How to spend the Spring Festival in detail? Folklorist Mai Lingling explains it to you

From ancient times to the present, every Spring Festival is a concentrated display of Chinese folklore. Before the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, a reporter from Jing Pao interviewed Hong Kong folklorist and Yi scholar Mai Lingling to learn about folk customs and their origins.

Chinese the most ceremonial festival is undoubtedly the Spring Festival. From ancient times to the present, every Spring Festival is a concentrated display of Chinese folklore. So, what are the important things to pay attention to? How should these rituals be treated? Before the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, the Crystal Daily reporter interviewed The Hong Kong folklorist and Yi scholar Mai Lingling.

As a highly popular Yi scholar on the Internet, Mai Lingling believes that behind the folklore is a broad and profound national culture, and when we continue to inherit these rituals, we must study the history and reasons behind these rituals, only in this way can we better pass on the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation.

Lingling Mai

Tail tooth Xie Stove opens the New Year to interpret the gratitude of Chinese

Mai Lingling believes that Chinese bones, there is a unique sense of romantic ritual.

Spring has Spring Festival, Summer has Dragon Boat Festival, Autumn has Mid-Autumn, and Winter Solstice has winter solstice. As the festival with the strongest sense of ceremony, the Spring Festival in ancient times began to be calculated from the tail teeth to the 15th Lantern Festival of the first month, which lasted for a month before and after, and there were many rituals, customs and precautions. The differences between the north and the south of China, specific to the customs, because of the differences in climate, diet and other aspects, there are also differences, coupled with the change of customs and scientific and technological progress in modern society, many traditional cultures and customs have also had many new interpretations.

"In the past, because the traffic was not developed, the market would not be held frequently, people generally used to gather trade on the second and sixteenth days of each month, and December 16 was the last day of the business people to go out of the market every year, commonly known as tail teeth," Mai Lingling said, because China is a country founded on agriculture, and whether the crop harvest is the most affects trade and commerce, so there is gratitude for the land, so there is a practice of worshipping the land as a god.

In the past, the folk would also worship the land lord on every day of going out of the market, and on the day of the tail tooth, they paid more attention to it, and the people who did business would not only solemnly reward the land god, the company would also eat together, thank you for your hard work for a year. Tail teeth, which are also an important day for evaluating employees in ancient times, will be paid bonuses if they perform well, but if the owner decides to dismiss the employees, he will point the chicken head at him at the banquet in a suggestive manner, representing that he will no longer be hired in the coming year, and this dish is the legendary "ruthless chicken". Today, with the development of commerce, this custom has disappeared, and today, only some seafood shops and rural areas in Hong Kong still retain the custom of tail tooth feast, and in the city, tail tooth has also been transformed into an annual meeting and other forms of inheritance. However, on the day of the tail tooth, many places, especially in Fujian and Quanzhou, will still sincerely worship the landlord and pray for smooth wind and rain in the coming year, abundant grain, and prosperous business.

"From the tail teeth, it has officially entered the rhythm of the New Year." Xie Zao rewards the gods, that is, small years, is the folk custom after the tail tooth, generally there is a "official three people four" or "north three south four" culture, that is, the official or the northerners in the year of the twenty-three Xie stove, other people or southerners are used to pay the gods in the year of twenty-four. As for why he should thank the stove king, the traditional saying is that the god of stove returns to the heavenly court at the end of each year to report the good and evil things of the people in the past year, and in order to ask the stove king to say more good things for himself in front of the jade emperor, the family uses tangyuan sweets to envelop him, and also as a thank you for the care of the stove king for a year. "I think that no matter what kind of reward god and thank the heavens and the earth in China, it is a gesture of gratitude, I hope that people can be safe, healthy, healthy and healthy, all goes well, foreign countries have Thanksgiving, and China's gratitude is more reflected in all aspects, and there is a grateful heart for all things in heaven and earth." Mai Lingling said.

Removing the old and welcoming the new means positive

After Xie Zhao, it was time for the cleaning customs that were highly valued throughout the year. Legend has it that after returning to the Heavenly Court, Zaojun found that a god with an ill-intentioned mind slandered the Jade Emperor for deliberate rebellion, and the rebels' homes were marked with spider webs, and asked the Jade Emperor to send troops to punish them. In order to avoid the victimization of the people, the stove king sent a small god to the people to announce: every household must be cleaned and cleaned well, otherwise the new year will not be blessed by the stove king returning home, so the people have avoided a disaster, and since then the custom of cleaning up, removing the old and welcoming the new has been formed.

As an important part of the succession, no matter how the form changes and how simplified it is, it still continues to this day, and is given the special meaning of finishing the year to meet the new atmosphere of the coming year. "Actually, I understand that the previous cleaning is the current storage (laughs). Often some netizens ask me which day the cleaning is more appropriate, my suggestion is that if you can clean up on the auspicious day, of course, it is best, if you can only clean the home on the weekend, it is best to make a start at the auspicious time of the year's cleaning, a little to clean up the items, as a symbol of cleaning, and then use the weekend time to sort out carefully. ”

After sending the gods to heaven and getting rid of the old and welcoming the new, every household has made arrangements for the upcoming New Year in terms of food and drinks and New Year goods. At this time, the Spring Festival And the Purchase of New Year Flowers will also be arranged. Mai Lingling said that in recent years, because of the epidemic, many of the habits of visiting the flower market have also changed, in the past, she was in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, she would see many citizens visiting the flower market to buy New Year goods, in order to seek a good color head, sometimes more lively than Hong Kong. Fortunately, online shopping in the mainland is more convenient and can better solve the demand.

Chinese New Year's Eve meals, keeping the New Year as the highlight of the New Year needless to say, the first day of the New Year to go out and walk in the auspicious direction, that is, the traditional so-called "great luck". The new year's dinner on the second day of the New Year is also a link that many businesses attach great importance to, and it is also a day when many women return to their mother's home once a year. Mai Lingling also added that in ancient times, when the second day of the first year returned to the mother's home, the custom would only be to eat lunch at the mother's house, and would not stay until dinner time, first, the ancients believed that if the foreign-married woman stayed in the mother's house all day, it symbolized "eating the poor woman's house", which was not very good; second, the traffic was inconvenient in ancient times, and many women married to distant places, so it was not appropriate to stay in the mother's house on the second day of the new year, so as not to travel after night. Nowadays, the traffic is developed, and it is very convenient to return to the mother's home, and it is no longer restricted to only eat lunch.

As for the customs of merchants to open the New Year, there was also a set of rules in the past. "In the past, some merchants could not sell the goods at the end of the year, generally tied a red rope, and returned to the store to open the red rope on the day of the New Year, which means that the new year can be sold smoothly." In ancient times, there was also a 'sealing' ceremony at the end of the year, which meant that there was no longer work at the end of the year, and at the beginning of the year, it was corresponding to the 'opening seal'. She went on to explain that there are similar practices in the folk, for example, barbers will cover their hair cutting tools with a red cloth and wait for the opening year to open and use." In fact, this kind of ritual sense is because people from all walks of life have evolved in different forms out of respect for their own industries and things. ”

Some of the above New Year rituals and customs have been handed down for a long time, and some have declined with the development of society, which shows that traditional customs should also be in line with the development of the times and are not set in stone. "Just like in the past, 'single dogs' were most afraid of the New Year, for example, in the city, there were no shops open on the third day of the new year, the first year, the second year, and the new year, and a person who was not married would have to go around to go to other people's homes to eat." Mai Lingling said, but with the development of the city, commercial activities flourished, more and more Shenzhen people choose to take root, the city began to have more and more strong New Year flavor: "In recent years, Shenzhen New Year has the same takeaway to call, but also more and more lively." ”

There are many zodiac problems and different definition methods are feasible

Because there are more than 10 million fans on Weibo, on weekdays, Mai Lingling pays close attention to the movements discussed by netizens.

In response to the discussion of the zodiac calculation method caused by the Weibo content recently published by the People's Daily, Mai Lingling made a folkloric explanation. She said that the genus phase is not calculated from New Year's Day, and she also uses Japanese folklore as an example, and the Japanese people have always used January 1 as a zodiac sign. Under general circumstances, most people take the first day of the first lunar month as the beginning of the new genus phase of the new year, but when Yi scholars and traditional culture experts calculate, they will take Lichun as the boundary, and after Lichun is the new zodiac, which is the difference between expression and actual calculation: "Many netizens born at the end of January and early February will also be easy to confuse their zodiac genus because of this definition. ”

Friends with birthdays from late January to mid-February in the solar calendar are most likely to be confused, because sometimes the first first, then the spring, sometimes the first spring, and then the first day, so these people will appear double zodiac. For example, born on February 1, 2022, it is generally said that it is the first day of the first year of the Tiger, but folklorists calculate that it is bounded by 04:52 Lichun on February 4, so the person born on February 1 is Xiao Niu. She believes that there is no so-called right or wrong, just different definition criteria, but for those who want to understand the reasons, it is worth understanding clearly.

When I was a child, I heard that I couldn't wash my hair in the first year of junior high school, and there were some things that I couldn't do and what I should do. But I also want to ask why. "After studying folk cultures such as folklore, the I Ching, and Kanyu, Mai Lingling had a new understanding." In fact, many of these taboos and folklore have its rationality in that era", such as the custom of "the first day can not wash the hair", only because in ancient times, regardless of whether men and women mostly tied their hair long, it took a long time to dry the hair naturally after washing, and on the important day of the new year, everyone wanted to be groomed, such as because of the shampoo and make themselves wear their hair on the first day of the New Year, and the appearance was not neat, I am afraid that the head was not good, so gradually formed the "first day can not wash the hair" theory.

She believes that it is more helpful to understand the reasons behind some folklore than simply following rituals. For example, in the early years, I heard about the Korean application for "feng shui" and "Dragon Boat Festival", in fact, Mai Lingling also felt quite absurd: "Obviously it is our thing." "But when I think about it, it is precisely because the Chinese people feel that they should take it for granted, and no one has systematically summarized and passed on these cultural contents that such things have happened again and again."

Mai Lingling said that cultural self-confidence is very important, the so-called national tide is actually after the country is strong, to export these cultures, so that people around the world can recognize Chinese culture. She also said that she understands that some people are also trying to systematically summarize folk culture, including Kanyu and Feng Shui, and hopes that through the efforts of everyone, the essence of the declining traditional Chinese folk culture can be preserved and inherited. Despite the changes of the times, in fact, the government, including the people, has been doing conservation work, "such as the dragon and lion dance that has received renewed attention in recent years, some New Year's folk customs, if we can systematically summarize them, like the Japanese tea ceremony and other traditional cultures, we need to have people who have the heart to keep them," she said.

Related: How to look at the development of the Greater Bay Area

"There must be development if there is exchange", Mai Lingling said when referring to the future development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the establishment of the Greater Bay Area is good for everyone, "young people's entrepreneurial atmosphere, opportunities will be much more", she believes that with the coordinated development of the Bay Area, Shenzhen has shown advantages, "whether it is electronic payment or the convenience of life, has been a little beyond Hong Kong, I myself also like to live in the Greater Bay Area, the future will be integrated into one."

Reporter: Prince key