One of the important activities in the Spring Festival is to pay New Year's greetings, that is, to celebrate the new year at the home of new friends and neighbors. New year's greetings have a very long history and tradition in China. How did the ancient people pay New Year's greetings?
What is new year's greetings?
New year's greeting is a traditional Chinese custom. It is a way for people to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new and express their best wishes to each other. In ancient times, the original meaning of the word "New Year's greetings" was to celebrate the new year for the elderly, including kowtowing to the elderly, congratulating the elderly on their new year's happiness, and greeting their life. When you meet relatives and friends of the same generation, you should also give a salute.
Types of new year's greetings
In ancient times, there were two kinds of New Year greeting: New Year greeting was to kowtow to the elders; New Year greeting was to celebrate each other. Now, some organizations, groups, enterprises and schools gather to congratulate each other, which is called "group worship".
Feitie -- the source of new year's film and card
In ancient times, if there were too many relatives and friends in the neighborhood to visit all over the house, they sent their servants to pay a new year's visit with their business cards, which was called "feitie". A red paper bag was pasted in front of each house, and the word "Jiefu" was written on it, which was used to release feitie.
This custom began in the upper class of Song Dynasty.
"Yantai Yueling" of the Qing Dynasty describes the Beijing New Year Festival as: "it's the moon, the film flies and the car goes empty. 'become fashionable.
There are four people in the front page of the door book: one is the old master shoubailing, who lives in baishuifang lane; the other is the old master Fuyu, who lives in Yuanbao street; the other is the grand master guiwuji, who lives in the archway of bachelor; the other is the old master fuchaolin, who lives in Wufu building. In order to be lucky.
Today's Spring Festival presents the new year piece, the New Year card, is this kind of ancient times sends the flying placard each other the legacy.
It is the custom of the upper literati and bureaucrats to congratulate each other with famous posts. Zhou Hui of the Song Dynasty said in Qingbo magazine: "during the reign of song and Yuan you, in the new year's celebrations, servants and servants were often used to stab people with names.".
At that time, the literati and bureaucrats had a lot of friends. It took time and energy to visit the new year everywhere. Therefore, some friends who were not close to each other didn't go there in person. Instead, they sent their servants to take a two inch wide and three inch long card made of plum blossom paper with the name, address and congratulations of the congratulated people on it.
In Ming Dynasty, people paid homage instead of paying New Year's respects. Wen Zhengming, an outstanding painter and poet of the Ming Dynasty, described in his poem "New Year's greeting": "if you don't want to meet someone, you can only pay a visit to them. The famous paper will cover the house in the morning. I will also count the paper with others. The world hates simplicity but not emptiness.".
The "Mingci" and "MINGYE" here are the origin of the present new year cards. New Year cards are used to connect feelings and send greetings to each other. They are convenient and practical, and are still popular today.
About from the Qing Dynasty, new year's greetings have been added in the form of "group worship". In "side hat Yutan", master Yilan of the Qing Dynasty said: "at the beginning of the year, the capital conventionally pays a group worship to unite the new year's friendship and allay the hometown's feelings." every year, he orders guests from the book red, eats and banquets, and makes Jingri joys. ".
With the development of the times, new contents and forms have been added to the custom of new year's greetings. Now people not only follow the old way of new year's greetings, but also rise the etiquette, telegram and telephone New Year's greetings.
In the old days, from the first day to the fifth day of the first lunar month, most families did not receive women, which was called "taboo door". Only men go out to pay New Year's greetings, while women can only go out after the sixth day of the first month. The new year's greetings will be extended for a long time until the Lantern Festival on the 15th of the first month. It's called "Night Worship Festival" to pay New Year's respects in the evening, and it's called "Lantern worship Festival" after the 10th day of the lunar new year. So there's a joke that "it's not too late to pay New Year's respects.".
If, for some reason, the ceremony is not carried out in accordance with the rules and is supplemented in the future, it is called "old age worship."