A partial view of the Qing Dynasty's "Jin Ting Biao Sui Dynasty Map".
In the course of China's historical development, some relatively fixed customs and habits have long been formed about how many festivals should be celebrated. For example, there are many deep-rooted customs and taboos that have been passed down from generation to generation. Today, let's learn about the common customs of the New Year, such as sacrificing stoves, pasting Spring Festival couplets, pasting New Year's paintings, greeting the New Year, keeping the New Year, and so on.
In the southwest of Henan, as soon as you enter the wax month of the yellow calendar, the flavor of the year will be stronger day by day, to the twenty-third day of the wax month, basically it has entered the year pass, and the folk commonly call the twenty-third month of the wax month as "the little year". And the twenty-third day of the lunar month to sacrifice the king of the stove officially opened the curtain of the New Year.
The folk proverb says: "Twenty-three, sacrifice stove pass." "The twenty-third day of the lunar month of the old yellow calendar is the day of worship to the god of the stove. The custom of sacrificial stoves has a long history in China, as early as the Zhou Dynasty. The "sacrificial stove" was first called "Ji stove", that is, to commemorate the "first stove" who taught people to eat cooked food. Due to the appearance of fire, human beings began to transition from the era of drinking blood to the era of eating cooked food and drinking boiled water. Therefore, the heavens and the common people are very devout in their sacrifices to the god of the stove.
On the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, dust and sweep the house", according to the record of "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period", there was a custom of sweeping dust during the New Year in the Yaoshun era in China. This custom carries with it the hope of the people to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. According to the folk saying: because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", the Spring Festival dust sweep has the meaning of "removing Chen Buxin", and its intention is to sweep all the bad luck and bad luck out of the door. Every time the Chinese New Year comes, every household has to clean the environment, clean all kinds of utensils, dismantle and wash the bedding and curtains, sprinkle and sweep the courtyard of Liulu, dust and cobwebs, and dredge the nullah and culverts.
Spring Festival couplets are also called door pairs, spring stickers, couplets, pairs, peach symbols, etc., it depicts the background of the times with neat, dual, concise and exquisite words, expresses good wishes, and is a unique literary form in China. Every Chinese New Year, every household has to select a big red Spring Festival couplet to paste on the door to add a festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty, prevailed in the Ming Dynasty, to the Qing Dynasty, the ideology and artistry of the Spring Festival couplets have been greatly improved, the types of Spring Festival couplets are more, according to their use place, can be divided into the door heart, the frame pair, the horizontal drape, the spring strip, the bucket and so on. The "door center" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "frame pair" is pasted on the left and right door frames; "Horizontal draped" is pasted on the horizontal wood of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in the corresponding places according to the contents.
People also like to put various cut-outs on the windows - window grilles. Window grilles not only create a festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. It is a very popular folk art in China, and it has been loved by people for thousands of years. With its unique generalization and exaggeration, the window flowers vividly express the auspicious mascots and good wishes, and decorate the festival with prosperity and magnificence. At the same time as pasting the Spring Festival couplets, some people want to paste the word "Fu" on the door, wall and lintel. Sticking the word "Fu" during the New Year is a long-standing custom among Chinese folk.
New Year's pictures are also common in urban and rural areas, and the colorful New Year's pictures have added a lot of prosperity and joy to thousands of households. New Year paintings are ancient Chinese folk art, reflecting simple customs and beliefs, and pinning the hopes of the people on the future. New Year's paintings, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from the "door god".
With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of New Year's paintings has become more colorful than monotonous themes such as door gods.
Qing Dong painted Gaozong's imperial pen A poem after the afternoon snow.
On Chinese New Year's Eve, there are two kinds of gods in Nanyang, both of which express people's desire to live a peaceful life and become rich. One is to wait for the gate of heaven to be opened: in the middle of the night, people say that the Jade Emperor wants to open the gate of heaven and give gold and silver treasures to the people, at this time, no matter what sundries in the courtyard, as long as they are brought to the house, they will become gold and silver treasures; Another custom is to hang a sky lantern in the middle of the courtyard with a high pole or tie a pulley to the top of a tall tree, and at night pull the lantern up to the top to illuminate the courtyard to prevent the nine-headed bird from flying. "Qi Dongye Yu Ghost East Bird" contains: "Ghost East" is commonly known as the nine-headed bird ......In the past, there were ten birds in this bird, and one of them was devoured by dogs, and so far the blood drops of people's homes, so those who hear it will be able to extinguish the lights of the dogs, so as to pass it quickly. ”
Before dinner, red candles are lit, firecrackers are fired, and incense is burned and prayers are made to the gods. After dinner, the "New Year's Celebration" activity began.
Keeping the New Year is the first content of the Chinese New Year's Eve Festival, and it is also a fine tradition of the Chinese people. In the Tang Dynasty, the rich and noble families in Chang'an City lit thick candles in the court, and men, women and children gathered together to talk about the past and the present, and talk and laugh. "Candles are lit in the high hall on New Year's Eve, and a glass of wine is a song" is the scene of Chinese New Year's Eve life described. People stayed up all night to keep the New Year, and when "the silver candle has not been extinguished", the Chinese New Year's Eve event was over.
On the first day of the new year, people who wake up early will put on their most beautiful clothes, dress up neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, greet each other, and wish good luck in the new year. There are various ways to pay New Year's greetings, some are led by the same patriarch to lead a number of people to go door-to-door to pay New Year's greetings; Some colleagues invited a few people to pay New Year's greetings; There are also people who get together to congratulate each other, which is called "group worship". Due to the time-consuming and laborious visit to the New Year, some upper-class figures and scholars later used name stickers to congratulate each other, thus developing the later "New Year's card".
During the New Year, the younger generation should first pay New Year's greetings to the elders, wish the elders a long life and good health, and the elders can distribute the New Year's money prepared in advance to the younger generations. Because "year" and "祟" are homophonic, so the folk believe that the New Year's money can suppress the evil. After the younger generation gets the New Year's money, they can spend the year safely.
There are two kinds of New Year's money, one is to thread a colored rope into the shape of a dragon and place it at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in the "Yanjing Chronicles"; The other is the most common, which is the money distributed to the child by the parents in red paper. New Year's money can be given in public after the New Year's greeting, or it can be secretly placed under the child's pillow by the parent when the child is asleep on Chinese New Year's Eve. To this day, the custom of giving money to younger generations is still prevalent.
Qing Yao Wenhan's "New Year's Celebration Map", depicting the scene of the Chinese New Year: women in the kitchen to prepare wine and food.
During the Chinese New Year, in addition to the customs and habits such as sweeping the house, pasting Spring Festival couplets, inviting door gods, sending New Year's money, and setting off firecrackers, it is good to eat and drink. There are many meanings of Chinese New Year food customs derived from this. For example, in the customs and habits such as eating snacks and fruits, eating dates means "spring comes early"; Eating almonds means "happiness comes"; Eating persimmons means "things go well"; Eating tofu means "the whole family is blessed"; Eating rice cakes means "getting higher and higher every year" and so on.
In ancient agrarian societies, housewives were busy arranging food for the New Year after the eighth day of the lunar month. Because it takes a long time to marinate lap-mei, it must be prepared as early as possible. The reason why bacon is cured is because in the past, meat was not easy to preserve in humid areas, and people salted, smoked or air-dried fresh meat to make it easy to preserve after a period of time. Many provinces in China have the custom of pickling lap-mei, among which the Guangdong province is the most famous.
On the twenty-third day of the lunar month, fruits, cakes, "fire" and stove sugar are the necessary foods of every household, and the "fire" that embodies people's expectations for family reunion is commonly known as stove cake or baked cake, round and hollow, charred on the outside and tender on the inside, chives and oil and salt are added to the noodles, everyone loves it, and everyone likes to eat. Stove sugar is a kind of maltose that is sticky to the mouth and sticky to the teeth. The reason for offering sugar to the stove is to stick to the mouth of the king of the stove, hoping that he has eaten sweets and said more good things in front of the Jade Emperor. Burning is a round baked cake.
Because of the homonym "high year" and the variety of tastes, rice cakes have almost become a must-have food for every family. The style of the rice cake has a square-shaped yellow and white rice cake, which symbolizes the meaning of ** and the meaning of making a fortune in the New Year. The taste of rice cakes varies from place to place. For example, the northern rice cakes are mainly sweet, while the southern rice cakes are both sweet and salty. In addition to steaming and frying, rice cakes can also be sliced and stir-fried or boiled in soup.
Until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Chinese New Year's Eve was enduring, and the content became richer and richer, and the atmosphere became more and more intense. Qing man Gu Tieqing said in the twelfth volume of the "Qing Jialu": "On Chinese New Year's Eve, the family banquet, the old and the young are gathered, and most of them are auspicious, and the name is 'Chinese New Year's Eve Dinner', which is commonly called family joy." Zhou Zongtai's "Gusu Bamboo Branches" has a cloud: "The wife and children are reunited in a room, and the fish, meat, melon, eggplant and miscellaneous fruit plate; Listen to confessions frequently, and families have a family carnival. "On the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, a table full of delicious delicacies, the family sat around, slowly ate the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, and enjoyed a happy and fulfilling family fun.
The ancients would drink alcohol after midnight. Originally, it was drunk as a wedding wine, and it was made only with peppercorns and cypress leaves. Its purpose was to prevent diseases and strengthen the body, and later it was changed to drinking Tusu wine, and it became a custom. Gao Chengyun, a native of the Song Dynasty: "Chinese New Year's Eve is celebrated, and it is customary to drink Tusu wine." It turns out that Tusu wine is not a kind of wine that is only used for festivals, but a medicinal wine. "Tusu" is originally a broad-leaved grass. Some families in the south paint a Tusu in their houses as a decoration, and it is soaked in wine as a medicinal herb to become Tusu wine. It is said that this wine recipe was invented by Sun Simiao, a famous doctor in the Tang Dynasty. Every year, when the moon arrived, he would distribute medicine packets composed of rhubarb, baishu, bellflower, shu pepper, aconitum, sarsaparilla and other medicines to relatives and friends in the village, asking everyone to soak wine with medicine and drink it on Chinese New Year's Eve to prevent plague. Since the Tang Dynasty, drinking Tusu wine has become a custom on Chinese New Year's Eve.
On the night before the New Year, it is called reunion night, and the wanderers who are away from home have to rush home thousands of miles away, and the whole family has to sit around to make dumplings for the New Year. The dumpling wrappers are made of flour and the fillings are varied, and all kinds of ingredients can be filled. The orthodox way to eat it is to cook it in water, and then dip it in soy sauce mixed with vinegar, minced garlic, sesame oil and other ingredients as a condiment.
Because the word "harmony" in harmony is the meaning of "together"; The "dumplings" and "cross" of dumplings are homophonic, and "he" and "cross" have the meaning of gathering, so dumplings are used to symbolize reunion; It also takes the meaning of changing the age of the child, which is very auspicious. In addition, the dumplings resemble ingots, which have the auspicious meaning of "attracting wealth and entering treasure". The family gets together to make dumplings and eat dumplings, talk about the New Year, and have a good time.
In fact, eating dumplings on the first day of the Lunar New Year has been in China for many years, which is a folk custom in northern China.
The Qing Dynasty's "Jin Ting Biao New Year Dynasty Map" depicts the scene of the New Year celebrating the New Year.