How do people in China celebrate New Year's Day?

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 greetings, some of which are led by the same clan leader from door to door.

Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings; Others get together to congratulate each other, which is called "collective worship". Because it is time-consuming and laborious to pay New Year greetings at home, some elites and scholars later congratulated each other with stickers, thus developing the later "New Year greeting cards".

Step 2 clean the dust

"On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house". According to Lu 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 intention is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck.

This custom has placed people's desire to break through the old and create new ones and their prayers to bid farewell to the old and usher in the new. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean the environment, clean all kinds of utensils, 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.

Step 3 post Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring stickers, couplets, Spring Festival couplets and peach symbols. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and exquisite 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.

Extended data:

Spring Festival is the product of agricultural society. In ancient China, "Spring Festival" first refers to the festival sequence of spring, which is basically synonymous with the word spring, and later refers to New Year's Day of the Lunar New Year. In agricultural society, the weather has the greatest influence on material production. "Cold coming and summer going, autumn harvest and winter storage" is a true portrayal of agricultural production.

In the article "Celebrating the Spring Festival in Beijing", Mr. Lao She listed various phenomena of the Spring Festival and pointed out that they are all related to the agricultural society, which is completely correct. The food culture during the Spring Festival is based on the rich and colorful products of agricultural society. The entertainment culture during the Spring Festival is based on winter leisure in agricultural farming.

The culture of offering sacrifices to gods during the Spring Festival is based on farmers' praying for good weather in heaven so that crops can be harvested. Almost all cultural forms during the Spring Festival are typical manifestations of agricultural culture.

Tradition is often a double-edged sword, which accumulates history and enriches culture, but its ideas and cultural identity formed in a specific historical stage may also hinder the infiltration of new ideas and concepts.

As a traditional culture, the Spring Festival is also a double-edged sword. Its positive influence has long been known to all in China. However, some customs that follow tradition and are not suitable for modern society are felt by people, but they may not understand them deeply.

How to publicize the positive influence of the Spring Festival culture, dispel the negative influence of the traditional culture of the Spring Festival, and give the Spring Festival more modern significance and flavor of the times is exactly the topic that we can calm down and think after celebrating this peaceful and beautiful Spring Festival. Today, it is of great significance to interpret the ideological background of the Spring Festival from a modern perspective.

People's Network-Origin, Customs and Eating Habits of the Spring Festival

People's Network-Spring Festival: A Contemporary Interpretation of Traditional Festivals