Silkworm Township, in the past during the Ching Ming Festival, Wutong, Wuzhen, Chongfu, Chauquan and other places have this folk activity. Among them to Chauquan's Maming Temple and Qingshi's double temple of the silkworms will be particularly exciting and grand. Maming Temple is located in Chauquan town west, in the local "king of the temple" said, every year silkworms will be a sea of people, frequent activities, there are welcome silkworm god, shake the fast boat, haunted the pavilion, worship incense stool, boxing, dragon lanterns, warping Gorgon, singing opera and other more than a dozen activities. Some of these activities are carried out on the shore, and the vast majority of them are carried out on the boat, which is very characteristic of the water town. In recent years, Wuzhen incense market activities in the silkworm flower, only to welcome the silkworm god, step on the white boat, warped pole and a few other projects, there is great potential to dig.

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