What are the traditional habits during the Spring Festival?

Chinese Spring Festival Customs

Sacrificing the Stove

The Spring Festival in my country usually kicks off with the sacrifice of the stove. In the folk song "Twenty-three, Tanggua Guan" refers to the sacrifice to the stove on the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month every year. There is a saying of "officials, three people, four boatmen and five", which means that on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the government, Generally, people hold sacrifices to the stove on the 24th, while people on the water hold sacrifices to the stove on the 25th.

Sacrificing stoves is a custom that has great influence among Chinese people and is widely spread. In the old days, almost every kitchen had a "Kitchen Lord" statue in the kitchen. People call this god "Si Ming Bodhisattva" or "Zao Lord Siming". Legend has it that he is the "Jiutian East Chef Siming Zao Wangfu Lord" conferred by the Jade Emperor. He is responsible for managing the kitchen fires of each family and is regarded as the protector of the family. worship. Most of the Kitchen King's niches are located on the north or east side of the kitchen room, with the statue of the Kitchen King in the middle. Some people who don't have a niche for the Kitchen King stick the statue of the god directly on the wall. Some statues only depict the Kitchen God alone, while others include two men and women. The goddess is called "Grandma Kitchen God". This is probably an imitation of the image of a human couple. Most of the statues of the Kitchen God also have a calendar for that year printed on them, with words such as "Master of the East Chef", "God of Human Supervision", "Head of the Family" and other words written on them to indicate the status of the Kitchen God. The couplets "God says good things, and the lower realms keep you safe" are pasted on both sides to bless the whole family.

The Kitchen God has been staying at home since New Year's Eve last year to protect and supervise the family; on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the Kitchen God will go to heaven to report the family's good deeds to the Jade Emperor in heaven. Or evil deeds, the ceremony of sending off the Kitchen God is called "Sending the Stove" or "Citing the Stove". Based on the report of the Kitchen God, the Jade Emperor handed over the good and bad fortunes that the family should receive in the new year to the hands of the Kitchen God. Therefore, for the family, the Stove Lord's report is indeed of great interest.

Sending stoves is usually held at dusk and into night. The family goes to the kitchen first, sets the table, offers incense to the Kitchen God in the shrine on the kitchen wall, and offers sugar melons made with malt sugar and noodles. Then tie bamboo strips into paper horses and fodder for livestock. Offering caramel to the Stove Lord is to sweeten his mouth. In some places, sugar is spread around the Stove Lord's mouth, and while applying it, he says: "Say more good things, but don't say bad things." This is to stuff the Stove Lord's mouth with sugar to prevent him from saying bad things. In the Tang Dynasty book "The Chronicles of the Year under the Chariot", there is a record of "smearing wine lees on the stove to make the commander (Kitchen Lord) drunk". After people coated Stove Lord's mouth with sugar, they took off the statue and went up to heaven with the paper and cigarettes. In some places, sesame straw and pine branches are piled in the yard at night, and then the Kitchen God statue that has been kept for a year is taken out of the shrine, along with the paper horse and straw, and set on fire. The yard was brightly illuminated by the fire. At this time, the family kowtowed around the fire and prayed while burning: This year is the 23rd again, and I send the Stove King off to the west. There are strong horses, there is fodder, and the journey is smooth and safe. The sugar melon offered is sweet. Please say good things to the Jade Emperor.

When giving gifts to the Kitchen God, in some places there are still several beggars who dress up and go from house to house singing songs and dancing to the Kitchen God, called "giving the Kitchen God a gift", in exchange for food.

The custom of sending stoves is very common in the north and south of my country. Mr. Lu Xun once wrote the poem "The Gengzi Sending Stoves": Chickens are given glue and candies, and clothes are provided with petals and incense. If there is nothing growing in the house, there are only a few yellow sheep.

He said in the article "Sends to Zao Lord": "On the day when Lord Zao went to heaven, a kind of candy was sold on the street, the size of an orange. We also have this kind of thing, but Bian It's like a thick little pancake. It's called "glue teeth". It's intended to stick to Zao Lord's teeth so that he can't talk bad things to the Jade Emperor. The allusion to "Yellow Sheep" in the poem comes from "The Book of the Later Han·Yin Shi Zhuan": "During the reign of Emperor Xuan, those in Yinzi Fang were extremely filial and benevolent. In the early morning of the twelfth lunar month, when the Kitchen God appeared, Zifang worshiped and received Qing: The family had a yellow sheep, so they worshiped it. Since then, they have become extremely rich, and have prospered since then. Therefore, they often sacrifice the yellow sheep to the stove during the twelfth lunar month. "Yinzi Fang saw the kitchen god Yan. , killed the yellow sheep for sacrifice, and later got good luck. From then on, the custom of killing yellow sheep to offer sacrifices to the stove has been passed down.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the offerings to the stove were quite abundant.

As time went by, the custom of making offerings to the Stove Lord on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month to pray for the safety of the family was formed. After the custom of worshiping stoves spread, starting from the Zhou Dynasty, the imperial palace also included it in sacrifice ceremonies, and the rules for worshiping stoves were established across the country, and it became a fixed ritual.

Sweeping the dust

After the Stove Ceremony is held, preparations for the New Year begin formally. Every year from the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month to New Year's Eve, Chinese folk call this period "Spring Day", also called "Dust Sweeping Day". Sweeping dust is the year-end cleaning. It is called "house sweeping" in the north and "dust dusting" in the south. Sweeping dust before the Spring Festival is a traditional habit of our people. 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. From north to south, everywhere is filled with the atmosphere of joyful hygiene and cleanliness to welcome the New Year.

Interestingly, there is a rather strange story about the origin of sweeping dust in ancient times. Legend has it that the ancients believed that there was a three-corpse god attached to each person's body. Like a shadow, he followed the person's whereabouts and was inseparable. The Three Corpse God is a guy who likes to flatter and gossip. He often spreads rumors and causes trouble in front of the Jade Emperor, describing the human world as ugly. Over time, in the Jade Emperor's impression, the human world was simply a dirty world full of sin. once. The three corpse gods secretly reported that the world was cursing the Emperor of Heaven and wanted to rebel against the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor was furious and issued an edict to quickly find out the chaos in the world. Anyone who resented the gods or disrespected the gods would have their crimes written under the eaves. Then let the spider build a web to cover it as a mark. The Jade Emperor also ordered Wang Lingguan to go down to the realm on New Year's Eve. Anyone who met a marked family would be killed and no one would be spared. Seeing that this plan was about to succeed, the three corpse gods took the opportunity to fly down to the mortal world. Regardless of the crime, they viciously marked the eaves and corners of each house so that Wang Ling Palace would kill them all. While the Three Corpse Gods were doing evil, the Kitchen Lord discovered his whereabouts and was shocked. He hurriedly found the Kitchen Lords of various families to discuss countermeasures. So, they came up with a good idea. From the day when the stove is delivered on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month to the New Year's Eve, every household must clean the house. If the household is not clean, the Stove Lord will refuse to enter. Home. Everyone followed the Stove Lord's instructions before he ascended to heaven, sweeping away the dust, dusting away the cobwebs, cleaning the doors and windows, and making their homes look brand new. When Wang Lingguan went down to inspect the world on New Year's Eve, he found that the windows of every house were bright and clean, the lights were bright, people were reunited and happy, and the world was extremely beautiful. Wang Lingguan couldn't find any sign of bad deeds, and felt very strange. He rushed back to heaven and reported to the Jade Emperor about the peace and happiness in the world and praying for a happy new year. The Jade Emperor was greatly shocked after hearing this, and issued an edict to imprison the three corpse gods. He ordered that they should be slapped three hundred times and imprisoned forever in the heavenly prison. This human disaster was saved thanks to the Kitchen God's rescue. In order to express gratitude to the Stove Lord for helping people eliminate disasters and blessing Zhang Xiang, the people always start sweeping the dust after delivering the stove, and they are busy until New Year's Eve.

The custom of "dusting and sweeping the house on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month" has a long history. According to "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals", my country had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the era of Yao and Shun. According to folklore: since "dust" and "chen" are homophones, sweeping dust in the New Year has the meaning of "removing the old and spreading the new", and its purpose is to sweep away all "poor 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.