The Spring Festival has been celebrated in China for thousands of years. But for a long time, the term "Spring Festival" referred to the "Spring Festival" of the 24 solar terms of the year. Until the Xinhai Revolution overthrew Manchu rule, the Republic of China was founded, Sun Yat-sen ordered the country to change to the solar calendar, and then, the New Year should be replaced in the solar New Year's Day. However, the lunar New Year has become a traditional festival celebrated by all people, solid, deep customs and national culture, is difficult to change. The celebration of the Lunar New Year is still going strong year after year. As a result of the emergence of a new solar calendar New Year's Day, in order to show the difference, since the Republic of China, the Lunar New Year has been moved to the festival of the "Spring Festival" of the name.
In the old days, from December 23 of the lunar calendar into the "New Year", has to continue to the first month of the Lantern Festival ended, but also formed a set of fixed programs. Let's take a look at how the city of Shanghai "celebrated the New Year" in the old days.
Lunar Lunar month 24, that is, December 24, for the "God of the stove" to the sky to play the day, so the night of the twenty-third, every family to "send stove", "sacrificial stove", celebrate the New Year! This is the beginning of the celebration of the New Year. It is the night of each household or worship God of the stove in the hall, more in the pasted God of the stove on the kitchen stove, for wine, fruit, but also for water chestnuts, water chestnuts, as well as good fish, good meat, there are bamboo lyrics so that: "Fame, fortune and prosperity, less right and wrong, all the grips of God blessing silently rely on each other. This day, the discretionary offering nothing else, fish to buy fresh meat to buy fat."
The god of the stove to heaven is to report to the jade emperor in a year of good and bad on earth, the faults of the people, in order to avoid him to say too much, so "send the stove" when people also offer with caramel sugar made of sugar, etc., it is said that for him to eat the sticky teeth, speech is not clear, and even can be less, do not say bad things about the earth. "send stove" when each family to point on the incense and candles, is the night, the house smoke, colorful offerings dazzling, over the New Year's atmosphere all of a sudden came.
The twenty-fifth day of the Lunar New Year is the day when the gods come down. According to tradition, each family dusted and swept inside and outside, clearing a year's accumulation of dust, clean up the usual pile of debris, etc. This is quite serious. This is a very serious action, in today's terms, it is an active, regulated and modeled mass hygiene campaign. After this day's work, every household nasty big to go, supplies than before well, inside and outside the fresh look, is like a new year's appearance.
Also from this day onwards, families began to busy themselves with all aspects of the New Year's tension. The first thing is to buy and prepare enough food for the New Year. Every family must also grind powder, for the package dumplings, some families and Tuan powder homemade rice cakes. The former is to take "reunion" meaning, the latter can eat "happy", "high year". Next is to prepare new clothes, new hats, new shoes. People may generally wear old things throughout the year, but in the New Year is sure to turn over the "line"; again is to begin to buy spring couplets, buy New Year's paintings, buy "door god", to be posted on the door of the head of the household, upstairs and downstairs. During this period, in order to supply the needs of the public, the market sells these things in a very rich variety. Each family is also a need, such as buying Spring Festival couplets, shopkeepers choose "prosperous business through the four seas, the source of prosperity up to the three rivers", the general household is more often choose "days and months to increase the life of the people, spring full of Qiankun Fukumanyuan" and so on.
This period is also the store in the middle of the year the busiest time, on the one hand, when the business is booming, sales season, on the other hand, the end of the year is to clean up a year's accounts, the period of arrears of the outstanding households. So each family sent specialists to handle this matter, the city has appeared a rather large-scale "debt collection" team: "Accounts in the hands of the bag, traveling through the street east to the west of the alley. Stepping into the heavy door, he called out to answer, Mr. The debt to be returned to the full." There are those who are very quick to pay back the bill, but there are many who cannot pay back the bill on time for various reasons. The debt collectors are burdened with a heavy responsibility to pursue, often day and night action, night, regardless of the cold of five nights.
In the case of those who are unable to pay their bills on time, there are actually many who are completely unable to pay their bills. These people in addition to the accounts owed to the store, it is likely that they also owe private debt. The end of the year is also the time when most debts are repaid, so these people are faced with the pressure of collecting money from both sides. However, according to customary practice, debt collection, debt collection only to New Year's Eve until the New Year can not be discussed, otherwise responsible for self-seeking "bad luck", in has been unlucky. Therefore, to hide accounts, debt collectors, New Year's Eve is the last hurdle, such as escaping this hurdle, next year is another story. So they have been with the bill collectors, debt collectors maneuver, by all means to get through this New Year's Eve off: "A hundred holes and thousands of debtors to come, no plan and difficult to return. I have no choice but to take refuge on the stage today and get rid of them after this dawn."
But apart from the poor people like those mentioned above, on the whole, the coming of the New Year is a time of extraordinary joy and exuberance. After all the aforementioned preparations, the daily-anticipated New Year's Eve finally came into sight, and the New Year's celebration came to a climax.
The beauty of New Year's Eve is the sunset. In the evening, all the elders and children of the family gather in the house, and even those who are far away from home try to return home before then to celebrate the New Year with their families. We sit together under the lights, with the "New Year's Eve dinner", eating and drinking, laughing and joking, this meal continues longer. This is a year of hard work to the end of the enjoyment of the joy of family, so the name is "happy family".
This night immediately following the New Year, so many family elders, after the New Year's Eve dinner, do not go to bed, around the stove to observe the New Year. It is also a time to talk, laugh and eat miscellaneous food. People will not feel this night night deeper and longer. By midnight, some people will also go to the city temple to burn "first incense".
Till the rooster crows and the day dawns, men, women and children of all households put on new clothes, new hats and new shoes, and worship heaven and earth and their ancestors in the hall where the offerings have already been set up. Then the young and the young all pay New Year's greetings to their parents, parents to the children scattered to the year before already prepared for the New Year's money, which is the children have long been looking forward to, and finally happy to hand into the bag. Then the door is opened and explosions are set off to welcome the new year, and neighbors meet and greet each other to celebrate the new year.
Since the first day of each day, it is the period of relatives and friends to visit the New Year. Guests come with gifts, hospitality must please drink "Yuanbao tea", is the tea put on the green fruit or tea lid on top of a green fruit. Also use the gold lacquer plate with fruit offerings to the guests, the mouth said "congratulations more like this". And must be invited to eat wine and rice. At that time, the elders who see the younger generation are to send the New Year's money, which is not a small burden on the economically disadvantaged, not inevitably. However, this kind of New Year's greetings, to the end of the Qing Dynasty in Shanghai has been simplified. Those who had a lot of contacts went out to pay their New Year's greetings, and often did not enter the door, but only threw a thorn in the side, as if they had come to congratulate the New Year, which could save on socializing and expenses: "Changing the peach symbols in new colors, and a short set of robes in front of the door. The most important thing is that people are not afraid of breaking their backs so often, so they are in a hurry to throw a thorn as a New Year's greeting."
In addition to the New Year's Eve, the rest of the year is spent on a variety of trips and recreational activities to "celebrate" the New Year. The most popular places to go are the City God Temple and the connected West Garden (i.e. Yuyuan Garden): "There is nothing to do in the New Year, and I walk across the nine curved bridges in the garden. Suddenly I heard the children clapping their hands together, whose harrier was swinging in the middle of the day." However, since the establishment of the modern rental territory, the colorful Ten Mile Ocean Park has infinite charm, and has become a good place for New Year's fun, especially for those who live outside the Ocean Park: "People in the city love to go to the Ocean Park, and people outside the city strive to enter the Temple Garden. At the same time the general look happy, we are metaphorical in the wordless"; and also outside the theater, listening to books, drinking tea. After the opening of the port on the ocean field inside and outside the wind of prostitution is very prevalent, there are some people will take this period for sex tourism, so busy fireworks everywhere: "New Year's weather mirror new grinding, throwing money as fast as a shuttle. Chu pavilion Qin building thousands of places, fruit plate opening laughter"; of course, more people often stay at home, indoor music can be found, such as inviting friends and relatives to build "square city", drumming and playing the qin, pulling the self-singing, etc.: "food and fresh clothes to enjoy the year more, the Qian people throw stabbing with a common name. Every house is closed for three days, not the sound of cards or the sound of drums."
To the fifth day of the first month, for the God of Wealth (commonly known as "road head god") birthday, all over the world there are "picking up the God of Wealth", picking up the "God of Wealth of the Five Roads (to take the east, west, south, north, south and central five roads)," "picking up the God of Wealth of the Five Roads" and "picking up the God of Road Heads. The "God of Fortune", the "God of Five Roads", and the "God of the Roads" are celebrated everywhere. God of Fortune unified "wealth", everyone related, especially the opening of the business for the wealth, so they celebrate the most energetic. Shanghai has long been a prosperous southeast of the big Shangyi, merchants can be found everywhere, the celebration of the first five days of the particularly fierce can also be imagined. Merchants to receive the God of Fortune more for three animals: pig head, carp, rooster. Carp, harmonic "Liyu", especially popular. As early as a few days ago, the streets from the countryside in the countryside, selling fresh carp to the families, carp is also known as "Yuanbao fish", so it is called "send Yuanbao."
The first five hours, the merchants hang up the new image of Zhao Gongyuanshuai in the middle of the hall, in addition to the three animals, the rest of the offerings are very rich. The incense and candles were lit, and the light shone brightly in the hall. Then inside and outside the household firecrackers, one after another, the whole city boom, sound vibration for hundreds of miles. And continuous, its sound, the intensity of the momentum is too early on the first day of dawn: "Firecrackers connected to the sound, the God of Fortune is busy **** scramble to welcome. Just want business this year is good, pick up and drop off why not to the fifth night."
Finally came to the fifteenth Lantern Festival. Fifteen full moon, just the meaning of reunion, is great luck. This day, every family must eat "Lantern Festival", that is, dumplings, is to take the reunion, the meaning of good luck. But the Lantern Festival also lies in the "lights", so it is also known as the "Lantern Festival". Is the day of households, stores and stores hanging lights in front of the door, temples, gardens, plazas and other public **** premises, but also large lights and colors. After sunset, ten thousand lights are released, even pieces of even the city, the red light shining sky. Lanterns in a variety of shapes, there are various colors of lanterns, a variety of plant lights, animal lights, character lights, story lights, etc., Shanghai, the most common rabbit lamps, lanterns, horse lanterns, the largest, the most wonderful for the "dragon lanterns": the dragon body has a head and a tail, scales flashing, *** long 9 sections, under the bearings to the handle by the dragon dancers to manipulate. And by the special person holding a large bead like "rolling lamp", and the dragon body around, chasing, and even fighting, they *** dance in the streets and alleys of Shanghai.
Then men, women and children in groups out of the appearance of lights. City God Temple and the West Garden is another center of activity. The pavilions are decorated with lights, inside and outside the bright. In the garden of the big rocky hill, but also set off fireworks, the most attractive. Come here the audience shoulder to shoulder, all smiling. This festival in addition to see the lights, to appreciate a special "popularity": the so-called "ten miles of curtains are not rolled, look at the lights to see the lights of people," is that unique mood. Lantern night of the fierce has been to extend until the end of the night, to the end of the lights, the crowd began to slowly walk home. One theory is that this day is also the day of the return of the god of the stove, then go home just to catch the stove master.
The year's Spring Festival celebrations come to a close in the coming dawn. (Article/Zheng Zuan)
Customs of the Spring Festival in Chongming
The Spring Festival is a major festival in China's folklore, the first of the four seasons of the year, so it is particularly valued by the people. As the saying goes, "A hundred miles of different winds, a thousand miles of different customs." Because of the county's unique geography, so the Spring Festival customs are slightly different from place to place. Now collect some of the past years before and after the Spring Festival scenes, footage and readers of the gentleman together with the melting in the strong feelings of the countryside with the drunk.
Twenty-four night
From December 23 of the lunar calendar, people who have worked hard for a year for a good Spring Festival began to get busy. The night of December 13th or 24th on the lunar calendar is collectively known as the "24th Night". According to legend, this day is the day when Zaojun goes to heaven, and it is a common custom to send Zaojun to heaven. People in this night with "rolled silver bag" (with green vegetables and mushrooms, tofu, etc. cooked as a filling, and then wrapped into a hundred leaves), "twenty-four sugar", red beans and rice as a sacrificial food, lighted incense and candles, offerings for the Zaojun, and prepare paper money, tie colorful bridges, kowtowing and worship, and then firecrackers, the Zaojun statue and the front curtains (commonly known as the "string of joy") burned, the head of the household to the image of the king to say something to himself, such as "good things to play in the sky, to protect the safety of the lower world" and other auspicious words of prayer. and other auspicious words to pray. This custom has now been removed, but the ancient custom of eating azuki bean rice and rolling silver bags still exists. After the twenty-fourth night, families are busier and busier, inside and outside cleaning, commonly known as dusting the eaves, each family is busy washing bedding tents, brewing wine, fried peanuts and beans, and purchasing food with things. It is common for people in both urban and rural areas of the island to grind flour and steam cakes, a custom that continues to this day. Since the words "gao" and "gao" are homophones, it is a good sign that people want to be high every year. The method of making cakes varies in different parts of the county. Shangsha mainly steams muffins, the central part steams sticky cakes, and Shimousha mainly steams pug-soled cakes; while poor people use sorghum flour and white corn as the main raw materials for steaming cakes. In addition, people have to prepare some tin foil, paper money, incense, candles, yuanbao, tea and fruit and other things as offerings to honor the gods. A few days before New Year's Eve, people also want to put up new spring couplets, hanging ancestor, the ancestral statue hung on the wall of the main wall in the middle hall, set up offerings, to be a New Year's Eve, light incense and candles, so that the descendants to look up to. Before New Year's Eve, people also play hoarding, that is, the lime in a sack, to the ground print, hoping that the next year grain silo. These activities are now gone. Some farmers will also be the city's garbage and useless chores and weeds piled up to the field, light a fire and burn, in order to the next year auspicious, safe and sound.
New Year's Eve
The 30th day of the 12th lunar month is New Year's Eve, commonly known as New Year's Eve. On this day, all the New Year's furnishings are set up, such as writing spring couplets and posting door gods. In the evening, the whole family gathered around to eat New Year's Eve dinner, dishes far more sumptuous than usual, the main dish with the heart of vegetables, tofu, etc., roasted with a hundred leaves rolled wrapped, known as the roll of money bundles, to indicate that the coming year, the source of wealth rolled in. This is the happiest night of the year for children, as their parents and elders give them money for the new year. In the old society, no money in this day is difficult, according to the old rules, the year the debt to clear that year, the end of the year to discuss the debt, to the first day of the year can not be forced to discuss, until the beginning of February after the fall of the lamp to discuss the debt, so the debtor in the New Year's Eve sent around to collect the debt, can not afford to pay the debt of the people had to hide around, can not return to their homes, the first day of the year to go home. So in the old days, there was a "good year off food households, no money sad" proverb.
Spring Festival
The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar for the Spring Festival, commonly known as the New Year. The first thing to do early in the morning is to set off firecrackers, called "open the door cannon", the original meaning of which is to drive away evil spirits, and later contains the meaning of opening the door to good luck, high rise and wealth. New Year's Eve, adults and children put on new clothes and hats, dressed neatly, the whole family sat around the table, *** into a hearty breakfast, mainly vegetarian, plus dumplings (round), sugar rice cakes, to show that the whole family reunion, year high, and will last year's twenty-fourth night of a bowl of adzuki bean rice into the breakfast, commonly known as the "Chennian rice," meaning that every other year has a surplus of good taste. After breakfast, the children to neighbors, friends and relatives, elders, one by one, greetings. The first day of the first month of the taboo is quite a lot, can not move the knife, can not splash water, can not go to the water bridge to pan the rice, can not sweep the floor, can not open the back door, can not move the firewood, can not export slurs, can not hit, can not sleep too late and so on. Even cooking firewood to cook vegetables with sesame sticks, soybean sticks, etc. in the stove hall crackling sound, the more fire, the more auspicious, the forecast of this year's prosperity, section of the high. In addition, on the third and fifth mornings of the year, every family should burn breakfast, before the meal to light incense and candles, in order to pray for the prosperity and peace of the whole family.
Old times, a Spring Festival beggars up. There is a kind of beggar, they are not because of the poverty of the family to go begging, but for filial piety. According to legend, the elderly live to 9981 years old there is a ghost gate, only ate the "hundred rice" can be safe and sound through this pass. So the family has the old man filial piety men and women in the first day of the new year out of the house to beg for food to their parents to eat. There is another kind of beggar commonly known as "beggar", they beg in a funny way. Some beggars with red paper wrapped with a head of vegetables hanging on bamboo poles, every door to a said head of vegetables to, business is good, pleading for alms, which is called "send head of vegetables". Some use paper and bamboo wire made into a cow, to the door of the family to say all the good words, auspicious words, in order to seek alms, which is called "send spring cow"; some holding a holly or cypress branches, hanging some small bells on the branches after the ancient money, said that the family will be like a money tree in the new year, as the source of wealth comes, which is called "shaking the tree of money"; there are beggars dressed in Buddhist shirts, wearing a mask of the god, masquerading as a god of wealth bodhisattva's likeness to the family's Inside the courtyard of the house running wildly jumping, to show that the god of wealth bodhisattva came, this is called "jumping god of wealth". Although the Chongming people lived in poverty in the old society, they were still kind to these beggars and gave them some dried food and other foodstuffs. After the liberation of these enterprises have long been extinct.
The second day of the year early in the morning, the stores and craftsmen are burning incense to honor the gods, called "burning Li Festival", ten minutes at noon, the owner of the store also set up a wine hospitality to the shopkeepers, together with the New Year to pray for a prosperous business. On the fifth day of the new year, which is said to be the birthday of the God of Wealth, stores in the streets and alleys open for business, and every family eats wontons at noon on this day to show that they have money. In addition, in the countryside and fields there are wooden head theater (now known as puppet theater). Between the first and the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, families visit friends and relatives to wish each other a happy Lunar New Year and to give each other gifts. During the period, the temple incense far more than usual, especially the first morning of the year, on the temple to burn incense to worship Buddha's people especially, and especially early, to catch the first incense, outside the city of Shou'an Temple and the town of Zhongxing Guangfu Temple is the most lively place.
The Lantern Festival
The 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar is the Lantern Festival, also known as the Festival of the first yuan, commonly known as the first half of the first month, and the people of the first month of the fifth to the twentieth Lantern Festival for the Lantern Festival. In the old days, before the Lantern Festival, every family made all kinds of shapes of cakes with glutinous rice flour, some of which were shaped like the ancient silk ball, silver, and some of which were shaped like chickens, ducks, carp, cotton bells, corn, peaches, rice piles, etc. At noon of the first half of the first lunar month, every family made cakes with glutinous rice flour, some of which were shaped like the ancient silk ball, silver, and some of which were shaped like chickens, ducks, carps, cotton bells, corn, peaches, rice piles, etc. At noon of the first half of the first month, every family eats wontons; in the afternoon, people will also use these foods as offerings, go to the graves to pay homage to their ancestors, sacrifices to the fields, and in the evening, people in groups of three or five or with different shapes of lanterns, and then flinging fireballs, and then cross the three bridges, to enjoy the game. The custom of lighting lanterns at the halfway point of the first lunar month is very popular. The shapes of lanterns include rabbit lanterns, carp lanterns, pentagonal lanterns, etc. The places where the lanterns are hung also have local flavors, such as lining up many red lanterns into zigzags or various shapes, lighting candles inside the lanterns, and hanging them high on bamboo poles, which is called "pulling out the red lanterns", or inserting a bamboo pole between the countryside and the dead ditch and hanging the red lanterns, and then, when it is nighttime and candles are lit, it is like daytime, and it looks very nice to see from the heights, which is called hanging the choshi lanterns. Choshi lanterns, colorful buildings at the mouth of the bridge, filled with all kinds of strange lanterns, give the place a special flavor at night. On the night of the Lantern Festival, there are also a variety of activities such as running horse lanterns, tuning lions, flinging Tian Cai, inviting the three ladies to the pit, and having a girl at the Lantern Festival.
As the saying goes: "After eating two big, each person looking for the head of the road". After the sixteenth day of the first month, the celebrating people returned to their respective professions. At this point, the activities of the Spring Festival is over. After liberation, the Lantern Festival, tends to simplify, but eat wontons, do silk ball, round and children play with the custom of the lamp still exists, and give a new meaning, especially in the county streets, the night of the Lantern Festival hanging colorful lanterns, fireworks are attracting a lot of men, women, and children, and some out of the family, on the street to see the lantern. Strange fireworks, colorful, the night sky of the Lantern Festival illuminated colorful, it symbolizes the motherland's growing prosperity.
For more than a thousand years, our ancestors have been in this beautiful land to live, reproduce, in their long-term production activities and daily life, and gradually formed a variety of customs and habits with strong local characteristics. These customs and habits unite the ancestors' pursuit and aspiration for a better life, and reflect their good qualities of simplicity, hard work and thrift. Of course, on the other side of the traditional customs are also mixed with some backward and ignorant contents. People's traditional customs with the development of production, social progress from barbarism to civilization, from ignorance to science. Some of the old customs contained in this article have been abandoned with the development of civilization and the progress of science, and some of them have been injected with new contents and have been inherited and carried forward. At the turn of the century today, we should be committed to the construction of new socialist customs, increase the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, to ensure the smooth progress of socialist modernization, in the celebration of the traditional festivals, we must not forget that the tree of new winds, break the bad customs should be the conscious behavior of each of us in the construction of socialist spiritual civilization to make their own due efforts.