Information about the Spring Festival★50 words

Overview of the Spring Festival

The Spring Festival (Spring Festival) is the most solemn traditional festival among Chinese people. On the first day of the first lunar month of the lunar calendar, it is also called the lunar year, commonly known as "Chinese New Year" and "New Year". The Spring Festival has a long history. It originated from the activities of worshiping gods and ancestors at the beginning and end of the year during the Yin and Shang Dynasties. According to the Chinese lunar calendar, the first day of the first lunar month was called Yuanri, Yuanchen, Yuanzheng, Yuanshuo, New Year's Day, etc. in ancient times. It was commonly known as the first day of the new year. During the Republic of China, the Gregorian calendar was switched to the Gregorian calendar. January 1st of the Gregorian calendar was called New Year's Day. The first day of the lunar calendar was called New Year's Day. The first day of the month is called the Spring Festival.

Spring Festival Humanities

The Spring Festival is here, which means that spring is coming, everything is revived, vegetation is renewed, and a new round of sowing and harvesting seasons is about to begin. People have just passed through the long winter of ice and snow, and the vegetation has withered, and they have long been looking forward to the days of spring and flowers blooming. When the New Year arrives, they will naturally welcome this festival with joy, singing and dancing.

For thousands of years, people have made New Year celebrations extremely colorful. Every year from the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month to the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, this period of time is called "Spring Welcome Day" by the folks. It is called "Dust Sweeping Day", and it is a traditional habit of our people to sweep dust and maintain hygiene before the Spring Festival.

Then every household prepares New Year's goods. About ten days before the festival, people start to busy purchasing items. New Year's goods include chicken, duck, fish, tea, wine, oil sauce, north and south roasted seeds and nuts, candies, bait and fruits. They must buy enough. It is necessary to prepare some gifts for visiting relatives and friends during the New Year. Children should buy new clothes and hats to wear during the New Year.

Before the festival, New Year messages written in red paper and yellow letters should be pasted on the door of the house, that is, Spring Festival couplets written on red paper. Brightly colored New Year pictures with auspicious meanings are posted in the house. Ingenious girls cut out beautiful window grilles and paste them on the windows. In front of the door, hang red lanterns or paste the word "Fu" and the statues of the God of Wealth and the Door God. The word "Fu" can also be pasted upside down, so that passers-by can say blessing If it falls, it means blessing has arrived. All these activities are to add enough festive atmosphere to the festival.

Another name for the Spring Festival is the New Year. In past legends, Nian is an imaginary animal that brings bad luck to people. The year comes. The trees are withered and the grass is barren; as the year passes, everything grows and flowers are everywhere. How can the year pass? It is necessary to use firecrackers to blast the house, so there is a custom of burning firecrackers. This is actually another way to heighten the lively scene.

The Spring Festival is a happy and peaceful festival, and it is also a day for family reunions. Children who are away from home have to go home to celebrate the Spring Festival. The night before the New Year is the 30th night of the twelfth lunar month of the old year, also called New Year's Eve, also called Reunion Eve. At this time of transition between the old and the new, staying up late is one of the most important annual activities. On New Year's Eve, the whole family stays up together. Staying up on New Year's Eve, gathering together to drink and enjoy family happiness. In northern areas, there is a custom of eating dumplings on New Year's Eve. The method of making dumplings is to mix the noodles first, and the word "harmony" means "he"; the word "jiaohe" in dumplings is a homophonic sound, and "he" and "jiao" mean "get together". Meaning, also takes the meaning of "Gengsui Jiaozi". In the south, it is customary to eat rice cakes during the New Year. The sweet and sticky rice cakes symbolize the sweetness and prosperity of life in the new year.

When the first rooster crows, or the New Year’s bell rings, firecrackers blast in the streets, and every family is filled with joy. The new year has begun, and men, women, old and young are all dressed in festive costumes. First, we give New Year greetings to the elders in the family. During the festival, we also give New Year's money to the children and have a New Year's dinner. On the second and third day of the Lunar New Year, we start visiting relatives and friends, paying New Year greetings to each other, congratulating each other, saying congratulations on the new year, congratulations on getting rich, and congratulations. , wishes for a happy New Year, and activities such as ancestor worship.

The warm atmosphere of the festival not only permeates every household, but also fills the streets and alleys everywhere. In some local markets, there are lion dances, dragon lanterns, fire performances, flower markets, temple fairs, etc. custom. During this period, the city is full of lanterns and the streets are full of tourists. It is very lively and unprecedented. The Spring Festival is not really over until after the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month.

The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Han people, but more than a dozen ethnic minorities such as Manchu, Mongolian, Yao, Zhuang, Bai, Gaoshan, Hezhe, Hani, Daur, Dong and Li also have the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival. The form of celebrating the festival has its own national characteristics and is more meaningful.

The origin of the Spring Festival

The concepts of the Spring Festival and the year originally came from agriculture. In ancient times, people called the growth cycle of the grain "year". "Shuowen·Hebu": "Nian, the grain is ripe."

The lunar calendar was produced during the Xia and Shang dynasties. The moon cycle was used as the month, and the year was divided into twelve months. The day when the moon was not visible was called the new moon of each month. The first day of the first lunar month was called the first day of the year, which is the first day of the year. Beginning, also called Nian, the name of Nian started from the Zhou Dynasty. It was not officially fixed until the Western Han Dynasty and continues to this day. But in ancient times, the first day of the first lunar month was called "New Year's Day". It was not until the victory of the Revolution of 1911 in modern China that the Nanjing Provisional Government stipulated the use of the lunar calendar among the people in order to adapt to the agricultural season and facilitate statistics, and the Gregorian calendar was implemented in government agencies, factories, mines, schools and groups. , the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar is called New Year's Day, and the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar is called the Spring Festival.

The origin of the New Year: Modern folk custom calls the Spring Festival also called the Chinese New Year. In fact, the origins of the New Year and the Spring Festival are very different. So how did "year" come from? There are two main theories among the people: one is: According to legend, in ancient China there was a monster called "Nian" with long tentacles on its head and it was extremely ferocious. "Nian" lives deep on the bottom of the sea all year round, only climbing ashore every New Year's Eve to devour livestock and harm people.

The Spring Festival in the traditional sense refers to the period from the twelfth lunar month's eighth day of the twelfth lunar month or the twelfth lunar month's twenty-third lunar month to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month as the climax. During the Spring Festival, a traditional festival, my country's Han nationality and most ethnic minorities hold various celebration activities. Most of these activities focus on worshiping gods and Buddhas, paying homage to ancestors, removing the old and bringing in the new, welcoming the new year, welcoming good fortune, and praying for a good harvest. The activities are rich and colorful with strong national characteristics.

The Spring Festival originated from the "December Festival" in my country's primitive society. It is said that at the end of the twelfth lunar month, people kill pigs to offer sacrifices to God, praying for good weather and abundant harvests in the coming year. People paint their faces with cinnabar, decorate them with bird wings, sing and dance. As for the name "Spring Festival", it was first seen in "Book of the Later Han Dynasty·Yang Zhen": "There is no snow in winter, no rain during the Spring Festival, and all officials are anxious."

On September 27, 1949, New China was founded. , at the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, it was adopted that the world's common Gregorian calendar era be adopted, and the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar is designated as New Year's Day, commonly known as the Gregorian calendar year; the first day of the first lunar month is usually around the beginning of spring, so The first month of the lunar calendar is designated as the "Spring Festival", commonly known as the lunar year.

Spring Festival legends

One of the Spring Festival legends: Staying up late to welcome the new year

Staying up late means staying up late on the last night of the old year to welcome the new year. The custom of staying up late on New Year's Eve is also called "staying up late" on New Year's Eve. Looking into the origin of this custom, there is an interesting story spread among the people:

In ancient times, there was a ferocious monster that lived scattered in the deep mountains and dense forests. People called them "Nian". It has a ferocious appearance and a ferocious nature. It specializes in eating birds, animals, and scale insects. It changes its taste every day, ranging from kowtowing insects to living people, making people talk about the "New Year". Later, people gradually grasped the activity pattern of "Nian". It would rush to crowded places to taste fresh food every three hundred and sixty-five days, and its appearance time would always be after dark, until the rooster crows and dawn. , they returned to the mountains and forests.

Having calculated the date when the "New Year" would be rampant, the people regarded this terrible night as a critical moment and called it "New Year's Eve". They also came up with a whole set of ways to celebrate the New Year: every day. On this night, every household has prepared dinner in advance, turned off the fire and cleaned the stove, fastened all the chicken pens and cattle pens, sealed the front and back doors of the house, and ate the "New Year's Eve dinner" hiding in the house. The dinner has an unlucky meaning, so it is very sumptuous. In addition to having the whole family gather around to dine together to express harmony and reunion, one must also offer sacrifices to the ancestors before eating, pray for the blessings of the ancestors' gods, and spend the time in peace. That night, after dinner, no one dared to go to sleep. They huddled together and chatted to strengthen their courage. Gradually, we formed the habit of staying up late on New Year's Eve.

The custom of keeping the year old arose in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and many literati in the Liang Dynasty wrote poems about keeping the year old. "One night lasts two years, and the fifth watch divides two years." People light candles or oil lamps and keep vigil all night, which symbolizes driving away all evil plagues and looking forward to good luck in the new year. This custom has been passed down to this day.

Spring Festival Legend 2: Wannian created the calendar

According to legend, in ancient times, there was a young man named Wannian who had an idea when he saw that the seasons were very chaotic at that time. The plan to set the seasons accurately. But he couldn't find a way to calculate time. One day, when he was tired from going up the mountain to chop firewood, he sat under the shade of a tree to rest. The movement of the tree shadows inspired him. He designed a dial to measure the sun's shadow and measure the time of the day. Later, the dripping spring on the cliff inspired him, and he made a five-layer clepsydra to calculate time.

As time went by, he discovered that every three hundred and sixty days, the four seasons cycled around again, and the length of the days repeated themselves.

The king at that time was named Zu Yi, and he was often distressed by the unpredictable weather conditions. After Wan Nian found out, he took the sundial and the clepsydra to see the emperor and explained to Zu Yi the principles of the movement of the sun and the moon. After Zu Yi heard this, Long Yan was overjoyed and felt that it made sense. So he left ten thousand years to build the Sun and Moon Pavilion in front of the Temple of Heaven, and built the sundial platform and leaky pot pavilion. He also hopes to accurately measure the laws of the sun and the moon, calculate the accurate morning and evening times, and create a calendar to benefit the people of the world.

Once, Zu Yi went to learn about the progress of the ten thousand year test calendar. When he climbed up to the Temple of the Sun and Moon, he saw a poem engraved on the stone wall beside the Temple of Heaven:

The sun rises and sets three hundred and six times, starting all over again.

There are four seasons of vegetation and trees, and there are twelve circles in one year.

Knowing that the Wannian calendar has been created, I personally went to the Sun and Moon Pavilion to visit Wannian. Wannian pointed to the sky and said to Zu Yi: "Now is the end of the twelve months. The old year is over and the new year has begun. Please pray to the king to set a festival." Zu Yi said: "Spring is the beginning of the year, so let's call it the Spring Festival." It is said that this is the origin of the Spring Festival.

Winter passed and spring came, year after year, ten thousand years after long-term observation and careful calculation, an accurate solar calendar was formulated. When he presented the solar calendar to his successor, his face was full of silver. Must. The monarch was deeply moved. In order to commemorate Wannian's achievements, he named the solar calendar "Wannian Calendar" and named Wannian the sun, moon and longevity star. Later, people hung pictures of longevity stars during the Chinese New Year, which is said to commemorate the ten thousand years of great virtue and respect.

Spring Festival Legend Three: Pasting Spring Festival Couplets and the Door God

It is said that the custom of pasting Spring Festival couplets began in the Hou Shu period more than a thousand years ago, which is evidenced by history. In addition, according to the "Jade Candle Collection", "Yanjing Chronicles" and other works, the original form of Spring Festival couplets is what people call "Peach Talisman".

In ancient Chinese mythology, it is said that there is a world of ghosts. There is a mountain in it. There is a large peach tree covering three thousand miles on the mountain, and there is a golden rooster on the treetop. Whenever the golden rooster crows in the morning, the ghosts who wandered out at night will rush back to the ghost land. The gate of the ghost realm is located in the northeast of the peach tree. There are two gods standing by the gate, named Shen Tu and Yu Lei. If a ghost does something harmful to nature at night, Shen Tu and Yu Lei will immediately discover it and catch it, tie it up with a rope made of awning reed, and send it to feed the tiger. Therefore, all the ghosts in the world are afraid of Shen Tu and Yu Lei. So people carved their images out of peach wood and placed them at their doorsteps to avoid evil and harm. Later, people simply engraved the names of Shen Tu and Yu Lei on peach boards, believing that doing so could also suppress evil and eliminate evil. This kind of peach wood board was later called "Peach Run".

In the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on peach boards, one without losing the meaning of peach wood to suppress evil, the other to express their good wishes, and the third to decorate the door for beauty. Couplets are also written on red paper, which symbolizes joy and auspiciousness, and are posted on both sides of doors and windows during the New Year to express people's best wishes for good luck in the coming year.

In order to pray for the good health of the family, people in some places still retain the habit of sticking to the door god. It is said that if two door gods are posted on the door, all monsters and ghosts will be intimidated. Among the people, the door god is a symbol of righteousness and force. The ancients believed that people with strange looks often have magical talents and extraordinary abilities. They are upright and kind-hearted, and it is their nature and responsibility to catch ghosts and demons. Zhong Kui, the ghost-hunting master that people admire, has such a strange appearance. Therefore, the folk door gods always have angry eyes and ferocious looks, holding various traditional weapons in their hands, ready to fight any ghosts who dare to come to the door. Since the doors of Chinese houses usually have two doors opening opposite each other, door gods always come in pairs.

After the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the previous two generals Shen Tu and Yu Lei, people also regarded the two Tang Dynasty generals Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong as door gods. According to legend, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was ill and heard ghosts calling outside his door, making him restless all night. So he asked the two generals to stand guard by the door with weapons in hand, and the next night there were no more ghosts to disturb them. Later, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty asked people to draw the images of these two generals and paste them on the door. This custom began to spread among the people.

Spring Festival Customs

Sweeping the Dust

"On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, dust the dust and sweep the house." According to the records of "Lu Spring and Autumn Annals", our country began to do this in the era of Yao and Shun. There is a custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival. According to folklore: because "dust" and "chen" are homophonic, sweeping dust in the New Year means "removing the old and spreading the new", and its purpose is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck.

This custom entrusts people with their desire to destroy the old and establish the new and their prayers to say goodbye to the old and usher in the new. Every Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean the environment, wash all kinds of utensils, remove and wash bedding and curtains, sweep the Liulv courtyard, dust away dirt and cobwebs, and dredge open ditches and ditches. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of doing hygiene and welcoming the New Year cleanly.

Spring couplets

Spring couplets are also called door pairs, spring posts, couplets, couplets, peach charms, etc. They describe the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and exquisite words. , is a unique literary form in my country. Every Spring Festival, every household, whether in urban or rural areas, selects a pair of red Spring Festival couplets and sticks them on the door to add a festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and became 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 Spring Festival Couplets monograph "Three Couples on the Threshold" has a detailed introduction to the origin of the couplets and the characteristics of various works. All discussed.

There are many types of Spring Festival couplets. According to the place of use, they can be divided into door centers, frame pairs, horizontal drapes, spring strips, bucket squares, etc. The "door center" is affixed to the upper center of the door panel; the "frame pair" is affixed to the left and right door frames; the "horizontal stripe" is affixed to the crossbar of the door; the "spring strips" are affixed to the corresponding places according to different contents; "Dojin" is also called "door leaf", which is square and diamond-shaped, and is often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Pasting window grilles and pasting the word "福" upside down

In the folk, people also like to put various paper-cuts - window grilles - on their windows. Window grilles not only enhance the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in my country and has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is mostly pasted on windows, it is also called "window flower". With its unique summary and exaggeration techniques, window grilles vividly express auspicious symbols and good wishes, decorating the festival with prosperity and splendor.

At the same time as pasting Spring Festival couplets, some families have to paste large and small "福" characters on their house doors, walls, and lintels. Posting the word "福" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in my country. The word "福" refers to blessing and luck, expressing people's yearning for a happy life and their wishes for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply paste the word "福" upside down to express "happiness has arrived" and "blessing has arrived". Folks also use the word "Fu" to make various patterns with detailed drawings, such as longevity star, birthday peach, carp jumping over the dragon gate, good harvest, dragon and phoenix showing auspiciousness, etc.

New Year pictures

Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. The thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and joy to thousands of households. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in my country, reflecting the people's simple customs and beliefs and reposing their hopes for the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from the "door god". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of New Year paintings is no longer limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. In some New Year painting workshops, "Three Stars of Fortune, Luxury and Longevity", "Blessings from Heavenly Officials", "Five Grain" Classic color New Year pictures such as "Prosperous Harvest", "Prosperity of Six Livestocks", and "Welcoming Spring and Bringing Good Luck" can satisfy people's good wishes of celebrating the good year. There are three important producing areas of New Year paintings in our country: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong. They have formed three major schools of Chinese New Year paintings, each with its own characteristics.

The earliest New Year paintings collected in our country today are the woodcut New Year paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty, "Slender and Slender with the Beauty of the Country", which depict four ancient beauties: Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Ban Ji and Luzhu. The most widely circulated among the people is a New Year painting of "Mouse Marriage". It depicts an interesting scene of a mouse marrying a bride according to human customs. In the early years of the Republic of China, Shanghai Zheng Mantuo combined the calendar with New Year pictures. This is a new form of New Year pictures. This two-in-one New Year picture later developed into a wall calendar, which is now popular all over the country.

New Year's Eve

The evening of the last day of the lunar year. In addition to removing the old and replacing the old with the new. The last day of the year is called "New Year's Eve" and that night is called "New Year's Eve". People often stay up all night on New Year's Eve, which is called staying up all night. Su Shi's "Shou Sui": "Children are forced not to sleep, but stay up all night and rejoice." There is a legend about the origin of New Year's Eve: In ancient times, there was a ferocious monster named Xi, and our ancestors suffered from this most ferocious beast. Threat, it comes out to harm people every year. Later, people discovered that Xi is afraid of three things, red color, fire and sound. So in winter, people hung red peach boards on their doors, lit fires at the door, and stayed up all night, banging and banging.

That night, "Xi" broke into the village and saw red and fire lights in every house. Hearing the loud noise, he was so frightened that he ran back to the mountains and never dared to come out again. As the night passed, people congratulated each other, put on lanterns and streamers, drank and held banquets to celebrate the victory. So on the next New Year's Eve, every household would put up red Spring Festival couplets and set off firecrackers to drive away the New Year's Eve beasts and seek peace in the new year. This custom has been passed down since then, and the New Year's Eve night is called New Year's Eve.

Keeping the year old

Keeping the year old on New Year’s Eve is one of the most important annual activities. The custom of keeping the year old has been around for a long time. The earliest record can be found in the "Fengtu Zhi" of Zhouchu in the Western Jin Dynasty: On New Year's Eve, each person greets each other with gifts, which is called "giving the new year"; "Dividing the year old"; everyone stays up all night waiting for the dawn, which is called "keeping the year old".

“One night is two years old, five o’clock is divided into two days.” On New Year’s Eve, the whole family gets together, has New Year’s Eve dinner, lights candles or oil lamps, sits around the fire and chats, waiting to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year. At this time, the all-night vigil symbolizes driving away all evil plagues and looking forward to good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. In the early Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem about "keeping the year old": "The cold leaves the winter snow, and the warmth brings the spring breeze." To this day, people are still used to staying up late on New Year's Eve to welcome the new year.

In ancient times, staying up late had two meanings: older people staying up late meant "saying goodbye to the old year", which meant cherishing time; young people staying up late meant to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the transition time between the new and the old year has generally been at midnight.