Artistic articles on folk sentiments and customs related to the "New Year"

Time flies so fast and it’s the Chinese New Year again. "Inadvertently" I turned from a black-haired boy to a white-headed old man. I even staggered a little when I walked. When I climbed high and looked into the distance, I started wheezing and gasping. Who knows what happened. When I was a child, I looked forward to the New Year. New clothes, new shoes, meat and steamed buns seemed to be crowded behind the gate of time. Just waiting for the "New Year" festival to arrive, they would rush to you with a roar. In fact, the so-called "new" is nothing more than tearing down the old and replacing it with the new. At that time, life was difficult, and it was difficult for my mother to try every means to provide food and clothing for the whole family on the New Year's Day. The Chinese New Year is the most tiring day for mothers. As I grow up day by day, my interest in celebrating the New Year becomes less and less. Sometimes I even think: Who invented the Chinese New Year? It makes people so tired, so overwhelmed, so helpless yet pretending to be naive. So every year during the Chinese New Year, my house was as deserted as before, which in turn provoked unanimous protests from the children. When I reached this age and reached the age of seventy, I realized that the Chinese New Year is for the word "harmony". Our sages attached great importance to "harmony" and "order" and tried every means to achieve orderly harmony. Celebrating the New Year and the holidays is one of the ways. For thousands of years, we have built our country on agriculture. In the preface of the Spring and Autumn Dynasties, you work hard and reap the rewards, and the harmony between heaven and agriculture creates harmony in the family, society, and country. Don't curse the past "building a country based on agriculture" as if "burning bridges", thinking that it is a backward order. If there had not been a "country based on agriculture", there would probably be no suitable calendar in the world. Regardless of whether it is a solar calendar or a lunar calendar, the relationship between the sun, the moon, and agricultural affairs is always the foundation of the calendar. Only with the calendar can there be "years" to pass. Summarizing the past and looking forward to the coming year, "year" is filled with experiences, lessons, desires and fantasies, making it the most interesting day in the year. Family, friendship, and love are condensed into one day and night, leaving you unable to get enough. In order to make this day colorful, the sages thought of many ways. For example, what is "year" and why is there so much emphasis on celebrating the new year? This is a fascinating story. It is said that there is a monster named "Nian" who always comes out to harm people on that day. Smashing things, destroying farm tools, stealing food, and eating livestock made people afraid and hid. The more you hide, the more aggressive it becomes. Every time, "Nian" turns the village upside down and then walks away. One time, "Nian" came again as usual. At dawn, it was tired and hid in a woodshed to sleep. Attentive people discovered that every family in the village was harmed, but only one family was safe. There was only an old woman and a little granddaughter in this family. They were dressed in red clothes and red trousers, watching the red stove fire, with the crackling of firewood in the stove fire, and spent the night quietly. People suddenly realized that the "year" is afraid of red, fire and sound. So people got up in a hurry, put on red clothes and red trousers, beat various sounders, held lanterns and torches, shouted and ran around the village. "Nian" was so frightened that he didn't know where to hide, so he ran away. Therefore, people "stay up" every New Year's Eve, waiting around the fire for the arrival of the "New Year". The next day, they asked each other and wished each other well. This was called "New Year greetings." This legend fully expresses the desire to ward off evil spirits, pray for blessings, and welcome good luck. It should be before the calendar, about 7,000 to 6,000 years ago. Among the cultural relics we unearthed, there is a Jiangzhai site dating back 6,000 years ago. It belongs to the Neolithic Age. A family centered on the old mother lived together in harmony. There were stoves and crackling firewood. Their favorite color is red, and they can already weave linen and spin kudzu. All this seems to be consistent with the objective conditions in the legend. It is said that the Yellow Emperor created the stems and branches and made the calendar. The calendar of the Xia Dynasty was quite complete. It is said that today's lunar calendar is the continuation of the lunar calendar, so it is also called the lunar calendar. With the calendar, there is also the concept of years and years. There is no need for this legend to be the theoretical pioneer that opened the way. In some places, it is almost ridiculous to change the legendary "sounder" to "set off firecrackers". Firecrackers should be a product after the Song Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, Du Fu traveled from Shaanxi and Gansu to Sichuan and arrived in Chengdu on New Year's Eve. At dawn the next day, Du Fu saw a prosperous metropolis. During the New Year, there was nothing more than "playing the flute and the sheng", and there was no louder sound because gunpowder had not been invented at that time. It wasn't until Wang Anshi's active era that he was "died away by the sound of firecrackers." Pushing this legend back three or four thousand years only proves that our descendants are much more confused than our predecessors. Many New Year customs, such as hanging peach charms, posting door gods, cleaning the house, offering sacrifices to stoves, etc., are the product of accumulation and development over the years and are not completed all at once.

Many of them incorporate the etiquette and festivals of Buddhism and Taoism, and gradually become Chinese and become authentic Chinese festival etiquette. Recently, some Western programs, or American programs, have been incorporated into the Spring Festival, making the Spring Festival a mixture of Chinese and Western styles, much like today's world style: glitzy and exaggerated. Recently, "Christmas" has become more popular than the Spring Festival. It seems that celebrating Christmas is connecting with the world and globalizing. In fact, Christmas is not a common holiday in all European and American countries. Many countries in Europe do not have this holiday, which is a major holiday in the United States. That year I went to Taiwan, just in time for Christmas. The newspapers called it "Christmas Day," the birthday of Jesus. The term "Christmas" does exist, and it was reserved for Chinese saints. That saint is Confucius. I still support this approach. If you want to celebrate Christmas, celebrate "Christmas" to commemorate the birthdays of Chinese saints. The reason is simple: we are not a Christian country. We respect Jesus and our own saints. His influence on the Chinese people is far greater than that of Jesus. Why don't we commemorate him? ! From this, I thought of participating in a dialogue program on CCTV last year about how to celebrate the Spring Festival. Some people have suggested that Spring Festival customs should keep pace with the times and not be rigidly Chinese. Mr. Chen Yifei and I believe that the Spring Festival must be Chineseized. Mr. Chen said that he has been overseas for many years and knows what the Spring Festival means to overseas Chinese. The strong Chinese flavor of the Spring Festival allows every Chinese to remember their roots and culture, which is the red thread that maintains the spiritual lifeline of the Chinese people. I believe that the power of customs is hard to shake. A temporary fashion cannot compete with a long inheritance, not to mention that this inheritance is a concentrated expression of national culture. The more prosperous the society, the more people will express themselves. This is a source of national pride. Publicity. Therefore, it is very necessary to maintain and consolidate the customs of the Spring Festival. Now Mr. Chen Yifei has gone to heaven, but his words are still alive. He understands the weight of Chinese culture, and we should remember his words. It’s the Spring Festival again, so we should say some auspicious words. It’s not about socializing or hypocrisy. The Spring Festival is meant to summarize the past and pray for blessings in the coming year. We improved again last year, didn't we? The coming year will be better, for sure. I sincerely pray: May all families be happy!