Today is the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, coinciding with the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the festive traditional festival is even more lively and special because of the Winter Olympics. Thousands of lights, sharing the event, in addition to eating the Lantern and watching the competition, how are you going to spend the Lantern Festival? Do you know what other customs there are during the Lantern Festival?
Lantern Festival is also known as the Shangyuan Festival, after the Han and Wei people began to celebrate this day, the literati of the past generations of inkers have a lot of poems from the Shangyuan Night, the following and Litchi News together to find the Lantern customs and culture in the verses!
Suddenly looking back, the man was in the middle of the light.
The Lantern Festival was once an ancient Valentine's Day. In ancient times, ordinary women were "not out of the boudoir", and on the day of the Lantern Festival, they went out to watch the lanterns, walk hundreds of diseases, beautiful scenery, and find the right person. Xin Zhiyi once wrote, "The crowd seeks him for a thousand hundred degrees." Suddenly looking back, the man is in the middle of the lights", this poem describes the lively grandeur under the lanterns of the Lantern Festival in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the author also pinned his hopes on seeking knowledge.
During the Ming Dynasty, hundreds of officials could take a holiday for ten days, and the night ban was abolished in the capital, and the whole people celebrated, don't make people too envious! In modern times, it is the beginning of the new moon, looking forward to the festival of reunion and beauty.
Flower lanterns are like day, fire trees and silver flowers.
Lantern Festival flower viewing lanterns began in the Western Han Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Nanjing Qinhuai River in the Northern Song Dynasty has become a good place to enjoy the lights, and now in the bustling city can often see the traditional animal-shaped lanterns, horse-shaped lamps mean horses to success, toad lights mean toad palace to fold gui, rabbit lights, crane lamps, etc. have different meanings, more scientific and technological modern flower lanterns.
The "Heilongjiang Waiji" of the Qing Dynasty Xiqing records: "There are five or six feet of ice for the birthday lamp, and the double torch is burned in the middle, and the hope is like crystal." "In the north, ice lanterns are a unique decoration in winter, especially the ice lanterns in Harbin at night have a different flavor."
The good deeds cleverly make a secret speech and pick up the lamps.
Guessing lantern riddles is a unique form of cultural and recreational activities in China. Qing Gulu's "Qing Jia Lu" records the scene of guessing the riddle of the lanterns during the Suzhou Lantern Festival that year: "The good deeds are cleverly hidden and the lamps are picked." The lamp covers the wall on one side, and the problem is pasted on three sides, which is for people to speculate, which is called a riddle. "The ancients wrote riddles on paper and pasted them on colored lamps for people to guess, and the riddles were mostly a word, a poem or an object. While admiring the lights, it can also enlighten wisdom and cater to the festive atmosphere, so there are many people who respond, and then guessing puzzles gradually becomes an indispensable program of the Lantern Festival.
Treat me three silkworms old. It's for the silkworms!
Mouse chasing means driving away rats. In ancient times, many families raised silkworms, and just after winter, rats began to eat silkworms, which was a good time to remove rats. The ancients cooked a pot of meat porridge on the day of the Lantern Festival, placed it in a place where rats often haunted, and prayed while putting it: "Ascend to the top." Rat brain. If you want to come, you can't come. Treat me three silkworms old. It's for the silkworms! "In the Wei and Jin dynasties, when the silk industry was gradually flourishing, this custom spread, expecting rats not to steal silkworm babies.
On the eve of the feast, Zigu was greeted, and the silkworm mulberry would be in the future.
Zigu is the god of toilets in Chinese folklore, also known as toilet gu, mao gu, pit gu and so on. Whenever the New Year's Festival is celebrated, women will greet the goddess of the toilet, tell Zigu about their troubles, pray for the happiness of their children, and ask her to divinate the silkworm mulberry. According to the "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" and "Mengxi Pen Talk", Zigu's life is very miserable, so some people still ask Zigu to write poems, write, and play chess. The ancient people sympathized with this poor woman and hoped that her beauty and kindness would bring good luck to them.
The fish and dragon danced wildly, and the children jumped and laughed sweetly.
The dragon is an auspicious mythical animal, but also the totem and symbol of the Chinese nation; the lion is mighty and majestic, giving people the spirit of kingship, and is regarded by successive emperors as a sacred beast and auspicious rui, and the folk come to help with dragon and lion dances during the Lantern Festival.
"Lion dance" generally one person acts as a lion head, one person acts as a lion body and hind feet, the other person is a lion person, and there is a distinction between culture and martial arts in the dance method, the literary dance shows the gentleness of the lion, there are movements such as shaking hair, rolling and so on, and the martial lion shows the fierceness of the lion, there are leaps, ascends, rolling balls and other actions. This custom originated in the Three Kingdoms period and became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and has a history of more than a thousand years.
Wanjia lights lantern night, a bowl of tangyuan Rui full of gas.
Eating the Lantern On the fifteenth day of the first month is a long-standing custom in China, symbolizing the happy reunion of the family. Generally, the north is called Lantern, and the south is called Tangyuan. Lantern is made of glutinous rice rolled out layer by layer, the filling is mostly sesame seeds, bean paste and other sweets, the Lantern under the oil pot is fried in a small fire, crispy inside the sticky; and the tangyuan is wrapped out, the flavor is different, there are flowers and fruits and other novel fillings, usually cooked to eat, round and transparent, and the soup will not be turbid. Eating Lantern/Tangyuan on the fifteenth day of the first month means happiness and reunion with the United States in the new year.
Put the wine to the blue sky. This month is also the same as the ancient full moon.
Moon viewing is a romantic Chinese peculiar to you. The Lantern Festival is the first full moon night after the New Year, when the yuan is restored and the earth is rejuvenated. The bright moon hangs in the air, illuminating the way of pedestrians and sending the poet's intentions. The fifteenth moon this year is not "sixteen circles", but "seventeen circles", and the roundest time occurs at 0:56 on February 17. At that time, you may wish to look up at the moon in the sky, for the present man does not see the ancient moon, and this month once illuminated the ancients.
In addition to these, lantern customs also include stilt walking, walking hundreds of diseases, rowing dry boats, etc., all of which reflect the ancient people's enthusiasm for a better life. No matter how the times change, people's good expectations and reunion moods expressed during the Lantern Festival are always the same.
The Lantern Meets the Winter Olympics, travels through time and space, spans ancient and modern, and collides with the unique charm of the 2022 New Year. At this time, the wonderful is being staged, no matter where you are, may you share this bright moon and a thousand lights with your loved ones, and run towards a better future together!
Source 丨 Litchi News