What are the Chinese New Year customs in Suzhou?

Suzhou New Year customs include sending stoves, eating porridge and sending new year dishes.

In the old society, Suzhou should be sent to heaven on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. As for why Suzhou has a holiday on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month. It is because the early northern immigrants brought local customs, and over time, the 23 rd and 24 th of the twelfth lunar month came into being. On the day of sending the kitchen stove, the farmers around Suzhou will thank jiaozi for his shelter and kindness over the past year. This kind of jiaozi is very big, and its meaning is pinned on the crops in the field. The bigger jiaozi is, the richer it will be.

On the second day after the stove arrived, that is, on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, every household in Suzhou would cook porridge with red beans and miscellaneous rice as a sacrifice to the gods. After the sacrifice, the whole family should eat a bowl, even the infants, cats and dogs at home should eat a little symbolically. If a family member doesn't come back after going out, his share should also be ready. This is called counting porridge. Fan Chengda said in "Mouth Count Porridge Line": "Every family is on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, and the rice is as ripe as pearls and beans", which shows that Suzhou has had this custom since the Southern Song Dynasty.

Before New Year's Eve, Suzhou had the custom of sending New Year's dishes. According to Lu Gu, a scribe in Suzhou, people give pig's trotters, herring and fruits to each other between the doors and walls of alleys, which is called New Year's plates. In those days, there were crowds of servants, and the reward was a little rich. Pan Jiyun, a poet in A Qing, said in his poem "The Feeling of Chinese New Year": "Doors and alleys are connected, and it is also true to give something. Just like inviting relatives and friends on holidays, chatting is not as good as a plate of rice. "

Suzhou city introduction

Suzhou, referred to as Gusu and Pingjiang for short, is a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province, a Class I metropolis, an important city in Shanghai metropolitan area and Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou metropolitan area, one of the important central cities in the Yangtze River Delta, a national high-tech industrial base and a scenic tourist city. As of 202 1, the city has five districts and four county-level cities with a total area of 8657.32 square kilometers. The resident population 12847800, the urban population 10526200, and the urbanization rate is 8 1.93%.

Suzhou is located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province, in the middle of the Yangtze River Delta, bordering Shanghai in the east, Zhejiang in the south, Taihu Lake in the west and the Yangtze River in the north. The city is low-lying, with many rivers and lakes, and most of the water surface of Taihu Lake is in Suzhou. It has a subtropical monsoon maritime climate with four distinct seasons and abundant rainfall.

Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Suzhou