-
春
节习
俗
Custom
s of the Spring
Festival
The Spring Festival is a
traditional Chinese festival and also the
m
ost important one of
the
whole year. Through the evolvem
ent of
thousands of years, a series of custom
s
are spreading far and wide.
扫尘
Sweeping the
Dust
“Dust” is hom
ophonic
with “chen”(
尘
)
in
Chinese, which m
eans old and past. In
this
way, “sweeping the dust” before
the Spring Festival m
eans a thorough
cleaning of
houses to sweep away bad
luck in the past year. This custom
shows a good wish of
putting away old
things to welcom
e a new life. In a
word, just before the Spring Festival
com
es, every household will
give a thorough cleaning to bid farewell to the
old year
and usher in the new.
贴
春
联
Pasting Spring Couplets
“The
Spring Couplet”, also called “couplet” and “a pair
of antithetical phrases”, is a
special
form of literature in China. The Spring Couplet is
com
posed of two antithetical
sentences on both sides of the door and
a horizontal scroll bearing an inscription,
usually an auspicious phrase, above the
gate. The sentence pasting on the right side
of the door is called the first line of
the couplet and the one on the left the second
line.
On the eve of the Spring
Festival, every household will paste on doors a
spring couplet
written on red paper to
give a happy and prosperous atm
osphere
of the Festival. In the
past, the
Chinese usually wrote their own spring couplet
with a brush or asked others to
do for
them
, while nowadays, it is common for
people to buy the printed spring
couplet in the m
arket.
贴
窗花和“福”字
Pasting Paper-
cuts and
“Up
-
sided Fu”
Paper-cuts, usually with auspicious
patterns, give a happy and prosperous
atm
osphere of the Festival
and express the good wishes of Chinese people
looking
forward to a good life. In
addition to pasting paper-cuts on windows, it is
comm
on for
Chinese to paste
the character “fu
(福)
”, big
and sm
all, on walls, doors and
doorposts
around the houses. “Fu(福)”
shows people’s yearning toward a good life.
Som
e
people even invert the
character “fu(福)” to signify that blessing has
arrived because
“inverted” is a
hom
onym
for “arrive” in
Chi
nese. Now m
any kinds of
paper-cuts and
“fu(福)” can be seen in
the m
arket before the
Festival.
守
岁
Staying Up Late on New Year's Eve
The tradition
of staying up late to see New Year in originated
from
an interesting folk
tale. In ancient China there lived a
m
onster named Year, who was very
ferocious. Year
always went out
from
its burrow on New Year’s Eve to
devour people. Therefore, on
every New
Year’s Eve, every household would have supper
together. After dinner, no
one dared go
to sleep and all the fam
ily
m
embers would sit together, chatting
and
em
boldening each other.
Gradually the habit of staying up late on New
Year’s Eve is
form
ed. Thus
in China, “celebrating the Spring Festival” is
also called “passing over
the year (guo
nian)”. However, now there are
less and
less people in cities who will
stay up
late to see New Year in.
贴
年
画
Pasting New Year Prints
The
custom
of pasting New Year Prints
originated from
the tradition of
placing Door
Gods on the external doors
of houses. With the creation of board carvings,
New Year
paintings cover a wide range
of subjects. The m
ost fam
ous
ones are Door Gods,
Surplus Year after
Year, Three Gods of Blessing, Salary and
Longevity, An Abundant
Harvest of
Crops, Thriving Dom
estic Animals and
Celebrating Spring. Four producing
areas of New Year Print are T
ɑ
ohu
ɑ
wu of
Suzhou, Y
ɑ
ngliuqing of
Tianjin, Wuqi
ɑ
ng of
Hebei and Weifang of Shangdong. Now the
tradition of pasting New Year paintings is
still kept in rural China, while it is
seldom
followed in cities.
吃
饺
子
Having Jiaozi
On New Year’s
Eve, the whole fam
ily
will
sit together to m
ake jiaozi and
celebrate the
Spring Festival. The
shape of jiaozi is like gold ingot from
ancient China. So people eat
them
and wish for
m
oney and treasure. The tradition of
having jiaozi is very im
portant
during the Spring Festival. You cannot
have a com
plete Spring Festival without
having
jiaozi. (See page 82 for
m
ore information about
“jiaozi”)
看春
节联欢晚会
The CCTV New Year's Gala
The New Year’s Gala is a variety show
held by China Central Television (CCTV) since
1983. For every year since then at the
turn of the Lunar New Year, the program begins
at 8:00PM and lasts five or six hours.
It brings laughter to billions of people, creates
many popular words and produces lots of
TV phenom
ena m
eriting
attention. For over
twenty
years, its value has gone far beyond a
variety show. It is essential entertainment
for the Chinese both at hom
e
and abroad. Many Chinese would like to watch the
gala
while having the dinner on New
Year’s Eve.
放鞭炮
Setting off Firecrackers
The firecracker is a unique product in
China. In ancient China, the sound of burning
bamboo tubes was used to scare away
wild animals and evil spirits. With the invention
of the gunpowder, “firecracker” is also
called “鞭炮
biānpào” (“炮” in Chinese
m
eans
gun) and used to
foster a joyful atm
osphere. The first
thing every Chinese household
does is
to set off firecrackers and fireworks, which are
meant to bid farewell to the old
year
and usher in the new. In the past few years, such
an activity was com
pletely or
partially forbidden in big cities
including Beijing due to fire and personal
casualty
caused by burning
firecrackers. However, som
e Chinese
thought that a Spring Festival
without
firecrackers was not lively enough and they burned
firecrackers by stealth. So
in recent
years, the ban was canceled again. This shows that
burning firecrackers is a
very
important activity during the Spring Festival.
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