One, the origin of New Year's Day
"Yuan" has the meaning of the beginning, "Dan" refers to the meaning of daybreak. New Year's Day (New Year's Day, New Year) is the first day of the beginning of the year, also known as the "new calendar year" "solar year". New Year's Day is also known as "Sanyuan", that is, the year of the yuan, the month of the yuan, the time of the yuan.
In 1911 A.D., Sun Yat-sen led the Xinhai Revolution, overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China. In order to "line Xiazheng, so smooth farming, from the Western calendar, so the statistics", the Republic of China decided to use the calendar (actually used in 1912), and the solar calendar (Gregorian calendar) January 1 for the "New Year's Day", but do not call it "New Year's Day".
Today's "New Year's Day" is the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which decided to establish the People's Republic of China (PRC) on September 27, 1949, and also decided to adopt the world's common Gregorian calendar and officially designated January 1 as the "New Year's Day". "New Year's Day" and the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar was changed to "Spring Festival".
New Year's Day customs around the world
Poland
Germany
Germany's New Year's Day customs are very similar to the Chinese New Year, which is celebrated at midnight on Dec. 31, when brilliant fireworks light up the night sky, just like the Chinese New Year's Eve, and the origin of the fireworks tradition is also the same as that of China's "New Year" story.
According to legend, the Germanic people believed that evil spirits would come out on December 31st to do evil things. To drive them away, the Teutons would roll burning wooden wheels into the valley. In addition, people also used flower pots and rattles to make noise to drive away the ghosts, and later added drums and horns, and hunters could also fire their rifles on that night.
Gradually, fireworks have become a German New Year tradition. German law has also given the "green light" for this, allowing people to set off fireworks only from December 31 to January 1 throughout the year. For Germans, a New Year without fireworks is unimaginable.
In German, "Christmas goose" and "New Year's Eve carp" have become two fixed words, which is not difficult to see the German New Year's diet.
Some Germans not only eat fish, but also put a piece of fish scale into their wallet on New Year's Eve. Folklore has it that this brings good luck and prosperity in the new year.
In the German view, four-leaf clovers, piglets and horseshoes can bring good luck. Therefore, people will give each other some related good-luck charms on the occasion of the old year and the new year.
Germany also has a distinction between good and bad luck. Washing and drying clothes on New Year's Eve is a major taboo, and it is said that ghosts and spirits will haunt the clothesline on New Year's Eve, which will bring bad luck. In addition, New Year's Eve is also taboo "work", this really makes people beg.
Philippines
France
France's New Year's Day was originally celebrated on April 1 each year until 1564, when King Charles IX changed it to January 1st.
On the night of New Year's Day, friends get together to drink and enjoy themselves, because there is a superstition in French folklore that if there is any wine left in the bottle at home on New Year's Eve, the coming year will be a bad luck, therefore, people must drink every drop of wine at home on this night, and all the people should get drunk, so that the new year will have a new start.
Early in the morning on January 1, parents give their children "new year's money" to show their love for them.
Additionally, the French attach great importance to the weather on New Year's Day, because they regard the weather on New Year's Day as the new year's outlook, so early in the morning on New Year's Day to look at the wind to divine, is also an indispensable tradition. If the wind is from the south on this day, it predicts that the new year will be smooth and rainy, and everything will go well; if the wind is from the west, there will be a good harvest of fishing and milking; if the wind is from the east, the fruits will be high in this year; and if the wind is from the north, the year will be a bad one. Therefore, the weather forecast for the day of New Year's Day is of utmost concern to people.
POLLUX USA
New Year's Day is one of the major holidays celebrated unanimously in all states of the United States, but in the United States, New Year's Day is nowhere near as lively as Thanksgiving or Christmas.
But California's New Year's Day celebrations are unique, with roses on the streets and dozens of flower-decorated colorful cars carrying gaily dressed girls. During the festival, people elect the Rose Queen and Rose Princess of the year, ushering in the New Year with an appreciation of beauty.
Philippines UK
In the United Kingdom, New Year's Day on the Gregorian calendar is not as grand as Christmas, but on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, it is still based on local customs to carry out a variety of celebratory activities to show that the old and welcome the new.
British people in the late night of New Year's Eve, often with cakes and wine to go out to visit, they do not knock on the door, straight into the home of friends and relatives to go. According to British custom, after New Year's Eve, towards the house into the first foot of the people, heralding the luck of the new year.
If the first guest is a dark-haired man, or a happy, happy and wealthy person, the host will be lucky all year round. If the first guest is a woman with light yellow hair, or a sad, poor, unfortunate person, the host will have bad luck in the new year and will encounter difficulties and disasters. On New Year's Eve, people who are guests in the homes of their friends and relatives, before talking to each other, should first stir the fire in the fireplace to wish the host "good luck".
PhilippinesThailand
The traditional Thai New Year, Songkran ("Songkran" is the translation of the Sanskrit language), also known as the "Water Festival", is celebrated on April 13 to 16 of the Gregorian calendar each year. It is celebrated from April 13th to 16th in the Gregorian calendar.
During the festival, people carry a huge statue of Buddha in a car or on a cart, followed by a float with a made-up "Songkran goddess" standing on it, and groups of young men and women dressed in brightly colored national costumes, beating long drums and singing and dancing. On both sides of the road where the procession passes, men and women of good faith walk along the road, silver bowl containing water soaked with shells, oozing with spices, splashed on the Buddha and the "Songkran Goddess", praying for a happy new year, good weather, and then people sprinkle water on each other, wishing their elders a long and healthy life, and wishing their relatives and friends a lucky new year. Unmarried young men and women, the use of water to express their love for each other.
Thai people on the first day of the New Year are in the windowsill, the door end of a pot of water, every family to the countryside in the river for the New Year bathing. In order to celebrate the New Year, the Thai people held a large-scale "Elephant Race", content: human elephant tug-of-war, jumping elephants to pick up things, elephant across the human body, elephant soccer, the ancient elephant formation show, etc., very exciting and moving.
Polio Japan
Japanese people pay special attention to the New Year, December 29 - January 3 each year for the national vacation. The Japanese call December 31st "Dahi Day", which is also known as New Year's Eve. On the night of New Year's Eve, the Japanese call it "New Year's Eve", and on New Year's Eve, they pray to the gods for blessings to send away the troubles of the old year and usher in a beautiful new year, which is called "Hatsu Atsui". At midnight on New Year's Eve, temples in cities and towns ring 108 bells to drive away evil, and Japanese people sit quietly and listen to the "New Year's Eve bells", which means that the New Year will come when the bells stop ringing.
People leave their seats and go to bed, hoping to get a good dream. On the morning of New Year's Day, family members sit together and tell each other the dreams they had on New Year's Eve in order to determine whether they are lucky or not. The Japanese call the first day of New Year's Day "Shoichi" and 1-3 "Sangaichi". On the first day of the New Year, the younger generation goes to their parents to greet them and then to their friends and relatives to pay their respects.
New Year's is also an "eating" festival, where people from all countries eat their own national foods to pray for good luck. In Japan, on the first day of the New Year, people have a very rich breakfast of sugar carrots and buckwheat noodles and drink sake. For the next three days in a row, they eat vegetarian food as a sign of piety and to pray for good luck in the coming year. Now most Japanese townspeople have given up the habit of vegetarianism on New Year's Day, and instead eat a meal of hollow noodles on New Year's Eve to wish for good health and longevity in the new year.
Polio Egypt
40 BC, the Egyptians began to observe the stars, they found that Sirius and the sun rises together, the Nile River water rises immediately. Egypt took the day the Nile rose as the beginning of the New Year, called the "New Year of Rising Waters." The Egyptian Kluts greeted the New Year by placing a table at the door with seven or eight plates offering grains of soybeans, lentils, alfalfa, and wheat, as well as many small shoots of green plants to symbolize abundance. The more things offered to the gods, the greater the harvest of the new year.
The Egyptian New Year falls in the fall because agricultural production in Egypt begins in the fall.
POLLUX INDIA
In India, the New Year begins on October 31 every year, *** there are five days, and the fourth day is New Year's Day. On the first day of the New Year, no one is allowed to be angry with anyone, let alone lose their temper. But in some parts of India, the morning of New Year's Day, families crying, everyone's face tears, they believe that the years go by easily, life is short, with crying to meet the New Year, is the lament of life.
Some areas of the Indian people to fast for a day and a night to meet the new year, from the early morning of New Year's Day until midnight. Because of this strange custom, India's New Year's Day is known as "crying New Year's Day", "fasting New Year's Day". Indians in the New Year's first five days, all over the Indian epic "Ramayana" (meaning the adventures of Romo), playing the epic hero and paper giants fighting. The "hero" triggers a flaming arrow, and the paper giants are set alight and burned to the cheers of the audience.
Before New Year's Eve, all kinds of beautiful pictures are posted in front of every house. On the morning of New Year's Day, people carry small refined lamps and red powder packets and go out to pay New Year's greetings to the elderly and their relatives and friends. After meeting and saying goodbye, they put red powder on each other's foreheads to express good luck and happiness. Young people put the red ink into the water wooden silo, shot to friends and relatives, known as "sprinkle red", said good luck.
India's youth like to New Year's Eve and whether familiar with the people unarmed combat, onlookers called good help wind, often become the object of the girls. Indigenous peoples of central India Bohil people, in celebration of the New Year, in the playground erected a smooth thick wooden pole, the top of the pole has a small bag with gifts, the girls holding the Harvest Bamboo pole to obstruct the lads climbed to the pole, the lads are in the pole under the circle, and efforts to defend the girls on the pole-climber's attack until the pole-climber to capture the small bag to achieve victory.