What are the Chinese folk customs?

China’s folk customs include: having a reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve, making sacrifices, and staying up late to stay up late; paying New Year’s greetings and visiting relatives during the Spring Festival; eating Yuanxiao during the Lantern Festival; offering sacrifices and outings during the Cold Food Festival; sweeping tombs and worshiping ancestors during the Qingming Festival, and outings, etc. . The specific introduction is as follows:

1. New Year’s Eve

Eat reunion dinner, make sacrifices, and stay up late to watch the New Year. People often stay up all night on New Year's Eve, which is called "staying up all night". On New Year's Eve, the house and outside must be cleaned cleanly, and door gods, Spring couplets, New Year pictures, window grilles, and blessing characters must be posted. People put on new clothes with festive colors and patterns.

2. The Spring Festival

Generally, people eat rice cakes, dumplings, glutinous rice balls, big meatballs, whole fish, fine wine, apples, peanuts, melon seeds, candies, etc.; set off firecrackers and give lucky money; , New Year greetings, visiting relatives, giving New Year gifts, visiting ancestral graves, visiting the flower market, having social gatherings and many other activities, which are the ultimate family happiness.

3. Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival custom has been dominated by the warm and festive lantern viewing custom since ancient times. Traditional customs include going out to admire the moon, lighting lanterns and setting off flames, guessing lantern riddles, eating Yuanxiao, pulling rabbit lanterns, etc. In addition, many local Lantern Festivals also include traditional folk performances such as dragon lantern dancing, lion dancing, stilt walking, land boat rowing, Yangko dancing, and Taiping drum playing.

4. Cold Food Festival

It is 105 days after the winter solstice in the lunar calendar and one or two days before the Qingming Festival. On the first day of the festival, no fireworks are allowed and only cold food is eaten. In the development of later generations, customs such as sacrificial sweeps, outings, swings, Cuju, lead hooks, and cockfighting were gradually added. The Cold Food Festival lasted for more than two thousand years and was once known as the largest folk festival in China. Cold Food Festival is the only traditional Chinese festival named after food customs.

5. Qingming Festival

Also called the Outing Festival, it falls at the turn of mid-spring and late spring. Qingming Festival is a traditional Chinese festival and one of the most important sacrificial festivals. It is a day for sweeping tombs and worshiping ancestors. The traditional Qingming Festival of the Chinese nation began around the Zhou Dynasty and has a history of more than 2,500 years. Through the development and evolution of history, Qingming has extremely rich connotations, and different customs have been developed in various places. The basic themes are sweeping tombs, worshiping ancestors, and outings.

Extended information:

Among the people, especially in rural areas, there is a custom of celebrating the small year and the big year.

On the 23rd (or 24th) day of the twelfth lunar month in the lunar calendar, the Stove God is sent to heaven (the enshrined Stove God painting is cremated) and reports to the Jade Emperor what his family has done in the past year. performance. In order to make the Stove Lord say good things, sugar melons should be offered as offerings, and sugar paste should be put on his mouth when seeing him off, so that he can go to heaven and say good things. To welcome the Kitchen King back on New Year’s Eve, one needs to buy (buy) a new painting of the Kitchen King (the painting shows the Kitchen King and his wife, the Kitchen King) and place it in the kitchen. A couplet is usually posted on both sides of the painting: God says good things, and the lower world ensures peace. Hengpi: the head of the family.

The New Year begins on the last day of the twelfth lunar month, and is generally believed to end on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival. There is also a saying that the new year begins before the first lunar month.

Reference materials: Baidu Encyclopedia_Chinese folk customs? Baidu Encyclopedia_Chinese traditional festivals