Beijing Spring Festival customs and the cultural connotations of the Spring Festival | manuscript

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The celebration of the New Year is a very common cultural phenomenon, and the beginning of the "year" is different in different countries. The Gregorian era begins with January 1 as the beginning of the new year, known in China as "New Year's Day". The Spring Festival is the beginning of the New Year in traditional Chinese culture, commonly known as the "New Year".

First, the history and inheritance of the Spring Festival

Our current "New Year's Day" refers to January 1 of the Gregorian era, but before 1914 it usually refers to the traditional New Year, that is, the Spring Festival, such as Wang Anshi's poem "Yuan Day" - "In the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tusu." Thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old charms. ”

The new year must be related to the timekeeping cycle, and the concept of the time cycle of the "year" has been mastered by people three generations ago. The Shang Shu Yao Dian records a passage that Emperor Yao said to the Xi and He clans, who were responsible for measuring time and formulating the calendar, and mentioned that there were six days in the year of "three hundred and sixty days, and the leap month is set at four o'clock to become old." "Nian" has different titles, for example, the "Erya" mentions that the Xia Dynasty called "Nian" the year, the Shang Dynasty called it Qi, the Zhou Dynasty called it Nian, and the Tang YuShi called It Zai. Some of the contents of the Book of Poetry can also show that we have a grasp of the cycle of "years", such as "Changing the age, entering this room" in "Feng Feng July", which refers to changing the age from the old year to the new year; "September frost, October clean field." Drinking wine, killing lambs. The public court of the other side, called the other man, long life without boundaries", is about the scene of the New Year, that is, the prototype of our current Spring Festival. Before the Han Dynasty, different dynasties had different heads of age, and the beginning of the year was not completely fixed. In the Han Dynasty, there were four beginnings of the year, namely the winter solstice day, the Waxing Sun, the first lunar day, and the Lichun day. Among them, the first lunar month is the "first of the king's years", and it is also the most important one of the four beginnings, which shows that the Spring Festival has become the biggest festival in later generations and is related to the emperor. We often say that "the winter solstice is as big as the year" and "the spring dynasty is as big as the year", which also confirms the importance of the Spring Festival from the side. So as the biggest festival of our Chinese nation, where is the big Spring Festival?

First, the Spring Festival has a long history. The Spring Festival had its beginning in the pre-Qin period, and after the Han Dynasty was determined, there was basically no big change, with a long history and a thousand years of inheritance.

Second, the Spring Festival is the length of the festival. That is to say, the Spring Festival festival is not like other festivals with only one day, but lasts for a period of time. The length of the festival can largely explain the importance of the festival. How long the Spring Festival is, there are different sayings in different times and places, but on the whole, it begins with Lapa Ba.

Third, the Spring Festival is big in terms of content. The customs and activities of the Spring Festival are very rich, and there are corresponding customary activities at each important time node.

Fourth, the Spring Festival is large in the number of audiences. It can be said that the Spring Festival is a festival shared by our Chinese nation, and many overseas Chinese also celebrate the Spring Festival, and even some foreigners have begun to regard the Spring Festival as their festival, which shows the large number of participants in the Spring Festival and the high degree of attention. As the saying goes, "don't rush a year, catch up Chinese New Year's Eve late", and the importance of the Spring Festival is also reflected in the symbol of a family reunion. Therefore, this series of factors constitutes the biggest festival of our Chinese nation.

2. Spring Festival customs in Beijing

The customs and customs of the Spring Festival in different places are different. Beijingers celebrate the Spring Festival in terms of similar aspects as other places as well as strong local colors. Especially as an ancient capital with a long history, Beijing's Spring Festival customs are more special.

In general, the Spring Festival customs in Beijing have both unchanging places, such as festival times, and places that show different characteristics with different times. Xiong Mengxiang's "Chronicle of Analysis of Jin" records that the Spring Festival in Beijing began with Lapa Ba and went all the way to yanjiu festival. In the Qing Dynasty, Beijing had the saying that "once the waxing moon is the year", the Spring Festival took a long holiday with seals and seals as the time node. The seal is usually determined between the nineteenth and twenty-second days of the waxing moon, by the Qin Tianjian Xueji, since then the students have holidays, the theater has been closed, and people have entered the busy year process, until the next year's first month is reopened, and life returns to daily life. The opening of the seal is within the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first three days of the first month of the New Year, also selected by the Qin Tianjian. From the seal to the opening of the seal, the Spring Festival in Beijing in the Qing Dynasty lasted for one month, and if counted from the waxing moon, it was about 50 days.

1. Lapa Ba

For example, Pan Rongxi's (Qing) "Jisheng in the Age of The Emperor" says that the Spring Festival is a festival of consumption, and from the perspective of the market, people have to buy a variety of festivals during the Spring Festival, including eating, drinking, wearing, decorations, sacrifices or gifts. For example, the "Jisheng in the Age of Emperor Jing" records that "La Yue Shuo, the street in front of the street to sell porridge and fruit into the market." During this period, the market also sold walnuts, dates, chestnuts, dried diamond horn rice and other ingredients related to Laba porridge, as well as paper yuanbao, paper flowers and other offerings. Since the beginning of the tenth month of the first month of the Lunar New Year, there are people selling door gods, hanging money, glass mirrors, and window eyes in the market. The silver number of the money shop can be exchanged for gold and silver, small plum blossoms, and begonia yuanbao. Outside of the 20th day of the Waxing Moon, there are those selling sugar melons, sugar cakes, bamboo cakes, Kanto sugar, and fried beans in the market for the sake of the 23rd festival of the Waxing Moon. Outside the twenty-fifth day of the waxing moon, there are people selling fat hemp straw, pine and cypress branches, and nancang in the market, in order to simmer and light Chinese New Year's Eve. The emergence of these festivals in the market provides a particularly good window for us to observe how Beijingers used to celebrate the New Year.

Mr. Lao She wrote in "Spring Festival in Beijing": "Lap seven lap eight, freeze to death Jackdaw", which is the coldest time of the year. However, in the harsh winter, it will soon be spring... Since Lapa Ba, shoppers have stepped up the new year goods on the ground, and there are more stalls selling Spring Festival, New Year paintings, honey offerings, daffodils, etc., all of which only appear in this season. From Mr. Lao She's writings and the depiction of Ji Sheng in the Age of Emperor Jing, we can see that the relationship between the New Year and festivals of Beijingers in different historical periods is inseparable.

Later, unlike "the first entry into the Waxing Moon is the Year", we are more with the Lap 8 as the beginning of the New Year. Lapa is an important time node for Beijingers to celebrate the Spring Festival. The origin of the Lapa Festival is long ago, and the lapa porridge drinking porridge is a very common custom, which can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, such as Lu You's "December 8th Step to the West Village" has a description of "the Buddhist porridge of the present dynasty is more reciprocal, and the anti-Juejiang Village festival is new". The Zhi of Jingjin and the Chronicle of Guangxu Shuntianfu respectively recorded the custom of Beijingers in the Yuan Dynasty and Qing Dynasty to drink porridge and give porridge to Lapa, a tradition that continues today. There is another thing worth mentioning in Laba, that is, hiding ice. In the Book of Poetry, there is a saying that "the three days are included in Lingyin", "Lingyin" is the ice cellar, and the ice is taken off, cut well, and placed in a special place to hide the ice. The Zhou Li records the collection of ice in winter, the issuance of ice in summer, and the "Lingren" who is specifically responsible for hiding ice. The current Xuechi Hutong preserves a Ming Dynasty snow pond ice cellar, the internal space is 25 meters long, 10 meters wide and 10 meters high, which can hide about 2500 cubic meters of ice. The "Jisheng in the Age of Emperor Jing" records: On the eighth day of La, the Ice Storage Cellar of the Royal River, the Inner Cellar of the Ice Storage Of the Tonghe River, the Ice Storage Snow Pond of the Tailiu Pond, and the Kaimen Gate of Transportation. The moats of each gate are iced, and the cellars are built by the river, and it is easy to be convenient in the summer.

2. Sacrifice stove

An important time node after Lapa Ba is the small year, and the time of The Beijing people's small life is different in different historical periods, such as the Ming Dynasty is the 24th of the Waxing Moon, and later the 23rd of the Waxing Moon.

An important custom activity of the small year is the sacrifice stove, the people take food as the sky, the stove is a special place for cooking food, as early as the pre-Qin period has become one of the five shrines. Gan Bao's "Search for God" has a record of using yellow sheep to sacrifice stoves, which shows the long history of Spring Festival customs and traditional culture. The main items of the stove in later generations became sugar, such as the southern sugar, Kanto sugar, sugar cake and clear water grass beans recorded in the "Yanjing Chronicle", which was intended to make the stove god sweet and sweet, and the heavens said good things. This ritual also warns the people from the side to pay attention to their personal words and deeds and to be kind.

At present, although this custom of sacrificial stoves is declining, it is still occasionally inherited, and it is particularly worth mentioning that the Zaowang Cultural Festival in Zhangzhuang Town, Shunyi District, Beijing has been held several times, so that we can also truly understand the culture of Beijing's sacrificial stoves.

3. Busy years

In fact, the Spring Festival is based on the Chinese New Year's Eve as the dividing line, Chinese New Year's Eve before the resignation of the old, to prepare for the New Year, Chinese New Year's Eve is followed by the welcome of the new Nafu. After the festival stove, Beijingers began to enter the rhythm of the busy year, preparing for the New Year, such as cleaning the ancestral hall and courtyard, doing a lot of decorations for festivities and exorcisms, and so on. People buy a lot of things and do all kinds of things during this time period, so it is called a busy year.

"Twenty-four, the day of sweeping the house; twenty-five, grinding tofu; twenty-six, stewing pork; twenty-seven, killing roosters; twenty-eight, washing sloppy; twenty-nine, oil away; thirty nights to stay overnight, the first day of the New Year." We can understand the rhythm of the busy years of Beijingers in the past from this Beijing nursery rhyme. Grinding tofu, stewing pork, killing roosters, and walking in oil correspond to preparing hearty food, and there is an auspicious meaning, such as tofu harmonic "Du Fu", chicken harmonic "Ji" and so on. The Spring Festival is an important social time, and there is a lot of walking between relatives and friends, which is why it is necessary to prepare hearty food. Washing sloppy is bathing, the living conditions and sanitary conditions of Beijing people in the past are no better than now, they can't take a bath many times a year, so in order to worship their ancestors with a clean body, the New Year must be washed.

In the process of busy years, there is one thing that is indispensable, that is, Spring League and Peach Charm. Hanging peach charms has a very long history, dating back to the pre-Qin period, and the general posting of Spring League is a custom handed down after the Ming Dynasty. It is said that the first pair of Spring Leagues was written by the fifth generation of Meng Chang, "New Year Na Yu Qing, Jia Jie Number Changchun", after which the Spring League has become a special literary theme. According to the "Records of the Yanjing Dynasty", after entering the Waxing Moon, the literati and inkers would set up stalls in the market to write the Spring Festival, and people hung up the Spring League after the sacrifice stove, thousands of households, and a new look.

Author: Zhang Bo, Researcher of Beijing Studies Research Base, Beijing Union University

This article is excerpted from the exclusive article of the propagandist network "Zhang Bo: Beijing Spring Festival Customs and Cultural Connotations of the Spring Festival"