Laizhou Spring Festival Folk Customs

Jiaodong people have a unique custom during the Chinese New Year, that is, every family has to steam jujube cakes. The "nose" is picked out with a cross on the surface of the pastry, and red dates are embedded in it.

In the Caizhou area, jujube dumplings and cocoon dumplings are served during the Spring Festival. Date cake is used to offer ancestors, gods of wealth, and Bodhisattvas. Gods of heaven and earth. Five dumplings are stacked on top of each other. On the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, the gods are received, and the offerings are removed on the third day of the first lunar month. On the 15th day of the first lunar month, five cocoon dumplings and three big holy insect dumplings are offered. When worshiping, the ancestors are in the middle, the God of Wealth is on the right, and the Bodhisattva is on the left, which means more wealth and more children. The holy insect has a round bun-shaped head, cockscomb, black eyes, red tongue, and a snake-coil-shaped torso. The ancestors, the God of Wealth, and the Bodhisattva each place a bowl of grain in front of them, and the holy insects are placed in the bowl of grain. After the offering, the cocoons are eaten, and the holy insects are enlarged in the grain hoard until the second day of the second month for the children to share. The word "saint" in "holy insect" in Jiaodong is homophonic to "left", meaning "surplus", which means a bumper harvest and more than enough year after year. In Fushan, Mou Ping also made the "holy insect" into the shape of male and female thorns, with red dates in its mouth. Place it in a rice noodle jar or a money cabinet to pray for increased wealth and endless use.

Jiaodong still has the custom of using molds to knock "naiguo" on the Chinese Valentine's Day.

Along the coast of Laizhou. Qiaoguo is made by mixing seven kinds of edible colors into the dough, then frying it, and skewering it to please the children. Mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival are not only used for worship and consumption, but also as gifts for relatives and friends to wish each other a happy reunion. Blessings. When Laizhou people make moon cakes, they make pictures of rabbits pounding medicine. At night, children hold moon cakes and sing to the moon: "The moon is full, the moon is full, one stone per acre; the moon is high; the moon is full." "It happens once a year." Within one year after marriage, the new daughter-in-law should also bring fried fish, colorful cakes, and steamed buns from her parents' home to her husband's house as a blessing.