The Spring Festival of 2017 is coming. It is an ancient festival in China, and also the most important festival in the whole year. What are the customs of the Spring Festival? In the thousands of years of historical development, some relatively fixed customs and habits have been formed, many of which are still handed down to this day. There are different ways of celebrating the Spring Festival from different cities and different nationalities. Let's take a look at the spring festival customs.
Spring Festival custom: sacrifice to kitchen god
Cooking sacrifice is a very popular custom with great influence among the people in China. In the old days, almost every kitchen had the God of "kitchen Lord". It's said that he is the "Lord of nine heaven Eastern chef's kitchen" granted by the Jade Emperor, who is responsible for the management of the cooking fires in each family. People call this God "Buddha of life" or "Lord of life", and he is worshipped as a protection god of the family. In the ballad, "23, tanggua stick" refers to the sacrificial kitchen on the 23rd or 24th of the 12th lunar month every year. There is a saying that "officials, three people, four boatmen and five boatmen" means that the government is on the 23rd of the 12th lunar month, the general people's family is on the 24th, and the people on the water hold the sacrificial kitchen on the 25th.
It is said that on the 23rd of the 12th lunar month, the kitchen god will rise to heaven and report the good and evil of the family to the Jade Emperor. According to the report of the kitchen god, the Jade Emperor will hand over the fate of good and bad luck that the family should get in the new year to the kitchen god. The ceremony of sending Kitchen God is called "sending Kitchen God" or "saying goodbye Kitchen God". The common people provide red candle and sugar melon to send Kitchen God to the sky with grand ceremony, hoping that Kitchen God will say good things on the sky and the lower world will be lucky. Today, many rural areas still follow this custom.
Twenty four, dust day. The first thing to do is to get rid of the old. Sweeping is the year-end sweeping, which is called "house sweeping" in the north and "dusting" in the south. Sweeping the dust before the Spring Festival is a traditional custom in China. On the day of sweeping the dust, the whole family started to clean the house and yard, scrub the pots and pans, remove the bedding, and welcome the new year cleanly. In fact, people use the homophony of "Chen" and "Chen" to express their intention of eliminating Chen and the old.
Spring Festival custom: paste Fu characters upside down
In our country, people often use a word "Fu" to express their yearning and pursuit for happiness. Every time when we say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, every family should stick the word "Fu" on the door, which means that luck enters the door. Many places also paste the word "Fu" upside down, using the homophony of "pour" and "to", implying "Fu arrived".
Spring Festival custom: paste couplets
Spring Festival couplets, a popular activity during the Spring Festival, have been pasted in every family since the Song Dynasty.
Spring Festival couplets, commonly known as "door couplets", also known as "spring posters", are a kind of couplets. They are called spring couplets because they are posted during the Spring Festival. One source of Spring Festival couplets is Taofu. At first, people used peach wood carvings to hang on the door to avoid evil spirits. Later, they drew door gods on the peach wood and simplified them to inscribe the name of door gods on the peach wood board. Another source of spring couplets is spring paste. The ancients often paste the word "Yichun" on the spring day.
The real popularization of spring couplets began in Ming Dynasty, which was related to Zhu Yuanzhang's advocacy. According to historical records, one year before the new year, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that a spring festival couplet should be pasted on every door to celebrate. The original couplet was inscribed on a mahogany board and later rewritten on paper. The color of mahogany is red. Red means auspicious and evil. Therefore, most spring couplets are written on red paper.
The spring festival couplet can be called the original art of the Chinese nation, which is deeply loved by the people of generations with the characteristics of both refined and popular. Some people once generalized spring couplets as follows: 'two lines of characters support heaven and earth; a pair of couplets comment on ancient and modern. It is an important festival custom to paste Spring Festival couplets. On the eve of the Spring Festival, every family should put up red couplets. A pair of spring couplets with festivity and enthusiasm express people's good wishes for new year and new life.
Spring Festival custom: paste New Year pictures
New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from the 'door god'. With the rise of engraving and printing, the content of New Year pictures has not only been limited to door gods, but also gradually invited the God of wealth to his home. Then, in some new year picture workshops, color New Year pictures such as "three stars of happiness and longevity", "Tianguan blessing", "five grains and Fengdeng", "six beasts flourishing", "receiving blessing in spring" have been produced to meet people's good wishes for celebrating and praying for the new year. Because Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of Ming Dynasty, advocated Spring Festival couplets, New Year pictures became popular. Taohuawu in Suzhou, Jiangsu, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Yangjiabu in Weifang, Shandong are three important new year picture producing areas in China. In the early years of the Republic of China, a new form of combination of lunar calendar and New Year pictures appeared in Shanghai, which later developed into today's calendar.
Spring Festival Customs: New Year's Eve
New year's Eve refers to the night of the last day of the year, which is closely connected with the Spring Festival. It is an important time of "two years in one night, two years in five minutes". 'except' means' to go ', and new year's Eve means' the month is poor and the year is over', which means that the old year will be removed from here and the new year will be changed in the next year. New year's Eve is the first climax of the festival. Shou Sui, commonly known as "boil the new year", starts from eating New Year's Eve dinner. New year's Eve dinner is the most family friendly and warm family feast in the year. At this time, people not only enjoy the full table of delicacies, but also enjoy the thick family affection and festival celebrations.
After the new year's Eve dinner, except for the young children, the whole family began to keep the year and to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. In the Jin Dynasty, there was the custom of keeping the year's Eve. It was very common in the northern and Southern Dynasties. It was very popular after entering the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The Tang style was more popular in the Song Dynasty. In addition, the Han Dynasty had the custom of drinking pepper and cypress wine (made of herbal medicine) on New Year's Eve to drive away evil spirits and eliminate diseases. Later generations changed to drinking Tusu wine. Wang Anshi wrote a poem "spring brings warmth to Tusu". Nowadays, in the south of China, there is still a custom of the whole family getting together and drinking Tusu wine.
On New Year's Eve, the Chinese people also hold the activities of stepping on the year-old, that is, sticking the sesame stalks in the yard into the shape of Yuanbao rolled with yellow paper and gathering them into a bundle, which is called "treasure basin". Then, the whole family trampled it with their feet to 'break' and 'harmony' year-old ', and borrowed the auspicious meaning of sesame blossoming, wishing the family prosperity and expressing the blessing and hope for the new year.
Spring Festival custom: New Year's Eve dinner
Family reunion dinner is an important custom on New Year's Eve. As the most important traditional festival in China, Spring Festival is a good opportunity for family reunion, especially with many people getting busy with their work, the meaning of Spring Festival reunion is greater. The reunion dinner on New Year's Eve is also called the new year's Eve dinner. According to the records of Zong Bi's Jingchu age, at least in the northern and Southern Dynasties, there was a custom of eating New Year's Eve dinner. In the past, it was the family who worked together to make a rich dinner at home. Nowadays, in order to avoid troubles, some families directly put the place of new year's Eve dinner in the hotel. No matter where we eat, the theme of reunion will not change.
Spring Festival custom: lucky money
On New Year's Eve, when we are guarding the Spring Festival, the elders should give money to the younger generation to celebrate the Spring Festival, which is also called money to win. Because of the homophony of "Sui" and "Sui", the elders hope that new year's money can drive away evil spirits and avoid disasters, and protect the children's safety. New year's money relies on the eager hope and deep love of the elders. Therefore, students should not compare the amount of new year's money with each other, but pay attention to its emotional value. At the same time, we should make reasonable use of new year's money, use it in study or do something meaningful.