On October 10, 1911, the Wuchang Uprising fired the first shots of the Xinhai Revolution, and two months later the Qing Dynasty of 296 years of the Reign of Guozuo came to an end, the Republic of China was formally established in Nanjing, and Dr. Sun Yat-sen announced his assumption of the post of Provisional President. Along with the great changes in China's social and political system is the Chinese calendar system, the Common Era year has replaced the original lunar calendar year as a new Chinese calendar system, and in Dr. Sun Yat-sen's oath of office, it is impressively "
New Year's Day of the First Year of the Republic of China
In order to end the date, Since then, China's "New Year's Day" has been linked to the first day of the Gregorian calendar year, and it is still an important festival in the Chinese.
The Provisional Government of the Republic of China was established
First, the New Year's Day festival in ancient China
In ancient China, due to the lunar calendar as the main way of timekeeping in China, New Year's Day has always represented the first day of the lunar year, that is, today's New Year's Day. The word "Yuan" in the word New Year's Day has the meaning of the first and the first, and the beginning of all things is called "Yuan", and the initial meaning of the word "Dan" is that the sun rises on the horizon, which also represents the beginning of a new day. The ancients combined the words Yuan and Dan and summarized the connotation of New Year's Day as "three yuan", that is, the yuan of the year, the yuan of the month, and the yuan of the time, which means that New Year's Day is the first day of the first month of the new year.
The meaning of New Year's Day in ancient China, where the lunar calendar was used as a calendar system, coincided with the first day of the first lunar month and the first day of the Chinese New Year. According to legend, as early as the three emperors and five emperors of the Emperor's reign, there was the term "New Year's Day". However, New Year's Day also has a different way of saying, for example, in the Han Dynasty Cui Zhen's "Three Sons of The Ming Dynasty" has "
Yuan Zheng on the day, Baifu Kong Ling
Yuanzheng here also refers to New Year's Day; the Eastern Jin Dynasty Yu expounds "Yang Du Fu" in a fu called "Yuan Chen", which also refers to New Year's Day. The Book of Jin says: "
Emperor Zhao took the first month of Mengxia as the yuan, but in fact, the spring of the New Year's Day
This means that the first month of the year is the first month of the year. Wu Zimu, a scholar of the Song Dynasty, also said in his book "Dream LiangLu":
The new day of the new month, called New Year's Day, is commonly known as the New Year. The first of the year is the first
The meaning is nothing more than that the first day of the first month is New Year's Day, and this day is also the beginning of a new year.
Statue of a dragon
It is worth mentioning that there are many kinds of calendars in ancient China, and New Year's Day has always referred to the first day of the first month of the "summer calendar". The "summer calendar" takes today's first month as the first month of the year, the shang calendar takes today's waxing moon as the first month of the year, and the weekly calendar begins with the november of today's lunar calendar. After Qin Shi Huang unified the whole country, he set today's lunar month october as the first of the year. Until the era of Emperor Wu of Han, China did not have a definite "first day of the first lunar month", and the era of Emperor Wu of Han determined the "Taichu Calendar" based on the summer calendar, with the first month of each year as the first month, and the calendar has been revised many times since then, but the point of taking the first month as the beginning of the year has not changed, and this calendar has continued until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Taichu Calendar was promulgated.
Two: The formation of today's New Year's Day festival
The ancient New Year's Day festival and the Spring Festival are a festival, so people celebrate the Spring Festival is also on new Year's Day, after the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, because Dr. Sun Yat-sen chose to use the Gregorian calendar as the chronology of the Republic of China, but did not abolish the lunar year, that is to say, the two sets of chronology systems are parallel in Chinese society. Since the lunar calendar has been popular in China for two thousand years, the vast majority of Chinese people have regarded the Spring Festival and New Year's Day as one, but the promulgation of the new calendar has separated the two, and New Year's Day has become a festival of the Gregorian New Year, and the Spring Festival represents the Lunar New Year, which makes the people very uncomfortable.
Sun Yat-sen, provisional president of the Republic of China, established the Gregorian calendar
It is recorded that in the early years of the Republic of China, from the central government to local governments, they vigorously promoted the Gregorian calendar year, and stipulated that public servants enjoyed a three-day holiday on the New Year of the Gregorian Calendar, that is, the new "New Year's Day", and the streets and alleys should also hang bunting flags to welcome the arrival of the Gregorian New Year. But thousands of years of tradition cannot be eliminated in a short period of time by compulsory order, so there is a very interesting phenomenon in Chinese society, that is, while the upper echelons are implementing and celebrating the New Year of the Gregorian Calendar, the ordinary people are still celebrating their Lunar New Year, that is, the Spring Festival, so many Chinese may spend two New Year festivals in a year.
Commemorative coin for the New Year's Day of the First Year of the Republic of China
However, with the continuous expansion of the scope of application of the New Year's Day holiday, from government departments to schools and enterprises, the influence of the Gregorian New Year, that is, the "New New Year's Day", is also expanding. There are also many merchants who have found the business opportunity of new year's day and new year, and they will produce some festive new year products to sell during the new year's day holiday. In 1927, the new government of the Republic of China was established, and in 1928 the government ordered the formal abolition of the existence of the Lunar New Year, that is, the "Spring Festival", and New Year's Day became the only legal festival in China at that time to celebrate the New Year.
After the establishment of the National Government in Nanjing in 1927, the Spring Festival was abolished
On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded, the new government still adopted the Gregorian calendar and formally determined the first day of the Gregorian calendar as "New Year's Day" at the legal level, but since then, China is still the Gregorian lunar calendar in parallel, and the two "Spring Festivals" also exist in the daily life of the people and have become two very important festivals in the year.
3. Customs of New Year's Day
In ancient times, because New Year's Day and Spring Festival were the same festival, people celebrated New Year's Day is also to celebrate the Spring Festival. In the court, the emperor would lead the civil and military officials to hold grand sacrifices and blessing activities to pray that the country would be able to adjust the wind and rain and enjoy peace in the new year. Folk customs and activities are more, every family will worship ancestors, paste couplets and set off firecrackers, children will go around begging for candy, adults will pay respects to each other and send sincere blessings, and on Chinese New Year's Eve night, people will observe the New Year, eat reunion dinner, and cook dumplings.
Ancient New Year's Day
New Year's Day cuisine is also very rich and diverse, and it is recorded in the "Jingchu Chronicle" that people in the south would drink peach soup, Tusu wine and eat an egg each. All in all, many of the customs of the current Spring Festival are also the customs of the ancient people to spend the "old" New Year's Day festival. New Year's Day is also very important today, but because the date of New Year's Day and Spring Festival is very close and people still regard the Lunar New Year As the most important festival of the year, people celebrate New Year's Day as a one-day holiday.
Tu Su wine
Wen Shijun said:
Today's New Year's Day and ancient New Year's Day have the same name but different meaning, with the change of calendar, New Year's Day has also changed from the original Lunar New Year to today's Gregorian New Year. But no matter how time passes, people's blessings and hopes for the coming year will not change before the new year is coming, whether it is New Year's Day or Spring Festival, they all pin their Chinese yearning for a better life.
bibliography:
1. Yang Liping, "The Origin of New Year's Day", Baguiqiao Journal, No. 01, 2005.
2. Zhang Wen: "The Origin of New Year's Day", Spring and Autumn, No. 01, 2001.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Liu Yue)
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