How did you spend the spring in Hangzhou?

In Hangzhou, during the Spring Festival, people pay great attention to diet and have various entertainment activities. On the first day of breakfast, men, women and children like to eat sweets, such as sugar lotus seeds, sugar rice cakes and sugar jiaozi, which means "sweet all the year round". On the first day of the first year, it is mainly to eat the New Year's Eve dinner in worship of ancestors, which is called "eating the rice for the next year". Since then, there have been banquets every day, especially when people come and go. Please eat New Year's wine, which is even more delicious and very rich. During the New Year, people either get together at home or wander around. During the Spring Festival, the entertainment items of the party include playing mahjong, pushing Pai Jiu, playing "No.1 scholar" and "promotion map".

Not only adults play, but also children play with adults. This is a game, not a gambling category, so the ancients called it "boudoir play". During the Spring Festival, more people go out for a spring outing. Before the opening of the fifth day, all the shops were closed, that is, "closed", so most people went to visit the temple. As a result, these places have become important places for vendors to set up stalls and artists from all over the world to perform arts, and also become gathering places for tourists. Such as Wu Shan, Qinghefang, Beixinqiao, Zhongshan Road and Lingyin Temple. , known as the "tourist place", is very lively. There are many curtain tents set up as temporary supply points, selling all kinds of sweets, snacks, toys and groceries. Teahouses, restaurants and snack bars are like clouds. However, artists from all directions perform all kinds of vaudeville and do their best to entertain tourists. There are acrobatics with superb skills, such as "high pole", "walking rope", "somersault", "sword swallowing", "knife making", "urn making", "dancing basin", "walking on stilts" and "monkey tricks". There are lively and interesting zaju such as "Woodenhead Opera", "String Opera" and "Next Door Opera". Some people watch "peep show", be "pink people with five colors", play "Taiping Xiao" and play intoxicating music such as pipa, string, huqin and sandalwood instruments. In addition, there are superstitious activities such as measuring characters, starting classes, fortune telling and physiognomy. It can be described as "a collection of peddlers and ants, a hundred art competitions". There are tourists and women, groups of three or five, tens of thousands of people, very lively.

the Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival was formed in the Han and Wei Dynasties on the fifteenth day of the first month, and developed remarkably in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Taoism believes that it is the first festival of Sanyuan Festival, Shangyuan Festival and God's blessing to the people. Ming and Qing dynasties became an important festival in Hangzhou that echoed New Year's Day. The Lantern Festival was called "Lantern Festival" in Qing Dynasty, and the custom of Lantern Festival was similar to that of Buddhism in Han Dynasty. The Lantern Festival in Hangzhou was very prosperous in the Southern Song Dynasty. Although the scale of the Lantern Festival in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was not as broad as that in the previous dynasties, it lasted longer, with more lamps, more exquisite designs and more colorful customs.

Hangzhou is a prosperous area of Lantern Festival in Ming Dynasty. Zhang Han of Amin Dynasty said that apart from the capital city, "if the folk custom is the most prosperous in Hangzhou" (Dream of Songs and Windows, Volume 7). "Before and after the fifteenth day of the first month in Hangzhou, lanterns were placed for five nights. Before the Lantern Festival, the lantern market was opened and all kinds of lanterns were sold. Its characters are like Laozi, Beauty, Zhong Kui, Moonlight Prostitute, and Liu Hai beating toad. Flowers and plants include gardenia, grapes, bayberry and persimmon orange; Birds and insects are deer, cranes, fish, shrimp and horses; Its ingenuity belongs to glass balls, mica screens, crystal curtains and glass bottles, and the list goes on. There are lantern riddles, festivals, social fires, Taige operas, rolling lanterns and fireworks in the Lantern Festival. No matter the thoroughfare, the stars are hanging, as bright as day. " (The Journey to the West Volume 20 "Xi Yue Fu") Zhang Dai of Amin Dynasty described the lighting scene in Longshan as follows: "There are no lights on the mountain, no seats for lights, no seats for people, and no songs for people. One of the men and women watching the lights is in front of the temple, unable to look up and turn their heels. They can only go with the flow and don't know where to go, just listening. " (The Legacy of Tao Anmeng, Volume 7)

Every family is ashamed of not being able to light a lamp, and the poor are no exception. Women in the city walk at a high rate and look at the lights in the downtown area; Otherwise, everyone will sit in front of the door, eating melon seeds and sweet beans, watching ladies and gentlemen, and then leave at midnight. Most rural couples go into the city during the day, walking east and west, "drilling the lamp shed" and "walking the lamp bridge" and looking around at the lights. It can be seen that the Jiangnan Lantern Festival flourished at that time. Tang Yin, a talented scholar in the south of the Yangtze River, wrote a poem "Yuanxiao", in which the Yuanxiao and the moon set each other off: "The moon is not entertaining without lights, and the moon is not spring without lights. Spring in the world is like jade, and the lights around the moon are like silver next month. "

In the Qing Dynasty, the Lantern Festival in Hangzhou was still lively, but the lighting time was reduced, usually five nights, with the 15th as the main light. Lantern is made of tulle and glass, with ancient and modern stories painted on it, "for fun". Ice lantern is a unique lantern in Qing dynasty, which was brought by Manchu from outside the customs. These ice lanterns are "gorgeous but not extravagant, simple but not vulgar" and are very ornamental.

Eat Yuanxiao and visit temple fairs.

Eat Yuanxiao. Yuanxiao is a seasonal food, and eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month in Ming and Qing Dynasties became a fashion. Yuanxiao is made of glutinous rice flour, round, with walnuts and sugar in it, the size of walnuts. Jiangnan is called "Tang Tuan" (Liu Ruoyu's "Random Thoughts" Volume 20). In Qing Dynasty, Suzhou called it Mariko, and Hangzhou called it "Lantern Mariko". After ancestor worship, family members and fellow villagers eat jiaozi together to get the meaning of reunion.

Inviting children during the Lantern Festival is also a common custom in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. People in Hangzhou usually pray for children in Buddhist temples. After giving birth, they will present a lantern on the 10th day of the first month and hang it on the eaves of the altar, so just count the number of lanterns on the altar and you will know how many people have increased in this block last year. In Izayoi, eager people stole lamps from the altar and went to the inner room to pray for their children (the fourth volume of Yang Sishou's Yuan Tan Diary).

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were many temple fairs in Hangzhou during the Spring Festival. Temple fair is a supplementary form of festivals at the age of 20, which is closely related to the life of urbanites. In the Ming Dynasty, there will be more incense in Hangzhou. On New Year's Day, go to Dongyue Temple to burn incense; From the first day to the third day, men and women go to Lingyin Temple to burn incense. "Every day is a wonderful gathering of geisha in the world, and the audience should be overwhelmed by archery." There were many temple fairs in Hangzhou in Qing Dynasty, including Chenghuangshan Temple Fair. From the first day of the first month, the temple opened 10 days, "tourists gathered, scholars and women were like clouds." Dongyue Temple will be the largest, and it will be open for several days from the first day of the first month. Tourists swarmed in, and horses and chariots galloped. On the opening day of the temple fair, department stores gathered, and "all kinds of pearls and jade, silk, clothes, food, antiques, calligraphy and painting, flowers, birds, insects and fish, as well as stars, acrobatics and other ordinary daily necessities abound", forming a famous commercial temple fair in Hang Cheng.

Hangzhou New Year folk customs are lively, harmonious and full of interest. "A hundred days' work, a day's wax", the New Year is a day of rest and an opportunity for people to relax physically and mentally. The colorful New Year folk customs show people's life rhythm and spiritual desire. The new year is full of joy and expectation.