The custom of New Year greetings in ancient China.

The 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month is also called off-year.

Sacrificial stove of Spring Festival custom-China traditional custom. The folk proverb says: "Twenty-three, sacrifice the stove." According to the old custom, the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month is the day of offering sacrifices to the kitchen god. Most of the statues of Kitchen God are also printed with the calendar of this year, which reads the words "Oriental chef is in charge", "guardian of the world" and "head of the family" to show the status of Kitchen God. On both sides, there are couplets of "offering sacrifices to the stove and saying good things to keep the world safe", wishing the whole family peace.

sweep the dust

"On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lv Chunqiu, China had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the Yao and Shun era. According to the folk saying: Because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not being new", and its original intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. This custom has placed people's desire to break the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean the environment, clean all kinds of electrical appliances, remove and wash bedding curtains, sweep six yards, dust cobwebs and dredge culverts in open channels. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of cleaning and welcoming the Spring Festival cleanly.

Sweeping dust is a traditional custom in our country. Its cultural significance is that on the day of sweeping dust, the whole family will start cleaning the house and yard together, scrubbing pots and pans, unpacking and washing bedding, and welcoming the New Year cleanly. In fact, people use the homonym of "dust" and "Chen" to express their willingness to get rid of the old and welcome the new.

paste up Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and delicate words, which are unique literary forms in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should choose a pair of red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph Poetry of Spring Festival couplets discusses the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works.

There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door heart, frame pair, cross string, spring strip and bucket square according to the place of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "door frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is posted on the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also known as "door leaf", is a square diamond, often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Cultural significance, Spring Festival couplets can be called the original artistic wonder of the Chinese nation, which is deeply loved by generations because of its characteristics of appealing to both refined and popular tastes. Someone once summed up the Spring Festival couplets like this: "Two lines support heaven and earth; A pair of couplets, commenting on ancient Han. " Post Spring Festival couplets. On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household should stick red Spring Festival couplets. A pair of festive and warm Spring Festival couplets expresses people's good wishes to welcome the New Year and look forward to a new life.

Stick the window grilles and the word "fu" upside down.

In the folk, people also like to stick various paper-cuts on the windows-window grilles. Window grilles not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in China, which has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is often pasted on the window, it is also called "window grilles". With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window grilles show auspicious things and good wishes incisively and vividly, and decorate festivals with colorful colors.

While putting up Spring Festival couplets, some people have to put large and small "Fu" characters on doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. The word "Fu" symbolizes good luck and wishes for a happy life and a bright future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply put the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "Fu has arrived" and "Fu has arrived". Others elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp yue longmen, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on.

New Year picture

Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods". With the rise of block printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. Some New Year pictures workshops have produced classic color New Year pictures, such as Fu Lushou's Samsung, God bless the people, abundant crops, prosperous livestock and welcoming the New Year, to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the New Year. There are three important producing areas of Chinese New Year pictures: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; Three schools of New Year pictures have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

The earliest existing collection of New Year pictures in China is the woodcut New Year pictures of the Southern Song Dynasty, which depict four ancient beauties: Wang Zhaojun, Zhao, Ban Ji and Lvzhu. The most popular folk painting is the Year of Marrying the Rat. It depicts an interesting scene in which a mouse marries a bride according to human custom. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng of Shanghai combined the monthly calendar with the New Year pictures. This is a new form of New Year pictures. This new year's picture, which was combined into one, later developed into a calendar and has been popular all over the country.

stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve

Keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve is one of the most important activities, and the custom of keeping the Lunar New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record can be found in the Local Records of the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties give gifts to each other, which is called "the year of giving back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "not old"; Young and old get together to drink and wish a complete song called "age division"; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for dawn. This is the so-called "shou sui".

On New Year's Eve, the whole family get together, eat New Year's Eve, light candles or oil lamps, sit around the stove and chat, wait for the time to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year, and keep vigil all night, which symbolizes driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and expecting good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, wrote a poem "Shou Sui": "Cold words and winter snow, warm with spring breeze". To this day, people are used to celebrating the New Year's Eve.

In ancient times, observing the age has two meanings: the old man's observing the age means "resigning from the old", which means cherishing time; Young people keep their age in order to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the time for the alternation of the old and new years is generally at midnight.

firecracker

There is a folk saying in China that "open the door and set off firecrackers". That is, when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Firecracker is a specialty of China, also known as "Firecracker", "Firecracker" and "Firecracker". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. With the passage of time, firecrackers are more and more widely used, and there are more and more varieties and colors. Every major festival and happy celebration, as well as marriage, building, opening, etc. We should set off firecrackers to celebrate and make good luck. At present, Liuyang, Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao, Yichun and Pingxiang, Jiangxi, Wenzhou, Zhejiang and other regions are famous fireworks towns in China. The firecrackers produced have many colors and high quality, which are not only sold well all over the country, but also exported to all parts of the world.

Pay new year's call

On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same patriarch from door to door. Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings; Others get together to congratulate each other. This is called "group worship". Because it takes time and effort to pay New Year greetings at home, some elites and scholars later congratulated each other with stickers, thus developing the later "New Year cards".

When paying New Year greetings during the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders and wish them health and longevity. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can kill evil spirits, because "old" and "special" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to put colored rope in the shape of Jackie Chan at the foot of the bed, which was recorded in Yanjing year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. Lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly put under the child's pillow by parents when the child falls asleep on New Year's Eve. It is still very popular for elders to give lucky money to younger generations.

Eating custom in Spring Festival

In ancient agricultural society, housewives began to prepare food for the New Year from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Because curing bacon takes a long time, it must be prepared as soon as possible. Many provinces in China have the custom of curing bacon, among which Guangdong is the most famous.

Steamed rice cake, because of its homophonic "high year" and diverse tastes, has almost become a must-have food for every household. The styles of rice cakes are square yellow and white rice cakes, which symbolize gold and silver and express the meaning of making a fortune in the New Year.

The taste of rice cakes varies from place to place. Beijingers like to eat jujube rice cakes, 100-fruit rice cakes and white rice cakes made of glutinous rice or yellow rice. Hebei people like to add jujube, red beans and mung beans to rice cakes and steam them together. In northern Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places, it is customary to eat yellow wheat fried rice cakes during the New Year, and some people will also stuff them with bean paste and jujube paste, while Shandong people steam rice cakes with yellow rice and red dates. The rice cakes in the north are mainly sweet, steamed or fried, and some people simply eat them with sugar. There are sweet and salty rice cakes in the south, such as those in Suzhou and Ningbo, which are made of japonica rice and have a light taste. In addition to steaming and frying, you can also slice and fry or cook soup. Sweet rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour with sugar, lard, rose, osmanthus, mint, vegetable paste and other ingredients. They are fine in workmanship and can be steamed directly or fried with egg white.

The night before the real Chinese New Year is called Reunion Night. A wanderer who has left his hometown has to go home from thousands of miles away. During the Spring Festival, the whole family will sit around and wrap jiaozi. Jiaozi's practice is to use flour to make dumpling wrappers first, and then use leather bags to fill them. The contents of stuffing are varied, and all kinds of meat, eggs, seafood and seasonal vegetables can be stuffed. The orthodox practice in jiaozi is to cook it with clear water, remove it and mix it with vinegar, minced garlic and vegetables. There are also methods of frying jiaozi and baking jiaozi (fried dumpling). Because the word "he" in dough mixing means "he"; Jiaozi's "jiao" and "glue" are homophonic, and "harmony" and "glue" have the meaning of reunion, so jiaozi is used to symbolize the reunion of acacia; It is very auspicious to make friends with older people; In addition, jiaozi, which is shaped like an ingot, has the auspicious meaning of "making a fortune" when eating jiaozi in the New Year. All the families get together to pack jiaozi, so it's fun to celebrate the Spring Festival.

Eat stove candy

Every household will offer honeydew melons (sesame candy is also useful). In order to make the kitchen god sweet, put in a good word in front of the Jade Emperor and make the situation at home more prosperous in the coming year. Sacrificing the stove with this candy is intended to stick the mouth of the kitchen god with the viscosity of the candy, so that it can "speak well in heaven and keep peace in the next world."

Kitchen sugar is a kind of maltose, which is very sticky. The candy that is drawn into a long strip is called "Guandong Sugar", and the candy that is drawn into a flat circle is called "honeydew melon". When it is put outside in winter, because of the cold weather, the honeydew melon is solidified firmly, and there are some tiny bubbles in it, which tastes crisp and sweet and has a special flavor. The real kwantung candy is too hard to break. Be sure to split it with a kitchen knife when eating. The material is very heavy and fine. The taste is slightly sour, there is no honeycomb in the middle, each piece weighs one or two, two or four, and the price is relatively expensive. Sugar, sesame sugar and non-sesame sugar. Sugar is made into melon shape or north melon shape. The center is empty and the skin thickness is less than five points. Although the size is different, the transaction is still calculated by weight. The big honeydew melon weighs one or two Jin, but few people buy it as a cover. There are records about the custom of offering sacrifices to stoves all over the country. Most people who offered sacrifices to the stove knelt in front of the stove and said, "The kitchen god, whose real name is Zhang, rode a horse and carried a gun, and went to heaven to see the Jade Emperor. There are many good things to say in the world, and we will see good luck next year. " This expresses people's wish that Kitchen God can bring good luck to the world. After the sacrifice, open the door and burn the old statue of the kitchen god and the tied kitchen god horse together.

Drink laba porridge

"Sacrifice" explained above: "Wax man, Sawyer, December, gathering everything and seeking food." "wax" is similar to "wax" Sacrificing ancestors is called "wax" and sacrificing gods is called "wax". "Wax" and "Wax" are both sacrificial activities, which are mostly held in December of the lunar calendar, so people call December the twelfth month.

The twelfth lunar month is the end of the year. People in ancient times had nothing to do, so they went out hunting. One is to get more food to make up for the lack of food, and the other is to sacrifice wild animals to ancestors and gods to pray for longevity and avoid disasters.

There are many folk customs in the twelfth lunar month On the eighth day of December, "Laba porridge" is made of miscellaneous grains. Some farmers even throw Laba porridge on doors, fences and woodpiles as a sacrifice to the God of Grains. 1February 23rd, commonly known as.

In "off-year", in some areas, people will show incense wax knives and candied fruit for "Kitchen God". In fact, most people don't believe in "God" or anything. This is to follow some ancient customs, and now there is a struggle for old happiness.

The custom of offering sacrifices.

crispy noodles

The Spring Festival is a happy and peaceful festival, and it is also a day for family reunion. Children who leave home should go home for reunion during the Spring Festival.

After the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, every household should steam steamed bread. Generally speaking, it can be divided into two types: worshipping God and visiting relatives. The former is solemn, while the latter is gorgeous. Especially to make a jujube hill for Kitchen God. "A steamed bread, neighbors to help". This is often a great opportunity for folk women to show their dexterity. Steamed bread is a handicraft.