Song Meng Yuanlao in the "Tokyo Dreaming Records" Volume VI describes the Northern Song Bianjing cloud: "October 1, New Year's Day, Kaifeng House put off pouncing for three days, the public and the general public since the morning to celebrate with each other." Lu Rong in the middle of the Ming Dynasty in the "Beans Garden Miscellany" Volume 5, said "the capital on New Year's Day, from the court officials, down to the common people, to and from the staggering road for days, called 'New Year's Day'. However, the common people worship their friends and relatives out of the heart. Dynasty officials to and from, is more general love is not special ...... ". Qing Gu Tieqing in the "Qing Jia Record" described, "men and women in order to worship parents after the main rate of young, out of the neighboring relatives and friends, or only sent his son or daughter on behalf of the congratulations, so-called 'New Year's Eve'. To the end of the year do not meet, this time also to each other to worship in the door ......."
In ancient times, the upper echelons of the scholarly world had the custom of throwing congratulations to each other with name cards. Song Zhou Hui in the "Qingbo Magazine" said: "Song Yuanyou years, New Year's congratulations festival, often make the maid servant with a name prick on behalf of to". At that time, the scholars traveled widely, if around the door to pay tribute to the New Year, both time-consuming, but also exhausting energy, so some of the relationship is not close to the friends do not go in person, but to send a servant to take a kind of paper with plum blossom paper cut into two inches wide, three inches long, written on the top of the name of the recipient of the congratulations, address and congratulations on the words of the card to go on behalf of the New Year's greeting. People in the Ming Dynasty to visit instead of New Year's greeting. Ming Dynasty distinguished painter, poet Wen Zhengming in the "New Year" poem described: "do not seek to meet but through the visit, the name of the paper towards the full sheltered hut; I also cast a number of paper with the people, the world hate Jane not suspected of false". Here the "famous prick" and "famous visit" is the origin of the present New Year's card. New Year's cards are used for contacting and greeting each other, which is both convenient and practical, and even today still prevails.
From about the time of the Qing Dynasty, New Year's Day and add the form of "reunion", the Qing Yi Lan master in the "Side Hat Yu Tan", said: "the capital in the first of the year, routine reunion, in order to unite the friendship of the year, in order to Township," "every year! By the year book red booking guests, food and drink banquets, for the whole day happy.
Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, thousands of wind first pilgrimage. Since the beginning of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the order of worship is: the first worship of heaven and earth God Zhi, the second worship ancestors real shadow, and then worship the high hall of honor, and finally the whole family in order to worship each other. To honor the elders to perform a big salute, to the children to give a reward, between peers arching speech. The order of worship of relatives and friends is: the first day of worship of the family; the second and third day of worship of maternal uncles, aunts, fathers-in-law, until the 16th. In modern times, more group worship, the end of the year to mail the New Year's Day and New Year's Day letter.
The Spring Festival is an ancient festival in China, but also one of the most important festivals throughout the year, how to celebrate this festival, in the development of thousands of years of history, the formation of a number of more fixed customs, many of which are still handed down to this day.
Dust sweeping
"Lunar New Year 24, dust sweeping the house", according to "Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals" records, our country in the Yao and Shun era on the Spring Festival dust sweeping custom. According to folklore: because the "dust" and "Chen" consonant, dust sweeping in the New Year has "in addition to the meaning of Chen Bu Xin", the intention is to all the poor luck, bad luck, swept out the door. This custom is a symbol of people's desire to break away from the old and bring in the new and their prayers for the old and the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean up the environment, wash all kinds of appliances, dismantle the bedding curtains, sprinkle clean the courtyard, dust dust cobwebs, dredge the nullahs and ditches. Everywhere overflowing with happy health, clean and welcome the new year's happy atmosphere.
Posting Spring Festival couplets
Spring Festival couplets, also known as door-to-door, spring stickers, couplets, couplets, peach symbols, etc., it is neat, couplets, simple, sophisticated text depicting the background of the times, expressing the best wishes, is China's unique form of literature. Every Spring Festival, whether urban or rural, every family should select a large red spring couplets pasted on the door, for the festival to increase the festive atmosphere. This custom began in the Song Dynasty, began to flourish in the Ming Dynasty, to the Qing Dynasty, the Spring Festival couplets of ideology and artistry have greatly improved, Liang Zhangrui prepared the Spring Festival couplets monograph "Threshold Lian series of words" on the origins of the couplets and various types of works of the characteristics of the discourse.
The types of spring couplets are more, according to its use of the place, can be divided into the door heart, frame pair, horizontal cape, spring strips, doufang and so on. "Door" in the upper center of the door panel; "frame" on the left and right door frame; "Phi" on the horizontal wood of the door winks; "Chunzhi "According to the different contents, posted in the corresponding place;" bucket catty "also called" door leaf "for the square diamond-shaped, mostly posted in the furniture, shadow wall.
Stick the window and upside down "Fu" character
In folklore, people also like to stick a variety of paper cuttings on the window - window flowers. Window flowers not only set a festive atmosphere, but also decorative, appreciative and practical in one. Paper cutting in China is a very popular folk art, for thousands of years by the people's favorite, because it is mostly pasted on the window, so it is also known as "window flowers". Window decoration with its unique generalization and exaggeration of the auspicious events, good wishes expressed in the best way, will be decorated with festivals red hot and rich.
At the same time in the paste Spring Festival couplets, some people in the house door, wall, lintel pasted on the large and small "Fu" character. The Spring Festival sticker "Fu" word, is China's folk custom from a long time ago. The character "福" refers to good fortune and luck, and it expresses people's desire for a happy life and their wish for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wishes, some people simply stick the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived" and "good fortune has arrived". Folk there will be "Fu" word fine as a variety of patterns, patterns of longevity, longevity peach, carp jump Dragon Gate, the five valleys, dragon and phoenix, and so on.
New Year's Paintings
Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, thick black colorful New Year's Paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. New Year's paintings are an ancient folk art in China, reflecting the people's simple customs and beliefs, and holding their hopes for the future. New Year's paintings, like spring scrolls, originated as "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of the New Year's paintings has not only limited to monotonous themes such as the God of the Door, become colorful, in some of the New Year's paintings in the workshop produced the "Three Stars of Fortune and Longevity," "Heavenly Officials Provide Blessings," "Five Grains and a Plentiful Harvest," "Six Animals Prosperity," "Welcoming the Spring to receive the blessings of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy people's joyful prayers for the New Year's good wishes. There are three important production areas of Chinese New Year paintings in China: Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; forming three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings, each with its own characteristics.
China's collection of the earliest Chinese New Year paintings is the Southern Song Dynasty "with the fair presenting the face of the country" woodcut New Year paintings, the painting is Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Ban Ji and green beads of the four ancient beauties. The most widely circulated folk painting is the one of "The Mouse Marrying Her Marriage". It depicts an interesting scene of a mouse marrying a bride in accordance with the customs of the earth. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng Mantuo of Shanghai combined the lunar calendar and New Year's paintings. This is a new form of New Year's paintings. This combination of two and one of the New Year's paintings, later developed into a wall calendar, and is still popular throughout the country.
The New Year's Eve New Year's Watch
The New Year's Eve New Year's Watch is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities, and the custom of watching the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record is found in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou Chu's "Land and Customs": New Year's Eve night, each with the gift, known as "feed the year"; wine and food invited, known as the "other year"; young and old get together to drink, wishing to complete, known as the "sub-year"; everyone all night long to keep the New Year's Eve. "
The first time I saw the movie was when I was a kid, and it was the first time I saw the movie.
"One night even double the year, five more divided into two days", New Year's Eve night, the whole family gathered together, ate the New Year's Eve dinner, light up candles or oil lamps, sitting around the stove chatting, waiting for the old to welcome the new moment, all-night vigil, symbolizing all the evil plagues and epidemics according to the run to drive away, looking forward to a new year of good luck. This custom gradually prevailed, to the early Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a "year-keeping" poem: "cold resignation from the winter snow, the warmth of the spring wind". Until today, people are still accustomed to the New Year's Eve to welcome the new year.
Anciently, there are two meanings of year-end vigil: the elderly year-end vigil for the "resignation of the old year", there is the meaning of the treasure of time and light; young people year-end vigil is to extend the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the moment of transition between the old and the new year is usually the middle of the night.
Firecrackers
Chinese folk "open door firecrackers" said. That is, at the dawn of the new year, the first thing that families open the door is to set off firecrackers, to beeping firecrackers to get rid of the old and welcome the new. Firecrackers is a Chinese specialty, also known as "firecrackers", "cannonballs", "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, so far has a history of more than two thousand years. Firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, is a kind of festival entertainment, can bring people joy and good luck. With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers is more and more widely used, varieties and colors are also increasingly numerous, every major festival and joyous celebration, and marriage, building, opening, etc., are to set off firecrackers in order to show the celebration, figure a good luck. Now, Hunan Liuyang, Guangdong Foshan and Dongyao, Jiangxi Yichun and Pingxiang, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other areas is China's famous hometown of firecrackers, the production of firecrackers colorful, high-quality, not only sells well across the country, but also exported to the world.
Worship
On the first day of the New Year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dressed neatly, go out to visit friends and relatives, and each other to pay tribute, wishing good luck in the coming year. Worship a variety of ways, some of them are the same patriarch led a number of people to go door to door to pay tribute to the New Year; some colleagues invited a few people to pay tribute to the New Year; there are also get together to congratulate each other, known as the "group worship". Because of the time-consuming and labor-intensive door-to-door New Year's greetings, some of the upper class and the scholarly community used the posters to congratulate each other, which developed into the "New Year's Pieces" later on.
The Chinese New Year, the late generation should first pay tribute to the elders, wishing the elders a long life and well-being, the elders can be prepared beforehand the New Year's money to the elders, it is said that the New Year's money can be pressed to stop the evil spirits, because the "age" and the "spirit" consonant, the elders get the New Year's money can be a year of peace and security. It is said that New Year's money can keep evil spirits at bay, because "year" and "spirit" sound alike. There are two kinds of New Year's money, one is a colorful rope threaded and braided into the shape of a dragon, placed at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in the "Yanjing Yearly Record"; the other is the most common, that is, wrapped in red paper by the parents of the money given to the children. New Year's money can be rewarded in the evening after the New Year's greetings in public, can also be in the New Year's Eve when the child is asleep, by the parents secretly placed under the child's pillow. Now the elders for the younger generation to send the custom of the new year's money is still prevalent.
Chinese New Year food customs
In the ancient agricultural society, about since the eighth day of the lunar month, housewives will be busy opening the New Year's food. Because of the long time needed for curing preserved meat, it must be prepared as early as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of curing preserved meat, of which the preserved meat in Guangdong Province is the most famous.
Steamed rice cakes, rice cakes because of the harmonic "year high", coupled with a variety of flavors, almost become a must-have seasonal food. There are square yellow and white rice cakes, symbolizing gold and silver, which means a prosperous new year.
The flavor of rice cake varies from place to place. Beijing people like to eat red dates made of rice or yellow rice rice cakes, fruit rice cakes and white rice cakes. Hebei people like to add jujube, small red beans and mung beans in the rice cake steamed together. Northwestern Shanxi in Inner Mongolia and other places, New Year's Eve used to eat yellow rice flour fried rice cakes, some also wrapped with bean paste, date paste and other fillings, Shandong people with yellow rice, red dates steamed rice cakes. Northern rice cakes are mainly sweet, or steamed or fried, some people simply dip sugar to eat. In the south, rice cakes are both sweet and salty, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of round-grained rice and have a light flavor. In addition to steaming and deep-frying, they can also be sliced and stir-fried or boiled in soup. Sweet rice cakes are made from glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, roses, osmanthus, mint, and veggie paste, etc. They are very well made and can be steamed directly or deep-fried with egg whites.
The night before the real New Year is called the Night of Reunion, when people who are away from home have to travel thousands of miles to come back home, and the whole family has to sit together and make dumplings for New Year's Eve. The dumpling method is to make dumpling skins out of flour first, and then use the skins to wrap up the fillings, and the fillings are all kinds of different things, such as various kinds of meats, eggs, seafood, and seasonal vegetables, etc., all of which can be put into the fillings, and the orthodox method of eating dumplings is to boil them with clear water, and then fish them out to be accompanied by soy sauce with vinegar, garlic, and sesame oil. The orthodox way of eating dumplings is to boil them in water and then dip them in soy sauce flavored with vinegar, garlic, and sesame oil. Dumplings can also be deep-fried and cooked (potstickers). This is because the word "he" (和) means "to merge" (合), and the words "饺子" (饺子) and "交" (交), which mean "to merge" and "to merge" (合), harmonize with each other. The words "合" and "交" have the meaning of getting together, so dumplings are used to symbolize reunion and happiness; they are also taken as the meaning of a new year's handover, which is very auspicious; in addition, dumplings resemble a Yuanbao (元宝), so eating dumplings on New Year's Day carries the auspicious meaning of "inviting wealth and prosperity" (招财進宝). In addition, eating dumplings on New Year's Day also carries the auspicious meaning of "inviting wealth and prosperity". Families get together to make dumplings and talk about the New Year in a joyful manner