What are the customs of the Cold Food Festival?

The main custom of the Cold Food Festival is that on that day, every family is forbidden to make a fire and eat cold food. In some places, there are customs such as cold food on the grave, climbing high and inserting willows.

Cold Food Festival

Cold Food Festival: 105 Summer to the future, one or two days before Tomb-Sweeping Day. When the first day of the day is a holiday, smoking is forbidden and only cold food is eaten. In the development of later generations, the customs of sweeping, climbing, swinging, cuju, crochet and cockfighting were gradually increased. The Cold Food Festival lasted for more than 2,000 years and was once called the largest folk festival in China. Cold Food Festival is the only traditional festival named after food customs in China.

The origin of the Cold Food Festival, according to historical records: During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhong Er, the son of the State of Jin, fled to other countries and lived in exile for 19 years. Minister Jiezitui always followed around and never gave up; Even "cutting stocks." Zhong Er tried to become a famous monarch "Jin Wengong". But meson tui didn't want to make a fortune, so he lived in seclusion with his mother in Mianshan. Jin Wengong ordered the release of Yamakaji to force him out of the mountain, but meson was determined not to go out of the mountain and eventually died in a fire. Jin Wengong remembered his loyalty, buried him in Mianshan, built a shrine and a temple, and ordered the prohibition of cold food on the day of Jiexiu to express his grief. This is the origin of the "Cold Food Festival".

Before the calendar reform in Tang Ruowang in the early Qing Dynasty, Tomb-Sweeping Day was scheduled for two days after the Cold Food Festival. After the reform of the Tang family, the Cold Food Festival was held the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day. The definition of the modern twenty-four solar terms follows that of the Tang Dynasty, so the Cold Food Festival is the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day.

From the Spring and Autumn Period to the present, the Cold Food Festival has a history of more than 2,600 years. The story took place in Shanxi, China, and was set as the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day. On this day, the custom of eating cold food, offering sacrifices and having an outing has been handed down and accepted by the whole country. With the passage of time, the Cold Food Festival has quietly merged into Tomb-Sweeping Day, and the feudal foolish loyalty thought represented by meson tui has also sunk into the long river of history. The people's praise for loyalty, integrity and political clarity represented by cold food has been like this for thousands of years.

Festival custom

(1) No fire.

The Cold Food Festival was also called "No Smoking Festival" in ancient times. Everyone is forbidden to make a fire and eat cold food. However, due to the persistent pursuit of sages by Chinese people, it was repeatedly banned from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and it was not until the Tang Dynasty that it was recognized and participated by the royal family. "Try new fire and new tea" in Su Shi's "Looking at Jiangnan Transcendent Taigong" is about the poet's behavior after cold food. The folk custom of forbidding fire and cold food in Shanxi is mostly one day, and only a few places are used to forbidding fire for three days.

(2) Worship ancestors

The Cold Food Festival was regarded as a "wild sacrifice" from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, it was included in Volume 87 of "Opening Ethan", which was worshipped by princes (cold food worship) and became one of the auspicious gifts officially recognized and advocated. Later, it evolved into a royal mausoleum; Official sacrifices to Confucius Temple and sages; People go to sweep graves and so on. At that time, a family or clan went to the ancestral grave to sacrifice, add soil and hang paper money. Then spread swallows and snakes and rabbits on the top of the grave, roll them down, put them on with willow branches or needles, and put them in the high place in the house to show their virtue.

(3) Diet

Cold food includes cold porridge, cold noodles, cold paste, green rice and porridge. Cold food offerings include noodles, snakes and rabbits, jujube cakes, refined rye, immortals, etc. There are dozens of drinks, such as spring wine, fresh tea, clear spring and sweet water. Most of them have profound implications, such as offering sacrifices to snakes and rabbits, which means that "snakes and rabbits will be rich", meaning that people are expected to be rich and the country is strong; Zituiyan, take the word "nian" in Jiexiu dialect, and don't forget to introduce and promote honesty.

People in southern Shanxi are used to eating bean jelly, cold noodles and cold cakes. In northern Shanxi, people are used to cooking (that is, steamed cake noodles or white noodles are cut into dice-sized squares, then dried and fried with earth) as food for the Cold Food Festival. In some mountainous areas, the whole family eats fried noodles on this day (that is, stir-fry whole grains, mix various dried fruits and grind them into noodles).

The Cold Food Festival is celebrated by steaming cold swallows. Flour is kneaded into swallows, songbirds, animals, melons and fruits, flowers, etc. The steamed swallows are colored, inserted into the needles of jujube trees, decorated indoors and given as gifts.

(4) willow insertion

The symbol of the vitamin cold food festival was originally to miss Jie Zhi's pursuit of political clarity. As early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there was a record in the Chronicle of Jingchu that "every family broke willow during the cold food between Jianghuai and Suzhou", and it is still popular to wear mustard flowers and wheat leaves instead of willow branches in Anhui, Suzhou and other places. According to historical records in various places, there are some sayings, such as "willow branches are inserted into graves", "willow branches are folded into households", "willow branches are inserted into the eaves of sleeping stoves", "wearing a head or a tie", "offering Buddha gods in bottles" and "willow branches are inserted into doors", so there is a saying among the people that "Qingming (cold food) does not wear willow, and the beauty becomes bald".

(5) Go for an outing

Also known as spring outing, Sheng Xing was born in Tang and Song Dynasties. Song Lizhi's words "What I saw in the East Valley" say: "I swept things, and then I went home happily with my brother, wife, relatives and deeds." In the Ming Dynasty, a brief introduction to the scenery of emperors recorded the scene of walking in Beijing: "During the Qingming Festival, people were walking, and there were thousands of tourists, passengers and pedestrians." Can be said to be extremely prosperous.

(6) Swing

Swing was originally a female amusement in the ancient cold food festival. Wang Renyu's "Kaiyuan Tianbao Legacy" in the Five Dynasties recorded that "the Tianbao Palace Mid-solstice Cold Food Festival actually erected a swing, which made the wives and concubines in the palace laugh and thought it was a feast. The emperor called it a semi-fairy play, so the scholars in the capital called it. " Wen Yanbo, the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, wrote the poem "Cold Food Day Crossing the Dragon Gate", which is described as "the willow on the bridge hangs on a line and hangs more colorful ropes."

(7) urging

Popular in the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty's "Literature General Examination" contained: "Cuju, Gai began in the Tang Dynasty. Plant two bamboos, several feet high, and wrap the net on the net to measure the ball for the door. The ball is divided into friends and friends, and the game is divided into corners. " History: Tang Dezong, Xian Zong, Mu Zong and Jing Zong all like to play cuju, and Yuan Gui, the state capital, wrote: "In the twelfth year of Zhenyuan, Tang Dezong, the Cold Food Festival was held in February, and the Imperial Palace East Pavilion was used to watch Wu Dachen and Wu's children, and a banquet was held for the ministers to be slaughtered." In the Song Dynasty, there was "Taizu Cuju Map".

(8) Poetry

During the Cold Food Festival, literati or homesick relatives, or borrowing scenery, have feelings, feelings, inspirations, poems and chanters. According to the survey, The Complete Poems of Tang Dynasty alone contains more than 300 poems by famous people such as Tang Xuanzong, Zhang Shuo, Du Fu, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, as well as more than 100 poems in the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, making it a wonderful work in Chinese poetry art.

(9) Clean intestines

Picking wild vegetables during the cold food festival not only exercises the body, but also meets the needs of the human body, killing two birds with one stone. Finally, I want to talk about psychological adjustment in spring health preservation. Women are injured in spring, and it can prevent mental illness to come out for fun and enjoy a spring outing at the Cold Food Festival. Although men don't hurt spring, when the liver-qi is too strong and they are prone to mental disorders in spring, they cherish the memory of their ancestors and place their grief on them, which has played a role in restraining anger. Conditioning the liver is quite beneficial. After 5,000 years of cultural nourishment, cold food and Qingming are integrated into one, becoming a festival to remember old friends and inspire strangers.