The beginning of the spring is near, and it is the time to resign the old and welcome the new.
Taking advantage of the approaching Year of the Tiger, let us open the calendar, explore these Spring Festival customs hidden in ordinary days, and feel the deep connotation of the two words "New Year".
Infographic: Chinese New Year's Eve Rice (Photo by Zhuang Xiaolong)
▍The origin of Chinese New Year's Eve meal in Guangfu can be traced back to the Southern and Northern Dynasties
The history of cantonese Chinese New Year's Eve meal can be traced back to the Southern and Northern Dynasties. From the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Song Dynasty, it is recorded in the classics that Chinese New Year's Eve rice has the custom of drinking "Tusu wine", "Baiye wine" and "peach soup". At the time of the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was a clear difference between the Tuannian meal in the south and the north. Northern Chinese New Year's Eve more dumplings at night, with the meaning of "more years of intercourse" in harmonic sounds. In the south, it is generally necessary to eat Lantern and rice cakes. Lantern is also called "Tangyuan", the middle bag of sugar is more, take the family reunion happy and sweet meaning. Rice cakes are made of glutinous rice and take the meaning of "nian nian gao" in harmonic tones.
Huang Tianji, a master of Lingnan culture, said that after the fifteenth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, the old Guangzhou people will be ready for the New Year. For thousands of years, even poor people have to rest slightly in the New Year, so there is a proverb that "the heap is fried in the evening of the year, and the people have me".
Northern Chinese New Year's Eve dumplings at night (Photo by Su Yunhua)
Cantonese-style TuanNian rice, the number of dishes must be "even number", the tradition has a fixed "eight styles": the first type, no chicken is not a feast; the second type, the hair vegetable pig hand, hair vegetable / lettuce oyster sauce stew pig hand in Cantonese have the meaning of "fortune, fortune"; the third type, vegetable gall grilled winter mushrooms, winter mushrooms shaped like copper money, meaning the source of wealth rolling in; the fourth type, every year there is "fish (Yu)"; the fifth type, red skin red strong roast pork, meaning healthy, red and red; sixth type, shrimp and shrimp laughing, shrimp, Cantonese and "Ha" homophony, meaning laughter is always open The seventh type, pot dish, makes people feel a "pot" festive; the eighth type, old fire beautiful soup, which is the most worrying taste of Cantonese people all year round.
On the second day of the Chinese New Year, we must eat the "New Year's Meal", which is traditionally made of nine kinds of dishes, commonly known as "Nine Great Gui", which means "the beginning of the Year", including white cut chicken, roasted suckling pig, steamed fresh fish, hair vegetable oyster sauce stewed pig hand, vegetable bile grilled shiitake mushrooms and so on. Some families will chop meat, taking the meaning of red skin and strong, healthy and strong. Desserts should eat red bean paste, lotus lily sugar water, etc., which have the meaning of sweet honey and a hundred years of good union.
Infographic: Potted Vegetables (Photo by Li Bo)
The seventh day of the Chinese New Year is "People's Day", commonly known as "everyone's birthday". Families gather together to eat "seven dishes". "This is an ancient custom of the Central Plains, which is recorded in the Records of the Jingchu Dynasty of the Southern and Northern Dynasties." Ye Chunsheng said that five of the "seven dishes" are fixed: celery, garlic, green onions, coriander, and leeks. The "parsley" harmonic sound of celery is "diligent"; the garlic harmonic is "counted"; the onion harmonic sound is "cong"; the coriander is "coriander" is harmonic "edge"; the "leek" of leek is harmonic "long". The other two are matched according to preferences, in short, "diligent, cost-effective, smart, lucky, long-term, rich and more than enough".
Guangzhou people celebrate the New Year, the southern faction wakes up the lion and is domineering, never going back. At the entrance of the village ancestral hall, wait for a group of lions to leave before the other lions will enter. Before entering the ancestral hall, the lion team must bow three times and nine times, and after collecting the green, they cannot turn around and leave, but the lion's tail exits outward. In addition, the Qilin Dance in Huangge Town, Nansha has a history of more than 500 years, and it is also an indispensable program for the New Year.
▍"Lishi" first appeared in the I Ching
It has evolved to have the meaning of "happy money"
The people of Guangfu have worked hard for a year, pinning their ardent expectations for a better future in the ceremony from the waxing moon to the new year, condensing in the new year customs of retiring the old and welcoming the new.
More than 1400 years ago, zong yi of the Southern Dynasty described the customary activities of the "Spring Festival" at that time in his "Records of the Jingchu Years": "The first day of the first month is the day of the three yuan... "Spring and Autumn" is called the end of the moon. Chickens chirped, first in front of the court firecrackers, to ward off evil spirits. The eldest and youngest are dressed in the crown and greeted with the second greeting. Drink pepper cypress wine and peach soup. Into tu su wine, gum tooth dumplings. The next five simpans..."
The customs of the New Year keep pace with the times, the flower streets tend to change, the dragon and lion skills are becoming more and more superb, and the New Year food patterns are renovated, but they are not far from the traditional roots, and in the joy and peace, they reveal the unique etiquette and benevolence of Canton, and they are endless.
Infographic: Students use profit to seal lanterns (Photo by Zhuang Xiaolong)
▍ "Selling lazy" was originally called "selling cold"
Ye Chunsheng, a professor at the Research Center for Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sun Yat-sen University, fully affirmed the breadth of Cantonese folk culture in his work "Spring Customs Like Songs". He believes that the Spring Flower Market in the Cantonese area and the opening of the door cannon at the time of the crossing of the child are a major feature of Guangzhou's new year customs, and the Cantonese culture can best represent the characteristics of Guangdong.
Talking about the "LiShi" in Guangzhou, which is often searched for during the Spring Festival, he said that the word "Lishi" appeared as early as the "I Ching", but it was not the meaning of today thousands of years ago. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, "LiShi" referred to good trading and good luck, and after later evolution, the word gradually had the meaning of happy money rewarded during festivals and celebrations. To this day, Guangfu still uses "LiShi" to represent the pressure of old money.
Huang Tianji, a famous Lingnan cultural figure, said that Chinese New Year's Eve night, Guangzhou still has the custom of "selling laziness". Children from each family carry a small lantern, bring red eggs and ci mushrooms, walk in groups of three or five at the end of the streets, humming and selling lazy songs: "Sell lazy, sell lazy, sell until the 30th night, people are lazy I am not lazy." "When a child comes home after selling laziness, he will distribute the red eggs to the elders in the family, and the more he shares, the more he sells, the more diligent he will be in the coming year."
The childlike custom of "selling laziness" in Guangfu was recorded as early as the early Qing Dynasty. Qu Dajun, a poet in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, said: During the Chinese New Year's Eve, the people of Guangzhou "used su wood to dye chickens to eat", illuminated the road with fire, and sold cold on the day ("Guangdong New Language"). Sumu dyes chicken, that is, eggs with red water. It can be seen that at the beginning, Guangzhou people were selling "cold". Over time, "cold" evolved into "lazy." Because in Cantonese, the pronunciation of the words "cold" and "lazy" is very similar.
▍ Start with "Xie Stove"
These two days are the days of the people's traditional "Xie Stove" and "Opening the Oil Pot", and people are preparing for the New Year goods. "Traditionally, the people of Guangzhou use the day of the festival as the beginning of the New Year's Pass." Ye Chunsheng said that guangzhou people call the "day of the sacrifice stove" "Xie Stove", which is also a traditional "small Chinese New Year's Eve". Different from the north, where the eighth day of the first lunar month eats "Lapa Porridge" as the sign of entering the New Year, the climate of Guangdong is not obvious in the four seasons, and there is no habit of eating Lapa Porridge, so the festival stove day is used as the beginning of the New Year's Pass.
After entering the New Year's Pass, everyone is busy for the New Year. Ye Chunsheng examined that there are clouds in tradition: 23 Xie stove, 24 open fried, 25 steamed cakes... Frying is also "opening the frying pan".
Boiling oil pot (Photo by Li Bo)
▍"Washing sloppy" is not only "year 28"
When people are ready for the New Year, they enter the stage of cleaning up years ago. Now everyone in Guangzhou knows that "the age is twenty-eight, washing sloppy". Ye Chunsheng said that "washing sloppy" and "year 28" rhyme smoothly and smoothly in line with folk customs. However, according to tradition, the cleaning began at the age of twenty-three and continued until the twenty-eighth or even twenty-nine years of age. "Twenty-third year, drying clothes and washing; twenty-four years old, cleaning the side of the house; twenty-fifth year, sweeping the dust of the house; twenty-six years old, washing the livestock house; twenty-seven years, washing inside and outside into one; twenty-eight years, wiping the household miscellaneous; twenty-nine years, the dirt is removed." According to folk sayings, "dust" and "Chen" are harmonious, so in addition to cleaning and sanitation, there is also a new meaning of removing old cloth.
Chinese New Year's Eve on the same day, according to the custom, personal hygiene should be done. "Traditionally, on the first day of the Chinese New Year, you should not wash your hair, take a bath, or sweep the floor, so as not to wash (sweep) away the wealth."
▍Ming and Qing Dynasty Guangzhou has "City Gate Flower Market"
The New Year Flower Market originated in the late Qing Dynasty
Every year, from the 28th to the Chinese New Year's Eve night of the lunar month, Guangzhou people will go to the flower market "Xinghua Street" in order to have good luck in the coming year. Visiting the West Lake Flower Market is the habit of the old Guangzhou people. "Thirty years late, Xinghua Street, spring flowers are placed all over the street, the flowers are fresh, the yellow flowers are large, and thousands of flowers are sunburned..." This is the scene described in the Guangzhou nursery rhyme "Xinghua Street". Compared with the cold north, at this time, Guangdong spring flowers are flourishing, and the flower street is like a day and night flower festival, which pushes the spring atmosphere to a climax.
Ye Chunsheng introduced that as early as the Southern Han Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, there were flower farmers engaged in flower trading on the south bank of the Pearl River. The oldest flower market in Guangzhou should have appeared in Zhuangtou Village, now haizhu district. Qu Dajun pointed out in the Guangdong Xinyu that Zhuangtou was famous for planting frangipani flowers at that time, which was called "flower field".
Later, the location of flower selling continued to expand, and by the Ming and Qing dynasties, under the seven gates of the old city of Guangzhou, a regular flower market for flower farmers had been formed: Dadongmen (the junction of present-day Zhongshan Road and Yuexiu Road), Xiaobeimen (present-day Xiaobei Area), Dabeimen (present-day Dabei Area), West Gate (present-day West Gate), Guidemen (present-day Haopan Street area), Dananmen (present-day Beijing Road and Danan Road junction), Dinghaimen (present-day Dezheng Road and Wenming Road junction). In the 1860s, it gradually developed into the Nianxiao Flower Market, which was also the beginning of the traditional Yingchun Flower Market. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fang Dianyuan's "Song of Yangcheng Huadutou" recorded the grand situation of Huadutou on both sides of the Pearl River.
Data chart: Yingchun Flower Market is an important annual custom in Guangzhou (Photo by Su Junjie)
In the early days of the Republic of China, the "Chinese New Year's Eve Flower Market" had two places, the "Double Gate Bottom" of today's Beijing Road and the Xiguan Paddle Fence Road. Later, the "double door bottom" flower market was moved to West Lake Road, which is not far away. Since then, the West Lake Flower Market has been the center of Guangzhou flower market for a long time. Historically, the most popular annual flowers in the flower market were frangipani and jasmine. Among them, frangipani flowers are the earliest in the history of Guangzhou flowers to be planted in a large area, and in the Qing Dynasty was the largest flower in Guangzhou, equivalent to the "city flower" at that time, which was already a foreign trade export commodity in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Huang Tianji introduced: Thousands of years ago, the "Flower Street" in Guangfu originally only sold frangipani flowers. Frangipani was originally the name of a girl in Zhuangtou Village. She was chosen by the King of the Southern Han Dynasty to enter the palace and was very pampered. Because this girl likes to wear frangipani flowers, so the king of the Southern Han Dynasty ordered the palace women to wear frangipani flowers, and when the palace women washed their faces in the morning, the frangipani flowers were thrown into the lake outside the palace, which is the origin of the name of liuhua lake.
Data chart: Every New Year, Guangzhou people must visit the flower market, must buy Oranges (Mo Weinong photo)
▍ The word "Fu" at the gate is recommended to be pasted
Ye Chunsheng said that the word "Fu" posted on the New Year has a long history. In addition to the normal sticking method, people also paste the word "Fu" upside down, implying "happiness has arrived" or "good fortune has arrived". In ancient times, people usually only put the word "Fu" upside down on cabinets, water tanks and garbage cans, because the cabinet is the place where items are stored, and the word "Fu" is pasted upside down to indicate that the blessing has always come to the cabinet. The contents of the water tank and the garbage can should be poured out, and the word "Fu" should be pasted upside down to avoid pouring out the blessing. The gate is the entrance and exit of the family, and the festival arrangement of this place should be solemn and generous, so the word "Fu" should be pasted correctly, not upside down.
▍ 19 Cantonese customs, you know what
The current "post-90s" and "post-00s" should be very unfamiliar with the annual customs of 1400 years ago, and even the new customs we experienced when we were children are now beginning to leave us. In 1905, the "Current Affairs Pictorial" recorded 19 Cantonese new customs in Canton, which now seem very interesting.
●Borrow pants (rich)
Since ancient times, Guangzhou folk custom of "opening the treasury" on the 26th day of the first lunar month to Guanyin Mountain (now Yuexiu Mountain), people who are bent on getting rich (mostly women) go to Guanyin Mountain on the top of the mountain to "borrow wealth", borrow the rich to worship the gods and then beg a few copper coins from the monks, take its meaning, and promise that if they get rich next year, they will repay it a thousand times over.
●Lettuce party
Nowadays, Guangzhou people like to buy lettuce for the New Year, not only because lettuce has the meaning of "raw and fierce", but also when buying vegetables, it is also specially selected and emphasized. The "Lettuce Fair" in Kengkou, Liwan District, is held every year on the 26th day of the first month and has a history of more than 300 years.
● Wake up the lion
Awakening the lion is a traditional celebration familiar to the people of Guangzhou, every festival, especially the Spring Festival, the folk mostly wake the lion to help, long-lasting prosperity, passed down through the generations.
● Twenty-eight years old, wash sloppy
Roll up your sleeves and clean up, resign the old and welcome the new to welcome the Spring Festival.
●Paste waving spring fengli city
Stroll around the street of New Year goods, buy Spring Festival, Chinese knot, LiShifeng, red lantern, and immerse yourself in the new year's taste.
● Fry the pile, gold and silver full of houses
Freshly fried and sold oil horns, egg powder, fried heaps, sweet and greasy sugar winter melon, sugar lotus seeds are the traditional New Year flavors of Guangzhou people's homes.
●Row Flower Street
Guangzhou New Year, flower city to see flowers. In addition to the New Year flowers, there are also New Year oranges, hanging a few festive Lishi seals, and then pasting a red paper blessing character on the pot to have the Flavor of the New Year.
● Selling laziness
Chinese New Year's Eve, each child took a red egg, lit a stick of incense, and went to the end of the street to walk while singing: "Sell lazy, sell until Chinese New Year's Eve night, people are lazy I am lazy!" ”
●Chinese New Year's Eve rice
Cantonese-style TuanNian rice, the dish must be double numbered, and the dishes are also very knowledgeable.
● Chinese New Year's Eve keep the age, smash (press) the year
Lettuce, celery, shallots, garlic, oranges, pig li, double-sided fried mud carp and two red envelopes are bundled together, which means to be rich, diligent and clever, and auspicious.
● On the first day of the Chinese New Year, Tim Xiang eats fasting
The New Year bell rings, people pray for the New Year on the "head incense", and cook a pot of "Luo Han Zhai" at noon to nourish the stomach.
● The second day of the New Year, the beginning of the year
The married daughter and her husband and children "returned home" to visit their parents, and the steamed radish cake, horseshoe cake and rice cake at home symbolized the New Year's backgammon.
● On the third day of the Chinese New Year, Akaguchi does not go out
On the third day of the Lunar New Year, people generally do not visit relatives and friends, hoping to be able to come and go in peace all year round, and not to quarrel with people or encounter misfortune.
● On the fourth day of the Chinese New Year, greet the god of Vesta
Years ago, on the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon, the god of Vesta was sent to heaven, and on the fourth day of the first month of the first month, the god of Vesta was to be welcomed to the gods, and people visited relatives and friends to visit their homes.
● On the fifth day of the New Year, pick up the God of Wealth
The god of wealth has arrived, the god of wealth has arrived! According to folklore, the god of wealth is the god of the five roads, which means to go out of the five ways, you can get rich.
● On the sixth day of the New Year, send the poor god
According to the traditional custom of "three six nine, go outward", this day is most suitable for playing in parks and other places, and in the new year, "great luck".
● The seventh day of the New Year, everyone's birthday
Legend has it that Nuwa was first created, and after creating animals such as chickens, dogs, pigs, cows, and horses, she created people on the seventh day, so it is a happy day for everyone's birthday.
● Year 15, Lantern Appreciation
In the old days, the Lantern Festival was also called the "Lantern Festival", and it was a complete New Year to guess the riddle of the lanterns and eat a bowl of sweet glutinous rice balls.
●The city of Tuli
When relatives and friends meet, adults should give children "LiShi" to convey a strong auspicious meaning.
Co-ordinator/Feng Jingming
Text/Guangzhou Daily, Xinhuacheng Reporter: Wu Bo, Liao Jingwen (except for signature)
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Ye Bijun