The Little Year is the prelude to the Spring Festival. In the north, it is the twenty-third lunar month for more than a small year, and in the south, it is mostly the twenty-fourth lunar month. The small year is also known as the Festival of sacrifice and the Festival of the King of The Stove. The Emperor of the Stove went to heaven to repay the good and evil of the world to the Jade Emperor, and returned to the bottom of the Stove Chinese New Year's Eve night, and was ordered to reward good and punish evil, or to bless or bring disaster. The small Chinese New Year's Eve, and every household should be cleaned up, provided with stove sugar, and put sugar oil on the mouth of the stove king. After eating the sugar, the king of the stove will get the benefits, and then he will "say good things in heaven and return to the palace to descend auspiciously." "The level of the stove prince is not high, but he is the guardian deity of thousands of households and an important symbol of Chinese folklore." In fact, the stove king is not only a Chinese custom, but also a global folk custom, because the Western Christmas lord also originated from the Chinese stove king. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to cultural self-confidence, and has repeatedly emphasized "telling the Chinese story well" to enhance the soft power of Chinese culture. Telling the story of the Stove King in the small year, revealing the truth that Christmas came from the Stove King, and interpreting the relationship between the origins of Eastern and Western cultures is conducive to popularizing the folk customs of the Stove King to the public and enhancing cultural consciousness.
1． The festivals are the same: they are all on December 24th. The Chinese small year is the 24th day of the Waxing Moon, calculated according to the lunar calendar, the Chinese lunar calendar and summer calendar have a long history. Western Christmas is calculated according to the Gregorian calendar, the Gregorian calendar. The calendar was adapted by Italian physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and chronologists Aloysius Lilius (circa 1519-1576) and Christophorus Clavius in conjunction with the Chinese Yongle Canon. In the first year of Yongle (1403), Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, in order to show the prestige of the country and benefit all generations, was determined to cultivate a brilliant and monumental work, "Since the beginning of the Book of All Books, the Book of Hundreds of Families has been collected by the history of history, and as for the words of astronomy, geography, yin and yang, medical divination, monasticism, and skill, it has been compiled into one book." He hand-picked Xie Jin and Yao Guangxiao successively served as supervisors, and yongle was finalized in the fifth year (1407), with a total of 22,877 volumes, 11,095 volumes, and 370 million words, which is an encyclopedia for preserving Chinese history, geography, literature, art, philosophy, and religion before the 14th century. From 1405 to 1433, Zheng He went to the West seven times, and the achievements of the Yongle Canon spread to Europe, and the Renaissance arose in Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Rome in Italy, and was successively introduced from Italy to Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and Britain. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the calendar, which was adopted by governments and became the universal calendar because of its simplicity and accuracy. In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing government, Sun Yat-sen established the Republic of China, changed its course, and began to integrate with the international calendar, changing January 1, 1912 to New Year's Day, and changing the Lunar New Year to spring festival, which has been inherited to this day.
2． The deities have the same characteristics. Santa Claus and Vesta are old man figures, not women, nor young. Both have a low status, and both have higher gods on them, Santa Claus's superior is God GOD, and the stove king's superior is the Jade Emperor. According to the English-Chinese concept of "Apei Nuo", that is, each letter of an English word can be translated into a corresponding Chinese character with sound and meaning, and GOD can be translated into the three characters of "Gongwangdi". Duke, gōng, king. "Zuo Chuan Zhuang Gong Ten Years": "In the spring of the tenth year, Qi Shi cut me down, and the Gong general fought." "First class titles, such as dukes, dukes, and maharajahs. King, wáng, emperor. "Xunzi Wangba": "The law of the hundred kings is different. "Emperor, dì, Emperor of Heaven." Shangshu Lü Punishment: "God oversees the people. The Jade Emperor is also the "Imperial Emperor" and "Yu Emperor", that is, the cosmic ruler of Peiyu.
3． The deities function the same. Vesta "said good things in heaven, and auspiciousness in the netherworld". People sent the god of vesta to heaven to stick glutinous rice cakes and sugar oil on his mouth, praying that he would say more good things in front of the Jade Emperor, not bad words, get the Reward of the Jade Emperor, and return to the human world to be more auspicious. Santa Claus also has a gift gift, and his gift is "GIFT" in English, which can be translated as "Tribute Gift". Tribute, gòng, was dedicated to the monarch. "Zuo Chuan Huan Gong Fifteen Years": "The princes do not pay tribute to the car suit. "The items that come in. "Zuo Chuan, The Fourth Year of the Duke": "The tribute is not entered, and the crime of the widow is also." "Yi, yí, gift, Xie Yi. The Biography of Xie An of the Book of Jin: "The Imperial Palace is prepared with murder rituals." "Endow, fù, grant, give." "Han Feizi Eight Adulterers": "Those who give lu are called their merits." "Vote, tóu, give, give. "Poetry Sutra, Wei Feng, Papaya": "Cast me with papaya." The idiom is "throw a peach in return". The sled of Christmas loaded with gifts is pulled away by a deer, and the "deer" is "Lu", which comes from the Chinese folk meaning of "praying for the official to enter Lu".
4． The divine passage is the same. Santa's presents are packed in socks and come in through the smoke window, not through the doorway or window. In Western European and American countries, the latitude is high, the temperature is low in winter, and each household has a fireplace for heating, and the fireplace is equipped with smoke vents. As a rule, gifts in socks were thrown in through the smoke window and could have been burned by fire in the fireplace. But don't worry, because Christmas is the king of the stove, the smoke window and the stove are his territory, and it is also his special passage to enter and exit and go to the heavenly court. Of course, He didn't have to walk through doorways and windows.
5． The deities pronounce the same. Vesta is the "charcoal god", and the "charcoal god" is the inversion of the "god charcoal". Shentan is pronounced the same as "Santa". Vesta was also the god of fire, and the ancestors worshipped fire. The use of fire by humans is an important symbol of the origin of civilization. Emperor Yan was the Red Emperor of the South and the God of Fire. The Chinese nation is the descendant of Yan Huang, and the Yan Emperor is the ancestor of the Chinese nation.
6． The sacrificial items are the same. Christmas trees are mostly pine trees, English is PINE or CYPRESS, derived from the ancient worship of fir trees, today's Chinese Huabiao, Korean poles and American totem poles are also the remnants of the worship of the high temple civilization of 7000 or 8000 years ago. There are bells tied to the Christmas tree, and the bell is "BELL" in English, that is, the four musical instruments of the ancient Chinese "镈彝铃銮", which have a long history. Skeletonium, bó, large bell, Shang Dynasty bronze instrument. "Chinese Zhou Yuxia": "Fine Jun has a bell without a bell, and Zhao Qi's greatness." Dajun has no bell. "Yi, yí, the common name for ancient bronzes, mostly refers to the ritual vessels used in the sacrifices of the Zongmiao Temple. "Zuo Chuan Xianggong Nineteen years": "Take it as a Yi instrument." "Luan, luán, and bells are often decorated on the emperor's car. Zhang Heng's "Tokyo Fu": "Luan's voice is loud. "Luan, luán, bell, often decorated in the emperor's car. Shijing Xiaoya Tateshina: "And Luan Yongyong." "Chinese folklore, small Chinese New Year's Eve send the god of vesta, the Chinese New Year's Eve of the new year to receive the god of vesta, all put a small iron pot on the god table instead of "BELL", knock three times to remind the gods to come and enjoy the offerings.
7． The medium of communication between man and God is the same. The reason why Santa Claus and the Stove King can reach the heavenly court is related to smoke. There is a high platform on the yuanshui river in the Anjiang Basin of the Huaihua River in Hunan, where Professor He Gang, an expert from the Hunan Provincial Institute of Archaeology, excavated the ruins of the Gaomiao Temple 7000 to 8000 years ago, and found traces of the sacrifices of "burning firewood" and "burning sacrifice". "Burnt firewood" means burning sandalwood wood, cigarettes rising, gods smelling incense, enjoying offerings, listening to human prayers, and responding to requests. In the last year of the Shang Dynasty, the custom of burning incense to worship the gods was brought to the Americas by the Youhouxi tribe and preserved. Indian tribal wizards often light a handful of vanilla for people to heal, take a few sips from time to time, swallow smoke and spit fire, and enter a psychedelic state. The early European colonists were horrified by this situation for the first time, but later discovered that smoking was a refreshing and healing effect, so they brought tobacco back to Europe and offered it to the King of Spain. The king ordered two death row inmates to smoke and test, the smokers were greatly refreshed, felt very good, the habit of smoking cigarettes was widely spread in Europe, and with foreign colonization and trade activities, from Europe to Southeast Asia, through Nanyang to Luzon, Taiwan and the coastal areas of China, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties to Hunan Hengzhou, Xiangtan and other places. In the 1880s, British American Tobacco vigorously promoted cigarettes in China, and Western modern girls distributed cigarettes for free on the Bund in Shanghai, opening the market, and the habit of smoking cigarettes spread in China, and China gradually became the country with the largest number of smokers in the world. In a sense, cigarette SMOKE can also be interpreted as "The Demon King". In addition, when European and American churches hold religious activities, they also light incense burners to smoke the Bible. The habit of smoking cigarettes in today's country, the custom of folk incense to worship the gods, and the smoking of cigarettes in Western churches can be traced back to the "burning firewood to worship the heavens" worship activities of the ancestors of the High Temple in Xiangxi 700,000 or 8000 years ago.
In summary, the Gregorian calendar promulgated by Pope Gregory III is likely to originate from the Chinese lunar calendar, Christmas from the Chinese New Year, and Santa Claus from the Chinese god Vesta. Culture is the soul of tourism, and tourism is the carrier of culture. In order to promote the "three highs and four new" and cultural tourism in Hunan, according to the principle of "resource productization - product activity - activity media", it is possible to integrate the cultural resources of Hunan Yandi, Vulcan and Zaowang, hold Hunan Yanling International Zaowang Cultural Festival, and interact synchronously in the hometowns of Yandi such as Huilianshan, Hubei Suixian, Shanxi Gaoping, Shaanxi Baoji, as well as historical and cultural blocks such as Henan Xinzheng Yandi Square, Changsha Fire Palace, Shanghai City God Temple, etc., and hold float parades, food experiences, story contests, and performances of the gods. Folklore experience activities attract Chinese and foreign tourists to experience the culture of Zaowang, understand the truth that Christmas comes from Zaowang and Western civilization originates from Eastern civilization in the experience, and create a festival brand with international influence in Zhuzhou Yandi Mausoleum, Huaihua and Lianshan and Changsha Fire Palace in Hunan Province, enhance cultural self-confidence and promote the unity of the world.
Wang Peiliang is a professor and vice dean of the School of Literature and Journalism and Communication of Hunan Technology and Business University.