What are the New Year customs in Wuxi?

Spring Festival is an important traditional festival in China, especially the older generation attaches great importance to it. In Wuxi, there are also traditional customs of the Spring Festival. So, what are the Chinese New Year customs in Wuxi? Below, I will introduce it to you and welcome you to read it.

↓↓↓↓↓ Click to get "New Year" related content.

★★★★ What are the taboos during the Spring Festival ★

★ Cross-examine the Spring Festival couplets in the Year of the Tiger ★

★ Chinese New Year Red Packet Geely Digital Combination ★

★ New Year's inspirational message ★

Introduction of Wuxi New Year Customs

In Wuxi, you have to open the door three times before opening the door on New Year's Day. Eating shredded pork cake, jiaozi and noodles for breakfast means reunion, promotion, longevity and Changchun. On this day, we only eat leftovers on New Year's Eve, which means "more than enough". When eating, you can't cook soup and pour rice, and you can't eat porridge for fear of going out in the rain. We should also avoid asking for fire and water from our neighbors, warning against swearing, getting angry and saying unlucky things, and praying for peace and good luck all the year round.

In addition to pasting peach symbols, mending doors and couplets, Wuxi's traditional Spring Festival custom also hangs Zhong Kui elephants in the New Year to avoid sneaking around for a year. Legend has it that Zhong Kui is good at catching ghosts. This custom probably began in the Tang Dynasty. Many folk families in Wuxi also have the custom of hanging red couplets with auspicious sentences on the lintel and paper-cut doormats. On the morning of New Year's Day, cakes and zongzi are popular in Wuxi, which means reunion and promotion. Besides, we should eat noodles, which means longevity and Changchun.

One of the Spring Festival customs in Wuxi is that when the children arrive in the New Year, the host will treat them with refreshments and sweets. Children from relatives and friends who come to pay New Year's greetings will get lucky money. The new son-in-law goes to his mother-in-law's house to pay New Year's greetings, usually on the third day of the New Year's Eve. The third day is called Xiao Nian Chao. You can't sweep the floor, beg for fire or draw water, just like the custom on the first day of New Year's Day. There is another custom in Wuxi that is slightly different from other places, that is, the 60th, 70th and 80th birthdays are in the Spring Festival, not birthdays.

During the Spring Festival, many places have the custom of not sweeping the floor, and so does Wuxi. I think sweeping the floor should sweep away wealth. Even if you sweep the floor on the second day of the lunar new year, you can't dump the garbage outside the house, but pile it in the corner until the first day of the first month. This is called "gathering money". In the old dynasty, it was forbidden to beg for fire and water from others, to use knives and scissors, and to dump sewage and feces. You have to close the door two or three times to explode when you sleep in the New Year. Wuxi went to bed early that night. If children are too playful to sleep, parents often coax them into saying, "Go to bed early and listen to the old bug tonight." Wuxi old customs attach great importance to the climate on New Year's Day, and often use this day's weather to predict the next year's harvest.

During the Spring Festival, the younger generation pays New Year greetings to their elders first, and then visits relatives and friends. When relatives and friends meet for the first time, they will say something like "Congratulations on your happy wedding", "Congratulations on getting rich" and "Congratulations on getting rich" to congratulate each other. The new son-in-law pays a New Year call to his parents-in-law's house, usually on the third day of the Lunar New Year. Old people have been celebrating the Spring Festival every 10 years since they were 60 years old.

Spring Festival customs in Wuxi I. New Year's Eve dinner and Spring Festival dishes

The previous New Year's Eve dinner was not as rich as it is now, but it was also very elegant. There are several dishes that are essential. One is a dish made of shredded radish, spinach and soybean sprouts. A dish called "long-stemmed vegetables" is made of a whole green vegetable and shredded shutters. There is also a kind of "fragrant sugar tablets", which consists of dried fragrant bamboo shoots, dried bamboo shoots and Flammulina velutipes cut into triangles. The purpose of preparing dishes is mostly to get meaning from food homophones and images.

For example, bean sprouts are called Ruyi cuisine, carp is called Smooth, hundred pages are called Pepsi Smooth, peanuts are called Longevity Fruit, spinach means robust, rice cakes mean "step by step", jiaozi and glutinous rice balls mean "round and round", and the leftover food on New Year's Eve is called "over a year". Everyone should also take a bite of raw radish, which is called "biting spring" to pray for staying away from illness in the coming year. On the first day of the lunar new year, a family will eat "spring dishes" (raw materials are celery, leeks and bamboo shoots), which means hard work, longevity and prosperity.

Wuxi Spring Festival Customs II. "send the stove"

The folk custom is "sending stoves" on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. On this day, the family will pay tribute to the Kitchen God in the shrine on the kitchen wall, offering "Kitchen God Sugar" made of caramel and flour, which means that "Kitchen God" will have a sweet mouth and only say good things about the day before and the day after, and a couplet will be posted under the shrine: "Do good in heaven, and the next world will be peaceful."

Customs of Wuxi Spring Festival III. Ancestor worship

In the past, people would make sacrifices to their ancestors before the start of spring. On the one hand, they would not forget their ancestors. On the other hand, they would ask their ancestors to bless them with good luck in the coming year.

Customs of Wuxi Spring Festival IV. Steamed rice cake

Wash rice at home the day before the rice cake is steamed and grind it into powder with a stone mill. The powder pulled by the stone mill is made into small slices, which are called "peach petals". This powder is of the best quality. On the day of steaming cakes, sugar rice cakes, Chishui cakes (with pigment) and white water cakes (without pigment) are usually steamed first. When steaming cakes, first light incense in front of the stove, hall and living room and close the door. After the first cage cake is baked, before preparing for processing, break off a large piece by hand, put it in a cup and put it in the above three places. At this time, the candlelight shines in the home, and the cigarettes are lingering and steaming. At this time, all the people in the family will taste a piece of rice cake. Especially when children eat cakes, adults will recite auspicious words to make children grow taller quickly. After the first cage cake is processed, it will be distributed to neighbors for tasting.

Wuxi's Spring Festival custom V. "Dust the eaves"

As the saying goes, "17- 18, the more dust, the more dust." People will inevitably encounter some troubles in a year, so when welcoming the New Year at the end of the year, they will use "dust off the eaves" to sweep away their bad luck and look forward to good luck in the new year with a new look; This custom also purifies the environment at home, killing two birds with one stone.

The Origin of the Spring Festival

In modern folk customs, celebrating the Spring Festival is also called Chinese New Year. In fact, the origin of Chinese New Year and Spring Festival is very different.

So how did the year come from? There are mainly two kinds of folk sayings: one is that there was a fierce monster called Nian in ancient times, which went door to door on the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, foraging for human flesh and killing creatures. On the night of the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, Nian came to a village. It happened that two cowboys were fighting for a whip. Nian suddenly heard the sound of whipping in mid-air and ran away in fear. It fled to another village and saw a bright red dress drying in front of the door. It didn't know what it was, so it turned around and ran away. Later, he came to a village, looked into the door of a family, and saw that the lights were brightly lit and dizzy, so he had to slip away again, with his tail between his legs. From this, people realized that Nian has the weakness of being afraid of noise, red and light, so they thought of many ways to resist it and gradually evolved into the custom of celebrating the New Year today.

Another way of saying this is that ancient calligraphy books in China put the word "Nian" in the Ministry of Grain, which means good weather and good harvest. Because cereal crops are usually harvested once a year. "Year" is extended to the name of the year.

Although there was a custom of Spring Festival in ancient China, it was not called Spring Festival at that time. Because the Spring Festival referred to at that time refers to the "beginning of spring" among the 24 solar terms.

The Northern and Southern Dynasties generally referred to the Spring Festival as the whole spring. It is said that the Lunar New Year was officially named Spring Festival after the Revolution of 1911. Because the solar calendar was used at that time, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar had to be renamed the Spring Festival in order to distinguish between farmers and farmers.