Traditional customs of Shenzhen Spring Festival

There is a folk saying in China that "open the door and set off firecrackers". That is, when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.

Firecracker is a specialty of China, also known as "Firecracker", "Firecracker" and "Firecracker". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years.

Now, most of us think that setting off firecrackers can create a festive atmosphere, is a kind of entertainment in festivals, and can bring happiness and good luck to people. However, if we trace the origin of firecrackers, we will understand the original intention of the ancients to set off firecrackers and its evolution history.

"The Chronicle of Jingchu" said: "On the first day of the first month, chickens crow and firecrackers are set off in front of the court to avoid evil spirits." This record shows that firecrackers were an acoustic tool to drive away plagues and evil spirits in ancient times, which made the custom of setting off firecrackers have a certain superstitious color from the beginning. In fact, this is entirely caused by the misunderstanding of the ancients.

According to Nerve, in ancient times, people camped through deep mountains and lit bonfires at night, one for cooking and keeping warm, and the other for preventing wild animals from invading. However, there is an animal in the mountains, which is not afraid of people or fire, and often steals food while people are unprepared.

In order to deal with this animal, people thought of setting off firecrackers in the fire and using the crackling sound of bamboo to drive it away. The animal mentioned here is called "sister-in-law". The ancients said that it can make people cold and hot, and it is ghosts that make people get cold and hot, scaring away mountains, that is, driving away evil spirits and making people lucky and safe. In the early Tang Dynasty, plagues were everywhere. A man named Li Tian put saltpeter in a bamboo tube and lit it to make it emit louder sound and stronger smoke. As a result, the miasma in Shan Lan was dispelled and the epidemic was stopped. This is the earliest prototype of firecrackers.

Later, when gunpowder appeared, people filled bamboo tubes with saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal and burned them, resulting in an "explosion war." In the Song Dynasty, people began to make "guns" (that is, firecrackers) with paper tubes and hemp sticks wrapped in gunpowder.

Regarding the evolution of firecrackers, Excellent Popular Arrangement records: "Ancient firecrackers. They are all popular with real bamboo, so Tang poetry is also called explosive pole. Later people roll paper for it. It's called firecrackers.

With the passage of time, firecrackers are more and more widely used, and there are more and more varieties and colors. Liuyang in Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao in Guangdong, Yichun and Pingxiang in Jiangxi and Wenzhou in Zhejiang are the famous "hometown of fireworks" in China. The firecrackers they produced not only sell well all over the country, but also are exported to other countries and regions in the world.

Setting off firecrackers has become an entertainment activity with national characteristics. People not only set off firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new in the Spring Festival, but also set off firecrackers to celebrate major festivals and happy events, such as Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, marriage, building houses and opening businesses.

dragon dance

Playing with dragon lanterns, also known as "Dragon Dance" and "Dragon Dance", is a unique folk entertainment activity in China. From the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival, China has the custom of playing dragon lanterns in both urban and rural areas. After thousands of years of inheritance and development, playing dragon lantern has become a kind of folk dance with lively form, beautiful performance and romantic color. Playing with dragon lanterns originated from people's superstition about dragons and has a history of more than two thousand years. In ancient times, people used dragon dancing to pray for the blessing of dragons, in order to have good weather and abundant crops.

The main prop for playing dragon lanterns is "dragon". Dragons are made of grass, bamboo, wood, paper and cloth. The number of dragons is singular, which means good luck. Most of them are nine-section dragons, eleven-section dragons and thirteen-section dragons, up to twenty-nine. Dragons with more than fifteen knots are bulky and unsuitable for dancing. They are mainly used for viewing. This kind of dragon pays special attention to decoration and has high technological value. There is also a kind called "fire dragon", which forms a cage by weaving bamboo sticks into cylinders, affixing transparent and beautiful dragon clothes, and lighting candles or oil lamps to burn. The performance in the evening was spectacular.

There are many ways to play the dragon lantern, among which the trick within nine knots is the key. The common moves are: dragon swimming, dragon drilling, head and tail drilling, dragon wagging its tail and snake molting. The dragons in sections 1 1 and 13 focus on action performance. Jinlong chased the orb, jumped up, sometimes flew to the clouds, and sometimes broke the waves into the sea. Very good.

The custom of dragon dancing is carried forward by overseas Chinese. Whenever people in China have traditional festivals and major celebrations, they will dance lions and play with dragon lanterns, showing a strong oriental spirit.

walk on stilts

In the past, in the first month of the lunar calendar, teams of stilts would cross the street with drums, cymbals and percussion. The number of people walking on stilts varies, generally more than a dozen. Tall people walk on stilts, short people walk on stilts. Performers wear traditional costumes. From the opening bar, there appeared artistic images such as Sean, White Snake, Tang Priest, Ugly Girl and Jiang Ziya. It has always been loved by Beijingers, because it is humorous, straightforward, gratifying, affectionate and sometimes interesting.

Stilts clubs are generally organized by the masses spontaneously in series. On the 11th and 12th day of the first month, people began to take to the streets, which means to tell people that many folk flowers will be hung up this year. On the fifteenth day of the first month, I officially went to the streets until the end of the 18th National Congress. During the meeting, the big merchants along the way set up the square table in front of the door, put on tea snacks and set off firecrackers to show their hearts. The stilt team will stay here for a while or perform a program to thank them.

When walking in the street, the stilt queue usually adopts a single-row snake array, and in busy and crowded areas, it adopts a double parallel formation. The steps are changed to eight characters. In the performance, there are difficult and dangerous moves such as small whirlwind, flower arm, kite turning over and big split.

In winter leisure time, some rural areas are still rehearsing stilt art. You can see it from time to time at garden parties and temple fairs all over Beijing.

make dumplings

Jiaozi is a folk food with a long history and is deeply loved by people. There is a folk saying "delicious but not as good as jiaozi". During the Spring Festival, jiaozi has become an indispensable delicacy.

According to "Guangya" written by Zhang Yi, wei ren of the Three Kingdoms, there was a crescent-shaped food called "Wonton" at that time, which was basically similar to the shape of jiaozi now. By the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, wonton had been "shaped like a crescent moon, and it was delicious all over the world". Presumably, when jiaozi cooked it, he didn't take it out and eat it alone, but put it in a bowl with the soup, so people called jiaozi "wonton" at that time. This way of eating is still popular in some areas of our country. For example, when people from Henan and Shaanxi eat jiaozi, they should put some small ingredients such as coriander, chopped green onion, shrimp skin and leek in the soup.

By about the Tang Dynasty, jiaozi had become exactly the same as jiaozi now, so it was fished out and put on a plate to eat by itself.

Jiaozi was called "Joule" in Song Dynasty, which is the etymology of the word "Jiaozi" in later generations. This kind of writing can still be seen in the following Yuan, Ming, Qing and Republic of China.

Jiaozi was called a "flat food" in the Yuan Dynasty. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Shen Bang's Miscellaneous Notes on Ten Thousand Parts recorded: "New Year's Day, New Year's Day ...... as a patch food". Liu Ruoyu's "Proceedings" records: "Eat fruit snacks on New Year's Day and eat a plaque immediately." The "plaque" of the "plaque food" in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties is now commonly used as "ping". A kind of "flat food" may come from Mongolian.

Some new names about jiaozi appeared in Qing Dynasty, such as "jiaozi", "Water Snack" and "Boiled Bean". The increase of Jiaozi's names shows that its geographical spread is expanding.

The folk custom of eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival was quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Generally, jiaozi should wrap it up before New Year's Eve 12, and eat it at midnight. At this time, it is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Eating jiaozi means "making friends when you are young", and "Zi" is homophonic with "jiaozi", which means "reunion" and "good luck".

There are many legends about eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival. One is to commemorate the creation of Pangu and end the mixed state. The other is to use it as a homonym of "wonton", which means "five grains are abundant" In addition, it is said that eating jiaozi's folk language is related to Nu Wa's making people. When Nuwa soil caused people, the ears of loess people were easily frozen off because of the cold weather. In order to prevent the ear from being fixed, Nuwa put a small eye on the ear, tied it with a thin thread, and put the other end of the thread in the mouth of the loess man to bite, so that the ear would be fine. In order to commemorate the achievements of Nu Wa, ordinary people wrapped jiaozi, molded adult ears with flour, wrapped them with stuffing (thread) and ate them with their mouths.

Jiaozi has become an indispensable program food for the Spring Festival. The reasons are as follows: First, jiaozi is shaped like an ingot. During the Spring Festival, people eat jiaozi, which sounds like "making money into treasure". Secondly, jiaozi has stuffing, which is convenient for people to put all kinds of auspicious things into stuffing and place their hopes for the new year.

When wrapping jiaozi, people usually wrap Jin Ruyi, sugar, peanuts, dates and chestnuts into stuffing. Eat the best and sugar, life will be sweeter in the coming year, eat peanuts, live a long and healthy life, eat dates and chestnuts, and have a baby early.

In some areas, when people eat jiaozi, they have to match some non-staple food to show their good luck. If you eat tofu, it symbolizes the happiness of the whole family; Eating persimmons symbolizes all the best; Eat three fresh vegetables. It symbolizes that Sanyang opens Thailand. People in Taiwan Province Province eat fish balls, meatballs and seaweed, symbolizing reunion and wealth. Jiaozi has various fillings and making methods. Even the same kind of jiaozi has different ways of eating: Daur people in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang want to cook jiaozi with vermicelli broth. Then even the soup with jiaozi to eat; In some areas of Henan, jiaozi is cooked with noodles, which is called "gold thread penetrates gold ingot".

Jiaozi, a delicious food, has become an important part of China's food culture while bringing people joy in the New Year.

When visiting the New Year during the Spring Festival, the elders should distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that lucky money can kill evil spirits, because "old" and "special" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend a year safely with lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to put colored rope in the shape of Jackie Chan at the foot of the bed, which was recorded in Yanjing year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. Lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be put under the child's pillow by parents when the child is asleep on New Year's Eve.

Folks believe that giving children lucky money, when evil spirits or "Nian" hurt children, children can use the money to bribe them and turn evil into good luck. A Qing Wu Manyun's poem "Lucky Money" said: "A hundred yuan long colored thread was collected from the pillow, and the price of firecrackers was discussed, which kept Joule busy all night." From this point of view, lucky money is tied in children's hearts, and children's lucky money is mainly used to buy firecrackers, toys and candy and other things needed for holidays.

At present, the custom of elders giving lucky money to younger generations is still prevalent, and the amount ranges from tens to hundreds. Most of these lucky money are used by children to buy books and school supplies, and the new fashion has given new content to the lucky money.

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