Incense workers work in a village near Hanoi, Vietnam, on Jan. 12. Vietnamese people have the custom of going to temples to pray for incense during the Spring Festival. (Xinhua News Agency/AFP/Photo)
Countries in the East Asian Chinese character cultural circle share many similar concepts and customs, taking festivals as an example, the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Chongyang, etc. are shared by all countries, and the Spring Festival (Lunar New Year's Day) originating in China is also one of them.
The Spring Festival is called New Year's Day, Yuan Day, Xinzheng, New Year, etc., which is the first day of the year in which the Central Plains Dynasty promulgated the calendar "Zhengshuo", and the neighboring countries that were canonized by China in the ancient "Heavenly Order" will also get calendars promulgated by China, so all countries in this circle are actually celebrating the New Year on the same day.
The long history has left a deep mark on the Countries of East Asia, and the Korean Peninsula and Vietnam all use the lunar calendar to celebrate the Lunar New Year. In Korean, as in ancient China, the Spring Festival is called New Year's Day, New Year's Day, New Year's Day, etc., and in Vietnamese, it is also called New Year's Day and Spring Festival. In the traditional era, East Asian countries were not only linked through Confucianism and Chinese characters, but also in the "sacred time" of festivals.
During the Southern Dynasty, Baekje on the Korean Peninsula was using the Southern Dynasty Song Dynasty's "YuanJia Calendar", with the Southern Dynasty as Zhengshuo, and the Book of Zhou's Exotic Transmission on Baekje records that Baekje "used the Song "Yuanjia Calendar" to take the Jianyin Moon as the first year", since the same calendar was used, it was naturally the same day as the Southern Dynasty.
Since the second year of Emperor Gaozong's reign, the Silla period continued to use the Tang Dynasty's Zhengshuo calendar, such as the "Yuangui of the Book of The Imperial Household" volume 975 records that in the twelfth year of the new century, Tang Xuanzong descended to the Silla King Jin Xingguang to commend him for "every Bong Jeongshuo", and Silla used the Tang Dynasty's "Xuanming Calendar" until the period of King Zhongxuan of Goryeo. The Lee Dynasty of Korea, on the other hand, used the Ming Dynasty's "Great Unified Calendar" to pursue the Chinese Zhengshuo calendar, which naturally also followed the Chinese new year.
In the thirty-second year of Gojong at the end of the Lee Dynasty in Joseon, he began to use the Gregorian calendar, but the customs of the past thousand years were deeply rooted, and the folk and society were still accustomed to using the traditional lunar calendar, still celebrating the Lunar New Year. Later, during the era of Japanese colonial rule, because Japan switched to the Gregorian calendar after the Meiji Restoration, it also forced Koreans to use the Gregorian calendar, saying that the traditional lunar calendar used by Koreans was "backward", prohibiting Koreans from using the traditional lunar calendar, and punishing Koreans for celebrating the Lunar New Year. For example, shops and enterprises that close for business during the Spring Festival are subject to heavy tax penalties, and once a Korean student's lunch box is found to have food for sacrifice during the Spring Festival, the student will be severely punished by the school.
After the restoration of Korea, this colonial cultural heritage was inherited, and the Gregorian New Year was designated as a public holiday, and it was not until the Chun Doo-hwan and later Roh Tae-woo period in 1985 that the traditional Lunar New Year was restored to a national holiday. South Korea's Spring Festival customs are also attached to the Spring League, but it is a white Spring League, which is an ancient tradition of "Shangbai" since ancient times, and there are even chronological methods such as "Chongzhen Ding Ugly Three Hundred and Seventy-Nine Years" written on the Spring League, that is, the way ding ugly years after the Chengzi Rebellion were forced to abandon the era after the Ming Dynasty, which are all associated with historical and cultural memories.
Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan wants to "break away from Asia and enter Europe", abolishing the traditional calendar since 1873, adopting the Western Gregorian calendar, and celebrating the Gregorian New Year, but the customs of pressing the New Year's money and paying homage to the New Year in the Gregorian New Year actually originate from a longer tradition, that is, the Spring Festival in Japanese history. Japan obtained the Yuanjia Calendar of the Southern Dynasty of China from Baekje in the Kofun Period, and then used the Yifeng Calendar, the Great Yan Calendar, the Five Ages Calendar, and the Xuanming Calendar, of which the Xuanming Calendar was used for a very long time, used for more than 800 years, and was not replaced by the Zhenxiang Calendar until the Tokugawa period. The long-term use of the Chinese calendar has made ancient Japan and China in the same time coordinates, deriving a large number of festivals similar to China, and its new year is also the traditional Chinese Spring Festival.
The traditional Japanese Spring Festival, like Chinese, gives children a pressed old age money on Chinese New Year's Eve night, called "Nian Yu", that is, a gift from the god of the year, and on the first day of the New Year, they pay homage to relatives and friends, and visit the shrine in the village. From the first day of the Chinese New Year to the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, it is called "Matsunouchi", and like China, the seventh day of the New Year is called "People's Day", and the door pine decorated with "Three Friends of the Year" should be put away at the door of the New Year. The traditional Japanese Spring Festival customs are very similar to those in China, indicating that the influence of this culture is extremely far-reaching. Therefore, after the Meiji Restoration, although the Japanese government at that time wanted to "break away from Asia and enter Europe" and eliminate the traces of its own East Asian culture, in fact, the general public in society was not happy to accept it. According to an 1889 survey, Japan had abolished the old calendar for 16 years, but except for big cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto, other places still insisted on the traditional Spring Festival. Even by 1946, only 43 percent of japanese rural People celebrated the Gregorian New Year, and more than 50 percent still celebrated the traditional Spring Festival.
It can be seen that the more conservative people in rural Japan are actually more inclined to spend the "backward" Spring Festival like the Korean Peninsula, and the most active in promoting the Gregorian calendar in Japan and North Korea is precisely the "modern elite", and this "modern elite" often uses arbitrary coercion to crack down on traditional folklore.
Vietnam outside of Japan and South Korea also celebrates the Spring Festival, and Vietnamese refer to the Spring Festival as the "Great Festival", which is the biggest and most important festival. Vietnam has also used the Chinese calendar for a long time in history, and it is natural to use the Chinese calendar directly in the era of Being a Chinese Jiaotong County, which is naturally the same New Year. After the establishment of the state, Vietnam still used the calendar issued by China, such as the "Ming History of Foreign Transmissions II Annam" records the first year of Hongwu, "Zhi Ri Xuan "Grand Unified Calendar", that is, the calendar that was awarded to the King of the Trần Dynasty of Vietnam, Tran Il-cho, which had a profound impact on Vietnamese social customs.
Vietnamese Spring Festival, like China, sacrifices ancestors and gods on Chinese New Year's Eve night, firecrackers are set off, children are distributed with pressing money, and on the first day of the Chinese New Year, relatives and friends are given New Year's greetings, and they cannot sweep the floor and take out garbage, and it takes three days to pour. In addition, the Vietnamese Spring Festival also sacrifices the Stove King, using three or one red carp to offer to the Stove King, so that the Stove King can ride to the heavenly court and bless the Jade Emperor. From these customs, it can be seen that the Vietnamese Spring Festival is deeply influenced by Chinese Confucian and Taoist culture, which includes both Confucian ancestor worship and emphasis on family morality, as well as the belief of the Taoist Jade Emperor.
On the whole, the cultural relations between traditional East Asian countries are very close, they share the cultural wealth of Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese characters, etc., and they have also been twisted into a common cultural circle in the temporal dimension. On the central axis of this time, the node of the "sacred time" of the Spring Festival is also shared. Chinese New Year's Eve bell rings in China, but it also rings in the ancient East Asian cultural circle; this is also the rhythm of civilization, the resonance of people's hearts, and the long-lasting celebration of the new year.
Li Jingheng
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