The same spring festival, in the north and south of the Yangtze River, but not the same way, many places have their own unique spring festival customs. New year's Day is also the beginning of the new year. It goes back to ancient times. Do you know how the ancient people spent the new year? Today Xiaobian will come to see how the ancient people spent the Spring Festival with you.
What are the customs of the first day of the new year?
The Spring Festival is commonly known as "New Year's Day". Du Taiqing of the Sui Dynasty said in the five candle Scripture: "the first month is the end month, one of which is the new year's day. It is also called" the cloud is the Dynasty "and" the cloud is the new Moon ". The original meaning of "Yuan" is "head", which is later extended to "start". Because this day is the first day of the year, the first day of spring and the first day of the first month, it is called "three yuan"; because this day is also the year-old, the month and the day, it is also called "Three Dynasties"; and because it is the first new moon, it is also called "Yuanshuo". On the first day of the first month, there are other names such as Shangri, Zhengchao, sanshuo and Sanshi, which means that the first day of the first month is the beginning of the year, the month and the day.
What do you do on the first day of the new year?
Open door gun battle
Spring Festival morning, open the door, first let off firecrackers, called 'open the gun battle'. After the sound of firecrackers, the ground is full of broken red, which is like a cloud brocade. It is called 'full of red'. At this time, the streets are full of auspicious and jubilant.
Pay New Year's call
An important activity in the Spring Festival is to celebrate the Spring Festival at the home of new friends and neighbors, formerly known as new year's Eve. The custom of the Han nationality to worship the new year has existed in the Han Dynasty. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was very popular. Some people who didn't have to go there in person could use famous posts to celebrate. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was called the thorn, so the business card was also called the famous thorn. After the Ming Dynasty, many people pasted a red paper bag at the door to collect famous posts and call it doorbook.
According to their social relations, the forms of mutual visits can be divided into four categories:
1. Go to relatives. On the first day of the first year, you must go to your father-in-law and bring gifts. After entering the gate, first kowtow to the Buddha, the image of ancestors and the memorial tablets, then kneel down to the elders in turn. Can stay to eat and play.
2. A courtesy visit. For example, when greeting colleagues and friends, when entering the house, they only kowtow to the Buddha statue three times. If they are the same generation as their masters, they only need to bow their hands and bow to each other. If they are older than themselves, they should still bow down voluntarily. The masters should walk down from their seats to do the supporting shape, and even say that they are not polite. In this case, it's not suitable to sit for a long time. I'll leave if I have two polite words. After the master is worshipped, he should choose a day to return.
3. Thank you for your visit. Anyone who owes someone (such as a lawyer, a doctor, etc.) for one year should buy some gifts to send to them, and take the opportunity of new year's greetings to express their gratitude to the pillow.
4. A door-to-door visit. As for the neighborhood, there is not much contact in the past, but it's OK to meet each other. When we get to the new year's Eve, we just go to the courtyard and say to each other with fists: "gong xi makes money", "Yi Shun Baishun". We just sit in the room for a while, without much etiquette.
In ancient times, there were two ways to celebrate the new year: to celebrate the new year is to kowtow to the elders; to celebrate the new year is to celebrate each other. Now, some organizations, groups, enterprises and schools gather to congratulate each other, which is called "group worship".
New year's greeting is a traditional custom among Chinese people. 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 bowing to the elderly, congratulating them on the new year's day, greeting them on life, etc. When you meet friends and relatives of the same generation, you should also salute them.
In ancient times, if there were too many relatives and friends in the neighborhood to visit all over the place, the servants were sent to pay a new year '. This custom began in the upper class of Song Dynasty. "Yan Tai Yue Ling" of the Qing Dynasty describes Beijing's new year's Day: 'it's also the month. The film flies and leaves empty. 'become fashionable. There are four people in the front page of the door book: one is the old man with a hundred years old life, who lives in a hundred years old lane; the other is the old man with more than one year old wealth, who lives in Yuanbao street; the other is the noble man, who lives in the archway of the great scholar; the other is Fu Zhaolin, who lives in Wufu building. To flatter with luck. The present Spring Festival presents greeting cards and cards, which is the legacy of sending each other flying posts in ancient times.
It's a custom for senior scholar bureaucrats to use famous posts to congratulate each other. Zhou Hui, a native of Song Dynasty, said in Qingbo magazine: "in the reign of emperor Youyuan of Song Dynasty, when celebrating the new year's festival, domestic servants were often used to hold famous thorns.". At that time, literati and officialdom had a wide range of contacts. If they went to visit the new year, it would take time and energy. Therefore, some friends who were not close to each other would not go there in person. Instead, they sent their servants to take a card with two inches wide and three inches long cut from plum blossom paper, on which the name, address and congratulatory words of the congratulated person were written. People in Ming Dynasty paid homage to the new year instead of paying homage. Wen Zhengming, an outstanding painter and poet of the Ming Dynasty, described in his poem "New Year's greeting" that "we don't want to meet each other but to pay a visit to each other. The famous paper came to cover the whole country; I also threw several pieces of paper along with others, and the world abhorred that simplicity was not empty". The "famous stabs" and "famous visits" mentioned here are the origins of present-day greeting cards. Greeting cards are convenient and practical for connecting feelings and greeting each other. They are still popular today.
Since about the Qing Dynasty, the form of "group worship" has been added to the new year's celebration. The master of Yilan of the Qing Dynasty said in his "side hat Yu Tan": "at the beginning of the new year, the capital pays a routine group worship to associate with the new year's friendship and the local conditions", and "every year, the guests are invited by the book on duty to have a meal and a banquet to celebrate the day".
With the development of the times, new contents and forms have been added to the custom of greeting the new year. Now, in addition to following the previous way of greeting the new year, people also have the rise of etiquette, telegram, telephone and so on.
However, from the first day to the fifth day of the first month, most families do not receive women, which is called "no door". Only men go out to pay a new year's visit, while women can't go out until the sixth day of the first month. The new year's celebration will be extended for a long time until the 15th Lantern Festival of the first month. It's called "Night Worship Festival" in the evening, and "light worship Festival" after the 10th day of the lunar new year, so there's a joke of "having a heart to celebrate the new year, and having cold food before it's too late".
If for some reason the ritual is not performed in accordance with the rules, it will be supplemented in the future, which is called 'worship old age'
Account for
In the old days, the weather in the early days of Xinzheng was cloudy and sunny, which accounted for the annual success. It began in the Eastern Han Dynasty with the book "Sui Zhan", which means eight days after the age, one day for chickens, two days for dogs, three days for pigs, four days for sheep, five days for cattle, six days for horses, seven days for great men and eight days for valley. If it's sunny, the owner's breeding will be cloudy, and the owner's day will not be prosperous. Later generations, following their habits, believed that from the first to the tenth day of the first lunar month, the weather was clear, and there was no wind or snow. Later generations developed from zhansui into a series of sacrificial and celebration activities. There is a custom of not killing chickens on the first day of the first year, not killing dogs on the second year, not killing pigs on the third year.
Sticker chicken
In ancient times, the Spring Festival drew chickens on the doors and windows to dispel ghosts and evil spirits. The story of Xuanzhong written by the people of Jin Dynasty talks about the rooster on dushuo mountain mentioned earlier. It says that when the first sun shines on the tree, the rooster will crow. As soon as it crows, the chickens all over the world begin to crow. So the chicken cut during the Spring Festival is actually a symbol of Tianji. However, in ancient myths, there is also the saying that chicken is a kind of deformation of birds. It is said that during the reign of Emperor Yao, the friends who passed by paid tribute to a kind of bird that can exorcise evil spirits. Everyone welcomed the arrival of the bird. However, the envoy did not come every year. People carved a wooden bird, or cast the bird on the door with copper, or painted the bird on the door and window to scare away the demons and monsters, so that they dare not come again. Because the bird is similar to the chicken, it will be gradually changed to painted chicken or cut window flowers to paste on doors and windows, which is the source of paper-cut art in later generations. Ancient China paid special attention to chicken, which is called "bird of five virtues". "Han Shi waizhuan" said that it has a crown on its head, which is the virtue of culture; it has a distance behind its feet, which is the virtue of martial arts; it is the virtue of bravery when the enemy is fighting in front; it is the virtue of benevolence when food greets the same kind; it is the virtue of faith when the night is not lost and the dawn is announced. So people not only cut the chicken during the new year, but also set the first day of the new year as chicken day.
Gather money
It is said that the first day of the first month of the first lunar month is the birthday of the broom. You can't use the broom on this day, or you will sweep away your luck and money, and lead the "broom star" to you, causing bad luck. If you have to sweep the floor, sweep it from the outside to the inside. On this day, we can't throw water and garbage out, for fear of making money. Today, there is still a custom in many places, that is, sweeping is clean on New Year's Eve. At the beginning of the new year, you can't get out a broom, do not take out garbage, and prepare a bucket to hold waste water. On that day, you can't throw it out.
What do you eat on the first day of the new year?
Steamed rice cake, rice cake because of the homophony 'high year', coupled with a variety of tastes, has almost become a necessary family food. The style of New Year cake has square yellow and white New Year cake, which symbolizes gold and silver, implying the meaning of making money in the new year.
The taste of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers like to eat red jujube rice cake, Baiguo rice cake and white rice cake made of jiangmi or Huangmi. Hebei people like to add jujube, red bean and mung bean to rice cake. In the northern part of Shanxi Province, in Inner Mongolia and other places, people are used to eating rice flour fried rice cakes, some of which are filled with bean paste and date mud, while Shandong people use rice and red dates to steam rice cakes. In the north, rice cakes are mainly sweet, steamed or fried, and some people simply eat them with sugar. The rice cakes in the south are both sweet and salty. For example, the rice cakes in Suzhou and Ningbo are made of Japonica Rice with light taste. Besides steaming and frying, you can also slice and fry food or boil soup. The sweet rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour, sugar, lard, rose, osmanthus, mint, vegetable paste and other ingredients. It can be steamed directly or fried with egg white.
The night before Chinese New Year's Eve is called reunion night. All the tourists who are away from home have to come home within a thousand miles. The whole family should sit around and make dumplings for Chinese New Year. The way of making dumplings is to make dumpling skin with noodles first, and then fill them with stuffing. The contents of stuffing are various. All kinds of meat, eggs, seafood, seasonal vegetables, etc. can be filled in. The orthodox way of eating dumplings is to boil them with clear water and then fish them Take the soy sauce mixed with vinegar, garlic and sesame oil as the seasoning. There are also fried dumplings, baked dumplings (pot stickers) and other eating methods. Because the word "he" means "he"; the word "Jiao" and "Jiao" in dumplings means "he"; the word "he" and "Jiao" in dumplings means "get together", so dumplings are used to symbolize reunion and reunion; the word "he" and "Jiao" in Jiaozi is more auspicious; in addition, because dumplings are shaped like Yuanbao, eating dumplings during the new year also has the auspicious meaning of "attracting money and treasure". The whole family gathered together to make dumplings. It's a happy new year.