Interesting customs

Eating Yuanxiao

No matter the south or the north, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, families will gather together to eat Yuanxiao. The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is also called the "Shangyuan Festival". The food name "Yuanxiao" is said to have appeared in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty because people were accustomed to eating it on the night of the Lantern Festival. Yuanxiao is also called "Yuanxiao" and "Yuanzi". In the south, it is often called "tangyuan" and "water yuan". People in the Song Dynasty called it "floating dumpling" because they saw it floating in the water after being cooked.

The night of Shangyuan Festival is the first full-moon night in the New Year. "The bright moon is the first full moon of the year." A full moon shines brightly in the sky, and people gather in the world to eat the Lantern Festival, which is shaped like a full moon. In fact, there is a very subtle correspondence. "The stars and the moon are burning in the sky and thousands of candles are burning, and there are two Lantern Festivals in the world and the sky", which expresses people's happy mood of family reunion.

Let’s look at the varieties and ways of eating Yuanxiao. Before the Northern Song Dynasty, the Yuanxiao was solid without stuffing, placed in boiling water, and mixed with sugar, candied dates, osmanthus, longan and other things. In the Southern Song Dynasty, "lactose dumplings" with sugar in the middle began to appear, which was probably the earlier stuffed Yuanxiao. Later, Yuanxiao fillings were divided into sweet and salty. Sweet fillings are generally made with white sugar, brown sugar, osmanthus, nuts, sesame seeds, etc.; salty fillings are mostly meat fillings, either single meat or meat and vegetable packages. Yuanxiao is mostly boiled in water, but some are fried. The "fried Zhui Zi" in "Lushi Miscellanies" is actually a kind of fried yuanxiao. Today, there are more ways to eat Yuanxiao, and many people have even begun to combine Chinese and Western ways of eating it. For example, chocolate has become one of the fillings for Yuanxiao.

Lantern Festival

Light poles and fiery trees and silver flowers in Aoshan are the most prominent sights of the Lantern Festival, and they also best summarize the activities of this festival, that is, lighting up lanterns and setting fires. Lighting up lanterns and setting fire are the main festival activities of the Lantern Festival, and other lantern viewing tours and social fire performances are directly or indirectly developed and derived from this. The original lamp was simple and static. It could not move, had little decoration, and was mostly single and independent. In the subsequent development and change process, decoration took the first step, and the inside and outside of the lamp were carved and decorated.

The Lantern Festival is a traditional festival with more than 2,000 years of tradition, and its customs are still very popular in China today. Now, before and after every Lantern Festival, no matter in villages or towns, people have to put up lanterns and enjoy the lanterns. Fireworks are also indispensable. In addition to lights, the more prominent activities of the contemporary Lantern Festival are various social fires, such as lion dancing, dragon lantern playing, land boat racing, stilt walking, waist drum beating, and yangko dancing. These performances are also staged every year in overseas Chinese residential areas and remain popular. The Lantern Festival can be regarded as China's carnival.

The Lantern Festival is inseparable from "making a fuss". Putting up lanterns and watching lantern races is called "making lanterns", social operas are called "making a social fire", and the whole activity is called "making a Lantern Festival". It wouldn't be the Lantern Festival if it was noisy. During the Lantern Festival, in addition to the decorations and decorations such as lanterns, fireworks, and opera houses, the most outstanding thing is probably the large number of people. It can be seen from the written records of the era when the Lantern Festival customs were formed not long ago that people who watched the Lantern Festival at that time had forgotten to walk shoulder to shoulder and fill the streets with alleys.

When you talk about making trouble, you have to put on a show. There are big dramas and small dramas. When there are singing and dancing on the stage and the flowers are spinning, it is impossible not to make a fuss.

Being noisy has its own value. Chinese people appreciate the ability to find tranquility in the midst of hustle and bustle, so they admire "big hermits in the city" more than "little hermits in the mountains and forests." In fact, the commotion of the Spring Festival, the commotion of the Lantern Festival, and the commotion of the Shehuo Festival also have the meaning of calming down amidst the chaos.

At the same time, people think that life is interesting only if they make trouble like this. Therefore, it is a supplement to life, an additive and a coloring agent. With it, life can be fulfilling, peaceful and colorful. It can even be said that this trouble is part of ideal life.

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Shangyuan Festival. That night is called Lantern Festival, so it is also called "Lantern Festival", commonly known as "Fifteenth Night". The Lantern Festival is one of the three major traditional festivals in my country, and some activities are held across the country to celebrate it. Because the customs of a place are determined by the natural environment and social environment of the place, some interesting customs have emerged during the Lantern Festival in Chaoshan area that are different from other places.

Hanging wedding lanterns

Lamps are a symbol of light and joy in the ritual of worshiping gods. From the 11th to the 18th day of the first lunar month, especially on the Lantern Festival, every household in Chaoshan has the custom of lighting up lights and chandeliers. Because "deng" and "ding" in Teochew dialect have the same pronunciation, lighting up lanterns and having a baby are close pronunciations, so Chaozhou people believe that lighting up a lantern is a good omen for having a baby. On the Lantern Festival, people carry lanterns and prepare paper and silver incense candles, go to temples in the countryside to light fires, and hang them on shrines and bedside at home. This is called "hanging happy lanterns."

In addition, if a boy is born after the Lantern Festival last year, the family must pick up a pair of red lanterns from the 13th day of the first lunar month, write their names on red paper under the lantern screen, and happily hang them on the lantern stand of the clan ancestral hall in the village. , which symbolizes the addition of a baby to the family. Every night, family members carry their children to the ancestral hall, light candles in their own lanterns to make them red, and accept congratulations from the surrounding villagers. Lantern Festival night is even more solemn and lively.

Making Ding Table

In rural areas of Chaoshan, families who had given birth to a boy in the previous year would hold a banquet in the ancestral hall on Lantern Festival night to celebrate the "birth of Ding", which is commonly known as "Making Ding Table" ". There are two types of banquets, one is called "Dragon Boat Banquet", which uses many square tables connected together, and the guests gather around to eat, just like rowing dragon boats; the other is called "Zou Ma Xi", which means that no matter how close relatives or friends are, everyone can enjoy the meal together. Anyone you know or don't know can come in and eat, and then leave after finishing the meal. The host will re-set the dishes and entertain another group of guests, one after another. This latter type of banquet is usually done by richer and more generous families. In the old society, fashionable people were very competitive and obsessed with face. Any family that gave birth to a boy would pay great attention to running the table and take pride in doing so decently. Even poor families, in order not to lose face, borrow money from everywhere, resulting in heavy debts, or they reluctantly sell their brothers and use the money they get to pay for the heavy office expenses. This is what people often call "giving birth to Ah Xi". The origin of the saying "selling Ah Da". After liberation, due to the progress of the times and the advancement of ideas, although the Chaozhou people still had the custom of hosting a small table for the Lantern Festival, they mostly changed it to their own homes, and they were limited to entertaining closer relatives and better friends. People, no one cares.

Ask for happy things

On the Lantern Festival, many villages set up altars to worship gods. The temples and ancestral halls were all brightly lit and filled with smoke. Devotees and believers rushed to pay their respects. They were extremely crowded and lively. Chickens, geese, ducks, candies, rice crackers, flowers and candles are displayed in front of the altar