What are the customs of Pingtan people during the Spring Festival?
1, the Spring Festival is a very grand festival, and a lot of preparations must be made before the festival. Lunar calendar1February 23rd is a dust removal day. It is from this day to the 30th that we should choose odd days to clean the house and the outside. Tie bamboo poles with zongzi or grass and dust the ceiling and walls. Besides washing doors and windows, floors, furniture and so on. Is to have a clean Spring Festival.
As an old boy, the Lunar New Year is celebrated on1February 24th, commonly known as "old boy". Is to prepare for the new year. In the old society, long-term workers had little food, so they settled accounts with their hosts and went home for the New Year. Except the guys at the store. They want to take the master's bill to the door of the creditor's house to collect debts, but generally they don't charge money, just to inform them.
Collect money on the 25th. Until New Year's Eve closes, no one is allowed to call home to collect accounts after closing. From this day on, every household began to buy new year's goods, cut new clothes, kill pigs and sheep, steam rice cakes, kill chickens and ducks, buy New Year pictures, Spring Festival couplets, firecrackers and so on. Adults are busy and worried, while children are looking forward to the new year with joy. This day is also a day for people to sacrifice stoves. Legend has it that on this day, Kitchen God will return to heaven and report the situation of each family. The host family will buy candy and biscuits from the kitchen to see him off. On the fourth night of the first month, a new map of the kitchen god will be posted to welcome him back.
3. In different years, on the eve of the Spring Festival, married daughters will send new year's goods to their parents. Pingtan people call it "different years", which is actually the abbreviation of "sending new year goods" In the first year of Chinese New Year, the gift-giving requirements are strict. Generally, you should give a pair of pig's trotters, five pounds of noodles and ten pieces of five meats and five vegetarian dishes. After the second year, there is no limit to the number of gifts. Dividing the age is a good custom of respecting the old and filial piety, which still continues in Pingtan.
4. Post Spring Festival couplets and hang New Year pictures. Tan's custom of hanging New Year pictures on Spring Festival couplets is similar to that in other places. Generally, Spring Festival couplets and spring paintings should be posted before New Year's Eve to welcome the arrival of the New Year. People who have new funerals this year will only post green Spring Festival couplets to show Dai Xiao.
On New Year's Eve, one of the important contents of the New Year's Eve is to eat the New Year's Eve. Pingtan people call it "thirty blind rice", and the host takes out the best things to make New Year's Eve dinner. The richer, the better. But it can't be made into ten dishes, it can be nine or eleven. There is a custom in Pingtan that ten bowls of dishes should be placed when offering sacrifices to ancestors, so living people generally don't put ten bowls. Pingtan people don't order all ten dishes in the usual order, which is why no matter how rich your New Year's Eve dinner is, you should cook something dry called "next year's meal", which means that you can't finish it every year, and there is always next year's meal.
After a family eats the New Year's Eve dinner, elders will give lucky money to unmarried children and grandchildren, which is called giving lucky money. Then the whole family sat around. Have a heart-to-heart talk, look forward to the future, until zero, open the door and set off firecrackers to meet the god of wealth. Lights should be lit all night on New Year's Eve, and the lights will be bright and prosperous in the coming year.
6, New Year's greetings, the first day of the first month, also known as the New Year's Day. Just after midnight, someone set off firecrackers. It means "get up early at first, get up early all year round". On New Year's Day, every family has sweet noodles with a pair of Taiping eggs for breakfast. I hope this year's life is sweet, long and peaceful. It has become a habit to eat more noodles or eggs at the first bite of breakfast instead of soup first. Therefore, there is a saying that "drinking noodle soup in the morning of the first day will rain when you go out".
Pingtan people call the Spring Festival "Chinese New Year". This year is similar to the legends in other places. According to legend, in Archaean, there was a monster called Nian, which often appeared at the end of the year and devoured people and animals. People regard the end of a year as a difficult task, so there is a saying of "celebrating the New Year" and "closing the year". Most people in Pingtan are immigrants from the Central Plains, and the folk custom of Chinese New Year has both the ancient customs of the Central Plains and the characteristics of Pingtan.
Legend has it that animals are afraid of red, fire and explosion in New Year's Day. Therefore, on the first day of New Year's Day, people have the custom of greeting the New Year, posting Spring Festival couplets, hanging New Year pictures, stick grilles, setting off firecrackers, giving out red envelopes, wearing new clothes, eating jiaozi, observing the New Year, dancing lions and dragons, hanging lanterns and kowtowing.