This article is written by: Spring Plum Fox
Writing "Why is there so many answers to the date of the "little year"? | When the festival special was over, I revisited Shangmeiying's "The Story of Chinese New Year's Eve". Most of the short films produced by Shangmei Film have unique art styles and timeless content, and this one tells the story between the king of the stove, the monster "Xi" and the little doll "Nian".
This is a paper-cut cartoon, which matches the theme of the Spring Festival and makes extensive use of traditional art elements such as New Year paintings. Although it is not long, it is enough to become one of the representative works of the Chinese animation school. Many places in China have their own style of New Year paintings, we are more common on the Internet is generally Yang Liuqing or post-founding propaganda painting style, although this animation does not have a very clear place to point, but presents the characteristics of woodblock New Year paintings and shadow puppet character characteristics, many shot scheduling also fit the composition characteristics of woodblocks, paper cuts and so on. The overall style is rich and lively, witty and festive, and it is very worthy of turning over the animation around the Spring Festival every year.
△ Cartoon "The Story of Chinese New Year's Eve"
But I don't know if anyone noticed that the setting of "year" in this animation is diametrically opposed to the popular saying on the Internet. In cyber legend, the monster that commits evil is "Nian", and people use red couplets and firecrackers to drive them away. In "The Story of Chinese New Year's Eve", the monster is "Xi", and "Nian" is the little hero who drives away the monster. Because this animation uses the fairy tale writer Guo Zhiming's "The Story of Nian Chinese New Year's Eve" as the base, it is obvious that such a change also comes from the literal "year" in addition to "xi", so the "year" and "xi" are interpreted as gods.
From this animation, it can also be seen that the definition of "year" and "night" is actually not uniform, otherwise some people would have jumped out and corrected it long ago.
In fact, the question of the "Nian Beast" has been in doubt for several years. Zhu Chunxiang mentioned in "Exploring the Source of the Legend of the Nian Beast" that in 2014, the editor of the Fruit Shell Network pointed out that the Nian Beast legend lacked documentary basis and it was difficult to find the prototype of the animal. Everyone recalls that when taking stock of the legendary divine beasts, they more or less had appearance characteristics, but the Nian Beast really did not. Later, Zhu Chunxiang traced the source layer by layer and found that the source of the story may be the Shanghai writer Sun Yusheng's 1933 "Memories of Customs in the Age", which was inferred to be the author's "ear food talk in childhood".
But the voice questioning the Nian Beast is always very small, because modern people, who are more and more detached from the life of the lunar calendar, need to explain what "Nian" is. Where do years come from? Why New Year's Eve? Why celebrate the New Year like this? ...... This series of ancients does not seem to be a problem at all.
The problem is not unsolvable, on the contrary, it is super clear. "Year" comes from the ancient people's understanding of the grain maturity cycle, and then evolved into the understanding of the return year, which can be seen in "The Winter Solstice is as Big as the Year, Why! | It is still a brain-burning calendar to the solar terms special edition. The ancients did not have two sets of calendars, they only needed to have a new year, and the New Year was a matter of course, just as we would not make up a story for The New Year's Day on January 1, see "What is the intention of the Republic of China that abolished the Spring Festival?" | Spring Festival Special Edition"
The answer is correct, but boring. In particular, these answers are often not written for adults, but for children, so the story of a monster fight is obviously more attractive, whether the monster is called "Nian" or "Xi". For the adults in charge of the answer, this is another innocuous answer, and can effectively cope with the children, why not enjoy it?
△ Various annual animal picture books
Not only that, in the current situation where children's books are generally using "Nian Beast" to answer, there is no need for adults to correct the so-called rumors to children. The story of the "Nian Beast" began with Sun Yusheng, but also through the refinement of many literati, and can now be used to explain most of the customs that will appear during the Spring Festival, and has become extremely "practical".
Furthermore, after the popular acceptance of the setting of "Nian Beast", the academic discussion of right and wrong has become weak. To put it simply, academically it can only be said that the literature of the "Nian Beast" is lacking, but as long as it exists strongly enough, sooner or later it will become a folk custom and settle down.
△ The Cycle diagram of the occurrence, evolution and demise of folklore phenomena / "Flowing Daily Life: The Relationship between New Folklore", "Pan-Folklore" and "Pseudo-Folklore" and Its Cyclical Process
Regarding the latter, we have previously published in "Imported Christmas, Why is it more popular than the traditional holiday |? The festival special that I suddenly wanted to write has also been discussed, not to mention that compared to other "pseudo-folklore" with very deliberate traces, "Nian Beast" is more like an interesting misunderstanding, as long as Nu works hard, the "mountain cheeks" and "evil ghosts" in "Jingchu Chronicles" can also be brought out to fill the scene.
Many folk customs, whether true or false, once accepted by everyone, will have an inertia. For example, Chinese New Year's Eve night to watch the "Spring Festival Gala" is it not folklore? Is "Double Eleven" a festival? At least we all know that in the short term, even if one side of the main force stops, the others will not stop. They have entered our lives, and in fact, they have begun to become folklore.
However, this is not to encourage everyone to spread mistakes, after all, folklore has its particularity, and it does not exist in itself as reasonable. What's more, even when we talk about folklore, we are only talking about the future, it may become a new folklore, this does not include the past. History, still immutable, needs to be excavated!
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