The Spring Festival is around the corner. The Spring Festival falls on the first day of the year’s first lunar month, but the Spring Festival will last until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The Spring Festival is a folk festival that integrates worshiping gods and ancestors, praying for blessings and warding off evil spirits, reuniting relatives and friends, holding activities for entertainment and sharing good meals. But how much do you know about the customs of the Spring Festival? The following are 10 Spring Festival customs. Let’s dive into it.
1. New Year sweeping
According to the records of A History Written by Lv Buwei, as early as the Yao and Shun eras, China already had the custom of sweeping the dust during the Spring Festival. New Year’s sweeping has pinned a special expectation hoping to sweep away all poor and bad luck.
2. Paste couplets, blessing characters and door gods
On the afternoon before the Spring Festival, adults would step on stools, hold paste and brushes, paste couplets on the door, and let the children below see if they are even. Some couplets are horizontal, these will be pasted on the horizontal head of the lintel, while the vertical couplets will be pasted on the left and right sides of the door. Some people put the blessing character ‘Fu’ on their houses’ doors, walls, and lintels to express people’s yearning for a happy life. Some people will stick pictures of door gods on the door panels, praying for a safe year and adding to the festive atmosphere.
3. Offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods
It is a custom to worship the gods during the Spring Festival in China. The traditions of worshipping gods all over the country are slightly different, but the purpose is the same, all are to pray for good weather, good harvest, good luck, and so on in the coming year. We usually worship ancestors after offering sacrifices to gods, and the customs vary from place to place.
4. Eat dumplings, glutinous rice balls, and rice cakes
In most parts of the north, there is a custom of eating dumplings in the morning during the Spring Festival, and a coin is often placed in only one dumpling. If anyone eats a coin, everyone will say that he is the happiest person in the family that year. In Huai’an, Jiangsu, there is a custom of eating rice balls in the morning. In Kaifeng, Henan, people eat both dumplings and rice balls. During the Spring Festival, there is also the habit of eating rice cakes, and the taste of rice cakes varies from place to place.
5. Shousui and Giving New Year’s Money
Shousui is also one of the most important Spring Festival activities, it means staying up late on New Year’s Eve. Neighbors or family and friends get together, some play cards, some watch the Spring Festival Gala. Everyone stays up all night, waiting for the dawn of the new year.
6. Set off firecrackers
At Spring Festival, every family’s first thing when opening the door is to set off firecrackers. Of course, firecrackers are now banned in many places. We should abide by national regulations and focus on safety.
7. Pay a New Year call
An important activity during the Spring Festival is to pay a New Year’s call. On the first day of the Chinese lunar year, everybody wears new clothes and greets relatives and friends, wishing them good luck in the coming year. Seniors will give their kids some pocket money in a red envelope to wish for their health and safety in the coming year.
8. Visit the temple fair
During the Spring Festival, there are usually temple fairs in rural areas. The early temple fairs were only a solemn sacrificial activity, but with the development of the economy and people’s needs, while continuing the sacrificial activities, the temple fairs have added market trading activities and some colorful entertainment activities.
9. Dragon dance, lion dance
The dragon is the legendary auspicious animal. It is said that the dragon can call for wind and rain, and it can also pray for good fortune and eliminate disasters. As early as the Han Dynasty, there was the activity of dragon dance to pray for rain. In addition to the dragon dance, the lion dance is also a common custom during the Spring Festival.
10. Step on stilts
Walking on stilts is also an entertainment activity during the Spring Festival. It has a long history. It is recorded in The Works of Liezi. Shuo Fu Pian: “A person called Lanzi in Song dynasty… has two limbs as long as his body. Two limbs were attached to his shin, they walk together. “Stepping on stilts is also called “stepping on high feet” . The performers tie two three-foot-high wooden stilts to their feet and perform all kinds of weird and funny movements, but it’ has been performed less and less now.
In the new year, we wish you all a safe, healthy and happy year, and may all your dreams could come true.
Happy Spring Festival!
