Hunan's Spring Festival Customs

1, New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve dinner

Once a year, the reunion dinner fully demonstrated the Chinese family members of mutual respect and mutual love, this mutual respect and mutual love so that the relationship between the family closer. Family reunion often makes the "head of the family" in the spirit of comfort and satisfaction, the elderly look at children and grandchildren, the family **** narrative of the family, the past care and raising children to pay the effort and not in vain, this is how happy.

And the younger generation can also take this opportunity to express their gratitude to their parents for raising them. In fact, with the progress of the times, this ancient tradition is also facing serious challenges, many forced to choose not to go home on New Year's Eve, which also makes the New Year's Eve dinner become empty talk.

2, the New Year and sacrifices to the God of the stove

Hunan many places have the custom of the New Year, just the specific time and the degree of grandeur is different. Over the small year is the "New Year" of the "opening ceremony", from this day onwards, the festive atmosphere lasts until the Lantern Festival. Zhuzhou and most other areas of the lunar calendar, the 24th day of the waxing moon for the "small year", Yiyang and other places to the 23rd day for the "small year", while Shaoyang, Loudi and other places to the first month of the 15th day for the "small year". The first day of the New Year is the 23rd day. Hengyang and the northern part of the Xiangbei region is more important to the small year, while Zhuzhou and other places do not pay much attention to the small year.

Most areas in Hunan have a custom of sacrificing to the god Zao on the 23rd day of the lunar month. It is said that the god of the stove on the twenty-third day of the day to go up to the sky to say people good and bad, so the day of the festival stove, the family should be stove, several cases, pots, pans and dishes cleaned up, next to the god of the stove to paste a couplet: "say good things to the sky, the next world to protect the peace," and in front of the stove for the candies, the whole family should be salute wish, hope that the god of the stove to eat, do not say bad things about the people. bad words about people. This is called "sending the god of the stove".

3, Spring Festival and Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival is China's grandest traditional festival. Originally in the "waxing" (lunar calendar, December 8), the North and South Dynasties changed at the end of the year. The Spring Festival has a long history of posting couplets. Couplets originated from the ancient peach symbols. According to "huainanzi" records, peach is made of peach wood, that is, in the peach wood board book "god tea", "yubi" the name of the two gods or painting the two gods hanging in the door, the five generations began to book on the peach wood board couplets, it is said that China's first pair of couplets is the five generations of the five generations in the back of the shu's meng chang

The first couplet in China is said to have been written by Meng Chang of the Later Shu in the Fifth Dynasty: "New Year's Day, Jiaojie, Eternal Spring.

Chinese New Year couplets, also known as "spring stickers", "door", "couplets", is one of the Chinese folk customs of the Spring Festival. It is a unique form of literature in China, which depicts beautiful images and expresses good wishes in neat and concise words. Posting Spring Festival couplets is an important symbol of Chinese people's Spring Festival. When people put up Spring Festival couplets in front of their houses, it means that the Spring Festival is officially kicked off.

4, New Year's greetings and New Year's money

People usually visit friends and relatives during the Spring Festival called "New Year's greetings", according to legend, in the ancient winter season, there are harassment of people's lives, "New Year's" monster, "New Year's" monster has three fears, "New Year's" monster has three fears, "New Year's" monster has three fears, "New Year's" monster has three fears. The "year" monster has three fears: a fear of sound, fear of red, three fear of fire. So every time the "year" to come out, families will set off firecrackers, stick red paper to write spring couplets, light up a bunch of bonfires, and other ferocious beasts "year" ran away, we said to each other, "New Year's Day! " "Congratulations on the new year", these legends slowly evolved into today's customs.

Shaoyang and other places, "the first village to go, the second grandmother's home, fifteen to get back to the mother." Loudi and other places believe that the elders to the younger generation's home to pay New Year's Eve is a delicious performance. New Year's visit, firecrackers to show joy, Hengyang and other places, the main firecrackers to receive guests, Shaoyang and other places guests with firecrackers to the host's home in front of their own.

The Dong compatriots in the Hunan-Guizhou area, during the Spring Festival prevailed a kind of "playing Dong Nian" (also known as the Lusheng will) mass activities. This activity is similar to the Han Chinese "reunion", but more than "reunion" seems to be more happy, enthusiastic. This kind of activity is generally organized by two villages *** with the agreement of the two teams in the square officially held Lusheng dance competition. At this time, the audience of the two villages, accompanied by music, dance, and enjoy the fun.

5, stickers

The Spring Festival hanging stickers in urban and rural areas is also very common, thick black colorful paintings to thousands of families added a lot of prosperity and joy of the festive atmosphere. These have the folklore function of praying for blessings and decorating the residence. New Year's paintings are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects the customs and beliefs of the people and holds the hope of people for the future.

6, year-end vigil

Chinese folk in the New Year's Eve has the habit of year-end vigil, commonly known as "boiled year". The New Year's Eve vigil begins with the New Year's Eve dinner, which should be eaten slowly, from the time of the lamp, some people have to eat late into the night.

New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities, and the custom of observing the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty, Zhou Zhi's "Land and Customs": New Year's Eve, 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"; all night long, we have to keep the year-keeping activities. "

Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese people have been waiting for the daybreak to come, so it is called "keeping the year-end vigil".

Since the Han Dynasty, the time of the transition between the old and new year is usually the middle of the night.

Like the Spring Festival couplets, they 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, luck and longevity," "Tianguan Zhifu," "the five valleys," "the six animals," "welcome the spring to receive the blessing of" and other classic colorful New Year's paintings, in order to satisfy the people's joyful prayers for the 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 Province; and three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

Expanded

The Spring Festival is an ancient Chinese festival, but also one of the most important festivals throughout the year, in the thousands of years of historical development and inheritance, has formed a number of more fixed customs, many of which are still handed down to this day, such as dust sweeping, posting Spring Festival couplets, ancestor worship, pay homage to the age of the old man, pointing firecrackers, paying homage to the new year and so on. Chinese folk "open door firecrackers" said, that is, the arrival of the new year, households set off firecrackers.

The Spring Festival, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, also known as the lunar year, commonly known as "New Year's Day", which is the Chinese folk the most grand, the most lively of a traditional festival. It is one of the grandest and most lively traditional festivals in Chinese folklore. The Spring Festival has a long history, according to the "Pangu Wang table": "the emperor's first system of the name of the dry branches to determine the location of the year", the ancient period of this year at the beginning and end of the year to hold sacrifices to the gods and ancestral activities.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia Chinese New Year