At present, the most important book about New Year's Day is Jingchu New Year's Day written by Zonggu in the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties. It records the custom of Jingchu New Year's Day, and it is also the earliest monograph in China to record the ancient New Year season. Xiao Fang of Beijing Normal University has made a deep study of this book, and his doctoral thesis "Research-On the Concept of Time in Traditional China Life" has been published. You can refer to it
20-year-old festivals are mainly associated with 20-year-old festivals and folk customs. The 20-year-old festival folk custom is a social and cultural phenomenon with wide content and coverage. Festivals can be divided into agricultural festivals, religious festivals and national traditional festivals. The content of folk activities is divided into two categories: single and comprehensive. Uniqueness refers to the simple purpose of festival activities; Comprehensive festivals refer to various festivals, including many folk activities. 20-year-old festivals and folk customs are an indispensable part of national traditional culture. It was created, modified and passed down by our ancestors in the long-term social activities to meet the needs and desires of life and production. It relies on various realistic conditions, gives full play to everyone's wisdom, ability and imagination, and serves people's requirements for survival, peace and health. With the development of people's ability and intelligence and the accumulation of long-term experience, this traditional culture has become more and more colorful. It not only meets people's certain living requirements, but also promotes and consolidates social order. It has a unique cultural function.
The Spring Festival in China has the following characteristics:
1, agricultural cultural characteristics. With the changes of the four seasons and the needs of crop arrangement, China's New Year Festival has gradually formed a series of colorful festival activities, showing distinctive agricultural cultural characteristics, which can be seen from the following festival activities. The establishment of the Spring Festival around New Year's Day depends on the situation and weather, which indicates the abundance of 2008. When the Scare Festival comes in February, people have the custom of preventing pests and harvesting in advance. Tomb-Sweeping Day and Grain Rain in March are good seasons for spring ploughing and sowing. Many festivals, such as Silkworm Moon (Little Tomb-Sweeping Day), Walking Around, Yu's Birthday, New Year's Birthday, Dragon King Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day, are all related to praying for a bumper harvest. In April, the festivals in the long summer are mostly around the production characteristics of various places. At the beginning of the summer in May, there were many disasters, commonly known as "evil month", and its festival activities were mostly related to disease prevention and pest control. In many places from summer to Sunday, there are customs of "offering sacrifices to the goddess of heaven" and picking new valleys to recommend ancestors. June is dog days and hot season, so it is easy to get sick. Therefore, many customs focus on summer and summer activities, which contains the meaning of caring for productive forces. On June 6th, many local farmers offered sacrifices to Gu Shen to protect their fields. On the seventh day of July, the custom of women begging for cleverness evolved from the myth and legend of cowherd and weaver girl, reflecting the economic life of men plowing and women weaving. August is the harvest season of the year, and farmers reward their ancestors and family gods with new valleys. The Mid-Autumn Festival has the custom of enjoying the moon, Yue Bai and laurel. The festival of frost in early September is related to the production quality in the coming year. On this day, there is the custom of watching the rain and the harvest. 10/day, farmers in some areas celebrate the birthday of Niu Wang. In Guangdong, there is a custom of "herding cattle without ropes". This is a manifestation of enjoying cattle during the slack season, and it is actually a legacy of the ancient custom of totem worship of cattle. 1 1 month, the winter solstice is as big as a year, and farmers have the custom of watching snow. The so-called "Nine In the snow, Nine In the snow". Heavy snow can freeze pests to death, and there will be a bumper harvest in agriculture next year. This is the meaning of the proverb "Winter snow is a wheat quilt".
2. Pay attention to etiquette and combine customs and habits. Whenever an important festival comes, people should worship their ancestors to express their memory. For example, the memorial tablet for ancestor worship in the Spring Festival, cold food, tomb sweeping in Qingming, and ancestor worship concentrated on festivals. Tomb-Sweeping Day was originally a folk custom, but it was included in the ceremony and became a custom in Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. Since the formation of the Lantern Festival custom in Han Dynasty, decorating and viewing lanterns has been a great event in past dynasties. Feudal rulers advocated festival customs, promoted customs to etiquette, and educated people with etiquette, which accelerated the spread and development of festivals and brought festivals into the track of feudal ethics.
3. Unity of inheritance and variability. China festivals have the general characteristics of inheritance and variability of folk culture. Once the festival is formed, it has a kind of relative independence and stability, which is passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes, although social conditions have changed, the shadow of ancient customs still exists, which is an important manifestation of festival inheritance. China's festival culture is rooted in thousands of years of agricultural culture, and many folk festivals have a history of more than 2,000 years, many of which have been handed down from ancient times and are still accepted by people, showing tenacious vitality. Of course, this does not mean that holiday customs are immutable. On the contrary, with the changes of social, economic and cultural conditions, holiday customs will constantly change, some will be eliminated, and some will be updated. The general trend is that positive factors dominate and backward stereotypes are constantly being eliminated. For example, the custom of making zongzi before the Han Dynasty became an outing after the Wei and Jin Dynasties. In a word, there are variations in the inheritance of festival culture in China, and there are developments in the variation. The unity of inheritance and variation is a remarkable feature of China festivals.
4. Nationality and regionality. China is a multi-ethnic country dominated by the Han nationality. Traditional festivals of Han nationality, such as Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, are also popular in other ethnic areas. At the same time, the customs of other nationalities are also integrated into the festivals of the Han nationality. For example, putting up lantern poles in the yard during the Spring Festival is influenced by Manchu sacrificial poles. Many recreational activities in the festival, such as swings, stilts, riding and shooting, acrobatics, etc. It was originally a custom of ethnic minorities. In addition, due to the historical and cultural differences of ethnic minorities, festival culture presents distinctive national and regional characteristics. In addition to Han festivals, other ethnic minorities also have their own traditional festivals, such as Nadam Festival of Mongolians, Old People's Festival of Koreans, Water-splashing Festival of Dai, Westward Migration Festival of Xibe, Torch Festival of Yi, Bai, Naxi, Bulang, July Festival of Tujia, Harvest Festival of Gaoshan and so on. These festivals have their special meanings and customs. They are isomorphic with the Han festivals and constitute the traditional festivals of the Chinese nation. The cross-ethnic and cross-regional characteristics of China festivals are the result of the exchange and integration of festivals and customs of all ethnic groups in history, and actually the result of economic and cultural exchanges in various regions. In this extensive exchange and integration process, China's traditional culture has a wide range of inclusiveness, which has produced a strong cohesion for the Chinese nation, which is also an important reason why China people living abroad "miss their relatives more often during festivals".