Spring Festival
01 · Historical Records
This festival is celebrated by the Han, Zhuang, Buyi, Dong, Korean, Gelao, Yao, She, Jing, and Daur peoples, among others. The Spring Festival has a long history, originating in the deity-worshipping activities held at the turn of the year during the Yin-Shang period. The Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han call the first day of the first lunar month the "Four Beginnings" (the beginning of the year, of the season, of the day, and of the month) and the "Three Firsts" (the first of the year, of the month, and of the day; "first" also meaning "beginning"). People in antiquity would hold court greetings at this time, carry out various recreational activities, welcome the deities and worship their ancestors, divine the weather, and pray for a good harvest; over time this gradually grew into the richly varied celebration of the new spring.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Spring Festival is a traditional folk festival of China. The New Year falls on the first day of the first month of the traditional (lunar) calendar and is the most grandly observed festival of the year. There are many legends associated with it, of which the tales of the "Nian" beast, the legend of staying awake through the night on New Year's Eve, and the story of Wan Nian's creation of the calendar are the most representative. Since Emperor Wu of Han adopted the lunar calendar, successive Chinese dynasties treated the Beginning of Spring, one of the twenty-four solar terms, as the Spring Festival, and the first day of the first lunar month as the New Year. The Beginning of Spring was originally a day for worshipping Heaven, the god of agriculture, and the god of spring, for whipping the spring ox, and for praying for a bumper year. After the Revolution of 1911, the first day of the first lunar month was redesignated as the Spring Festival, and the Beginning of Spring gradually faded in importance. The Spring Festival is also called the lunar year and is commonly known as "guo nian" (passing the year); the related folk activities last for a full month. Before the first day of the first month there are rituals such as worshipping the Kitchen God and the ancestors; during the festival there are customs such as giving children New Year's money and paying New Year visits to relatives and friends; half a month after the festival comes the Lantern Festival, when lanterns fill the city and visitors fill the streets. Only after the Lantern Festival does the Spring Festival come to an end. The Spring Festival is a comprehensive folk culture, encompassing beliefs, rituals, festival decorations, food, and related recreational activities. The main activities during the Spring Festival include: drinking Laba porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month; worshipping the Kitchen God on the twenty-third and eating Guandong candy and sweet porridge; on New Year's Eve, families making dumplings, glutinous rice balls, and New Year cakes, eating the reunion dinner and staying up late into the night, as well as pasting Spring Festival couplets, New Year pictures, and paper-cuts and setting off firecrackers; welcoming the deities and paying New Year visits on the first day of the first month; the small market opening on the fifth; and on the fifteenth, the Lantern Festival, when the grand market opens, the God of Wealth is welcomed, yuanxiao sweet dumplings are eaten, and there are lantern-viewing outings and lantern-riddle guessing. Setting off firecrackers is a folk activity during the Spring Festival that bids farewell to the old year and welcomes the new. The Spring Festival is an important occasion for expressing harmonious family affection and harmonious interpersonal relations. Celebrating the Spring Festival well is one of the important ways to strengthen family bonds, enhance social cohesion, and build a harmonious society; it also plays a positive role in promoting the development of cultural industries. Because urban and rural areas in China differ in their settings, the ways of celebrating the Spring Festival also vary. At present, the vast rural areas still celebrate the Spring Festival in the traditional manner, but the belief and ritual elements have faded, while the customs of giving gifts and hosting banquets grow ever stronger; the way the Spring Festival is celebrated in cities is simpler by comparison with rural areas.
The kitchen god rites of the twelfth month
Households offer sugar to the kitchen god before he departs for heaven, keep the hearth closed for several days, and welcome him back over the new year.
Watching the year out and sending it away
Lamps are kept burning through the night; firecrackers are lit at the last moment to drive away the old year.
Spring ox driving at the Beginning of Spring
Before the new year’s calendar took over, the Beginning of Spring itself was the festival: a clay ox is whipped three times for wind, rain and a good harvest.
New year calls, lucky money and the lantern close
The young bow to the old and receive lucky money, doorways are hung with colour, and the festival closes with lanterns and riddles on the fifteenth.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Regional differences in the Spring Festival fall first on the staple food. In the north, wheat-based foods dominate: on New Year's Eve the whole family gathers around the kneading board to make dumplings, cooking them at midnight just as the old year gives way to the new. In the south, rice products predominate: Jiangnan makes New Year cakes, Ningbo and further south make glutinous rice balls, while the guo (rice cakes) of central Fujian and the Chaoshan region each have their own names and fillings. The hour until which people stay awake also differs: in the north they stay up until the midnight firecrackers sound; in Lingnan they stay up until the shops open for the new year; in Jiangnan many stay up only until relatives' New Year visits begin at the door. Decoration and recreational pursuits reveal the geographical differences even more clearly. The people of Guangzhou spend the end of the year visiting flower markets, pasting lucky couplets, and arranging peach blossom; the Hakka and the mountain regions of Jiangxi and Fujian hold village markets and lantern parades; northern rural areas perform the yangge dance, walk on stilts, and run the dry-boat dance; the water townships of Suzhou and Shanghai celebrate the season with dragon-boat lanterns and dragon lantern dances. Around Chengdu in Sichuan there is the practice of walking toward the auspicious god of happiness on the first day of the first month, with raised pavilions and vow-fulfillment lanterns going through the streets in festival greeting; the scale of temple fairs and lantern fairs waxes and wanes with the population of the villages and towns and the bustle of their land and water ports. The emigrants of southern Fujian and Chaoshan have carried the entire round of year-end customs to Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Macao; overseas Chinese settlements commonly set out offering tables and welcome and send off the deities on New Year's Eve, forming an emigrant year-sequence centered on the flower markets, New Year's dinner, and New Year's money of the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth and New Year's Eve.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Its content is rich and varied, and it possesses important historical, artistic, and cultural value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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