Customs of Spring Festival in various countries

Spring Festival is a traditional festival with a long history in China, and it is also the most important day in our year. Every New Year, no matter where the wanderer is, how much money he has and how far he travels, he must go home for the New Year. Spring Festival is a traditional festival in China, and every nation celebrates it.

Influenced by China's culture, Southeast Asian countries, which belong to the Chinese character cultural circle, have had the custom of Spring Festival, such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam. Although these countries are directly influenced by the culture of China, many things are integrated with their own national characteristics.

I. Japan

The Japanese began to learn from China in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and never stopped. Before the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese Spring Festival and China were on the same day, and the customs were similar. However, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan gradually moved westward, from worshipping China to learning from western countries. Emperor Meiji of Japan abolished the Spring Festival and the lunar calendar and switched to the western solar calendar.

However, although Japan no longer celebrates the Lunar New Year, it designated 65438+February 3 1 as "big black day" and called that night "except night". In addition to the evening, the Japanese want the whole family to gather in front of the TV to watch the Japanese "Spring Festival Gala"-the Red and White Song Festival. At midnight, temples all over Japan will ring the bell 108. When the bell stops, it means the arrival of a new year. The next morning, the family told each other their dreams except in the evening, and then relatives and friends exchanged New Year greetings, and the elders also gave their children lucky money.

Second, South Korea

South Korea used to be a subordinate country of China, so it also learned and imitated a lot from China. Koreans began to celebrate the Spring Festival about 1000 years ago in the Silla era. Later, Japan colonized the Korean peninsula and the Spring Festival was banned. 1985 reappeared in the name of "Folklore Day", 1999 South Korea officially resumed the Spring Festival and called it "Lao Zheng".

There are many differences between the Spring Festival in South Korea and the Spring Festival in China: China people pay more attention to New Year's Eve, while Koreans pay more attention to New Year's Day; In China, red is used for red envelopes, representing happiness, while in South Korea, white represents purity. South Korea and Spring Festival travel rush in China have one thing in common that many people may not think of, and that is the Spring Festival travel rush craze. There are traffic jams in Korea every Spring Festival, and it is hard to get a ticket.

Third, Singapore.

Chinese in Singapore account for about three-quarters of the total population of China, so the Spring Festival of China people is also highly valued in Singapore. Every Spring Festival in Singapore, the whole city is decorated with lanterns, gongs and drums, and people in China paste Spring Festival couplets and wish them well, which has a strong flavor of the year.

As most Chinese in Singapore are immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong, the custom of Spring Festival in Singapore is also very close to that in China and Guangdong. For example, you will bring two oranges in the New Year, because in Cantonese, "orange" and "gold" are homophonic, and "orange" and "auspicious" are homophonic, so oranges represent wealth and good luck.

Fourth, Vietnam.

Vietnam, known as Annan in ancient times, has long been a subordinate country or directly affiliated territory of China, so it is the country with the highest degree of Sinicization in Indo-China Peninsula, and its cultural customs are very similar to those of China. Like China, there are Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival.

Vietnam is still a country dominated by agriculture, so Vietnam still maintains a lot of awe of nature during the Spring Festival. For example, Vietnamese people will buy a live carp when they sacrifice to the kitchen god, and then put the carp back into the river after the statue of the kitchen god is burned. This is because people think that carp is the embodiment of dragon. Another feature of the Vietnamese Spring Festival is zongzi, but they are square in shape, which is taken from the meaning of "round place" in China traditional culture, and they are much larger than those in China, with the largest weighing two or three kilograms.