A brief history of eating, drinking and having fun during the Spring Festival of the ancients
The word Spring Festival appeared very late in Chinese history. Before the Republic of China, the first day of the Chinese New Year was called New Year's Day or New Year's Day, which has a very ancient origin and has already appeared in the "Shang Shu Shun Dian". It was not until after the Xinhai Revolution that we began to adopt the Gregorian calendar, which ceded the word New Year's Day to the first day of January in the Gregorian calendar, and changed the traditional New Year's Day to the Spring Festival. The first big year called "Spring Festival" began in 1914, only a hundred years ago.
Eating and drinking for the New Year, most of the ancients drank and ate spicy
For a long time, during the New Year, it was necessary to eat five spice plates and drink Tu Su wine, which began in the pre-Qin Dynasty, and until now some areas still have some lingering charm. The "Zhuangzi" records that "drinking green onions in spring to pass through the five internal organs", and Liang Zongyi's "Records of the Jingchu Years" during the Southern Dynasty is more detailed, saying that on the day of the First Day, "the elder and the young learned to be dressed in the crown and greeted with the second time." Drink pepper cypress wine and peach soup. Into tu su wine, gum tooth dumplings. Under five sim plates. Put in the powder, take the ghost pill. One chicken each.". The Zhou "Record of Customs" records: "Yuan Ri made five xin pans". So what is a five-sim disk? The note in the Book of Customs and Soil says: "The five sins so the five visceral qi, that is, garlic, garlic, leeks, cloud moss, coriander are also." "In fact, it is eaten with the above five kinds of lettuce rolls. Because it is the seasonal food of the Spring Festival, this five-spice plate is often called a spring plate. Eastern Han Dynasty Cui Yu's "Four People's Moon Order": "Li Chun eclipse lettuce, take the meaning of welcoming the new." "Although the custom is these five spicy foods, some people will change to other vegetables. The "Class Of Armpits, Tianbu, and Zhengyue" quotes the Tang Dynasty's "Four Hours Treasure Mirror": "Li E, li chun ri, li chun day destiny with reeds and celery buds as spring plates, give each other a gift." "Reed is a radish, spring plate to eat radish later also been promoted, especially after the Ming and Qing dynasties, spring plate will especially eat water carrots, but also took a special name, called "biting spring". Rong Majesty's "Ji Sheng in the Age of Emperor Jing" wrote: "The New Spring Day offers Xin Pan. Although the house of the shishu will also cut chicken and porpoise, cook noodle cakes, and mix them with lettuce, green leeks, croissants, punches and vegetable skins, and eat raw water carrots, known as biting spring. ”
▲Qing Dynasty Pan Qingding Guanpeng "Taiping Spring City Map" (partial)
Drinking wine is of course also an important part of this day, as mentioned earlier in "Zhuangzi", it is said that Spring Drinking, "Jingchu Chronicle" more detailed record of two kinds of wine, one is pepper wine, the other is Tu Su wine. The Chronicle of the Jing Chu Dynasty quotes Dong Xun as saying: "It is customary to use pepper wine for the first time. The pepper flowers are fragrant, so the flowers are picked to pay tribute to the bottle. In the first month, those who drink alcohol first, and those who are small get old, and they drink first. The old man lost his age, so after with wine. TuSu wine seems to be more popular in later generations, and Tusu wine is still very popular in the Song Dynasty, so Wang Anshi's very famous "Yuan Ri" poem says: "In the sound of firecrackers, one year old is removed, and the spring wind sends warmth into Tu Su." "Drinking on this day, the order is also very exquisite, starting from the young, the old man drinks last." Because a child is one year old, and for an old man, this is another year in life. Therefore, there is a sentence in the Song Dynasty's Su Rui's poem "Except for the Day": "Drinking Tu Su at the end of each year, I don't realize that there are more than seventy years." "He drinks Tusu wine last time every year because he is the oldest in the family. This poem is actually lamenting that his own years are fading. Su Rui's brother Su Shi was a little more arrogant, and he said in the poem "Except for the Night Wild Stay outside Changzhou City": "But the poor are worried and long-lived, and they will not hesitate to drink Tu Su at the end." "It means that as long as you are healthy, the last drink of the year is nothing."
Mentioned above is the diet of the first day of the first lunar month, which is less popular in modern society. We are more commonly Chinese New Year's Eve "Chinese New Year's Eve dinner" for family reunions in the evening. The ancients had a long tradition of keeping Chinese New Year's Eve. The "Record of Customs and Soils" of the Western Jin Dynasty Records that Chinese New Year's Eve night, each phase and gift is called "feeding the year"; the invitation of wine and food is called "other years"; the elder and young people gather to drink, and the blessing is complete, called "dividing the year"; everyone sleeps all night to wait for the dawn, called "keeping the age". At this time Chinese New Year's Eve rice is not yet hearty, and the more future generations, the more attention Chinese New Year's Eve rice is. According to the records of the Qing Palace, in the forty-ninth year of Qianlong, the Qianlong Emperor and his family Chinese New Year's Eve feast, and the pork alone used sixty-five catties, and there were more than sixty kinds of dishes.
Officials do not take a holiday on the first day of the New Year, and it is popular for people to go shopping
From the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the Zhengdan Dynasty has been an important ceremony within the court to celebrate the New Year, and the etiquette rules have become more and more cumbersome and strict. In the Han Dynasty's "Selection of Han Officials' Ceremonies", the pilgrimage ceremony was introduced, one was that the group of courtiers visited the emperor and presented a congratulatory gift, and finally shouted long live the emperor; the second was to give wine and a feast in the court, and the banquet was carried out in dance and opera; the last step was the ceremony, and the group of courtiers left the scene in turn according to the rules. The Tokyo Dream Chronicle details the New Year's Day pilgrimage during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, which was attended not only by ministers of the Song Dynasty, but also by emissaries from various countries who came to pay tribute, including the Liao, Western Xia, Goryeo, Nanfanjiaozhou, Hui, Khotan, Srivijaya (around present-day Sumatra), nanman wu surnamed Fan (around present-day Yunnan), Chenla (in present-day Cambodia), Dali, and Dashi (the Islamic empire founded by the Arabs).
Folk natural joy is more, for example, in the Northern Song Dynasty, the first day of the first lunar month is called the New Year's Festival, and the capital will be specially open for three days of gambling games such as "Guanpu", and everyone will visit and congratulate each other when they get up in the morning. "Pressing the road" shopping is also everyone's first choice, the streets and alleys, are all kinds of food snacks, daily necessities stalls, as well as set up temporary sheds, there are selling hat combs, selling pearl jewelry, selling clothes, selling fake flowers for decoration, selling scarves and wipes, selling boots and shoes, as well as selling all kinds of gadgets, among which there are also entertainment venues dedicated to singing and dancing. Pedestrians come and go, and traffic is busy. During the Southern Song Dynasty, this day will also enjoy the lanterns, just like the Lantern Festival.
Ancient New Year's Greetings popular to send "postcards"
It has been a tradition since ancient times to wish each other during the New Year's Festival, but it is indeed difficult to congratulate all relatives and friends in person in just a few days of the New Year. Modern people generally use SMS, WeChat and other groups to send New Year blessings, and the ancients also have their social magic method, that is, mass "postcards" to represent blessings with their own ancient business cards.
▲Qing Yao Wenhan's "Celebrating the Year of the Dynasty"
"Qingbo Magazine" said: "During the Yuan Dynasty, the New Year's Festival was often replaced by a servant with a name thorn. This kind of business card is also called "flying post", so that it has formed a "New Year's Greeting does not have to enter the door of the house, send a business card to meet people." This is the case everywhere for the New Year, and a large sum of money is given to the paper shop" situation. Each household is also very tired to accept these flying posts, simply make a special New Year mailbox at the gate, probably make a bag of red paper and paste it at the door, specifically to accept these "New Year's postcards". This ethos continued until the Ming and Qing dynasties. Ming Dynasty talent Wen Zhengming "Bai Nian" poem Yun: "Do not seek to meet but to understand, the famous paper dynasty to fill the Lu." I also throw a few pieces of paper with people, and the world is not too simple. The Qing Dynasty's "Yantai Moon Order" described the New Year period in Beijing as "the moon is also, the film flies, and the empty car goes."
Firecrackers with a long history
With the implementation of the policy of fixed ignition and prohibition of fire and prohibition, fireworks and firecrackers in large cities are becoming more and more rare, and environmental protection is worth advocating for the New Year. In fact, firecrackers have also undergone a long period of development and change in China. In the pre-Qin period, there was a custom of burning bamboo and wood to ward off evil spirits. The New Year and firecrackers should have appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period, but the earliest reliable record is found in the "Jingchu Chronicle": "The chickens rise up before the court firecrackers, in order to ward off the evil spirits." "On the first day of the Chinese New Year, when the chickens are chirping, every household will get up early and light firecrackers in front of the court, mainly to ward off evil spirits. What is a "mountain devil"? According to the legend recorded in the Han Dynasty's "Divine Anomaly" that it cites, in the western mountains, there is a monster with only one foot and a ruler, and if people encounter it, they will be cold and hot, easy to get sick, and this monster is called "mountain face". What this ghost fears most is the crackling sound of bamboo crackling when it burns in the fire. This custom later became a symbolic custom of the New Year. During this period, because gunpowder was not invented, firecrackers were all real bamboo.
In the poetry of the Tang Dynasty, there is a lot of content about firecrackers. For example, in Yuan Shu's "Twenty Songs of Shengchun", there is "where spring is born early, spring is born in the childish drama." Riding firecrackers indiscriminately, competing for a small whirlwind", and zhang said "Yuezhou Shou Nian", also described the New Year's Eve situation of "peach branches can ward off evil, firecrackers are good to sleep". The most famous poem about firecrackers is the "Yuan Ri" by Wang Anshi of the Northern Song Dynasty: "In the sound of firecrackers, one year old is removed, and the spring breeze sends warmth into Tusu." Thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old charms. "In the crackling of firecrackers, the old year was sent away and the new year was ushered in. When people drink delicious Tusu wine, there is a warm spring breeze blowing in the face, which is not pleasant! Of course, there are also old poets who will be sentimental because of the passage of time in the sound of firecrackers, such as Liu Kezhuang's "Years Of Elimination" wrote: "Children burn firecrackers, women cure pepper flowers." Unique dragon bell, desolate sense of age. With the invention of gunpowder, in the early Tang Dynasty, people loaded gunpowder into bamboo tubes and lit them with leads, and the word "firecracker" became worthy of its name. In the Song Dynasty, paper tubes began to be used instead of bamboo, and firecrackers were very close to the firecrackers we see today. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were more and more types of firecrackers, and the firecrackers recorded in the Qing Dynasty's "Jisheng in the Age of Emperor Jing" had names such as "double-ringing thunder", "rising three-level waves", "overlord whip", "bamboo knot flowers", "mud tube flowers", "golden pot fishing moon", "stacked money" and other names, as well as "ground rats" circling on the ground, "water rats" in the water and other characteristic cannon battles. "Dream of the Red Chamber" also mentions the names of artillery battles such as "full of stars", "nine dragons into the clouds", "a thunder on the flat ground", and "ten sounds in the sky".
▲Qing Zhanghong's "Year Dynasty Map"
In Mr. Jin Yong's "Divine Eagle Heroes", there is a very famous scene, Yang Guo gave three gifts on Guo Xiang's sixteenth birthday, the second of which was the gorgeous fireworks over Xiangyang City that night, after the fireworks exploded, a line appeared in the sky "Congratulations to Guo Er Girl for a lot of happiness and longevity". And with this as a signal, the grain and grass of the Mongol army were burned. Many readers have sighed that this is the most unique gift Guo Xiang received in his life. In real history, Song Dynasty fireworks are indeed very advanced. Tang Dynasty fireworks have appeared, the Song Dynasty is more advanced, the Southern Song Dynasty "Wulin Past Events" recorded: "The palace leak is deep, the beginning of the announcement of more than a hundred fireworks." So the music was everywhere, and the candles were full of shadows. The "Past Events of Wulin" also records that on the first day of the first lunar month, "in the afternoon, The Shunai division arranged an evening feast at the Qingrui Temple, using fireworks and entering the market to eat." In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the level of fireworks was higher, and in the fifty-fourth time in "Dream of the Red Chamber", there is a record of Jia Fu setting off fireworks during the Spring Festival, "Jia Rong listened, and went out with the small squatters to install a screen shelf in the courtyard and set up fireworks." This fireworks is a tribute from all over the place, although it is not very large, but it is extremely exquisite, with all kinds of stories, and all kinds of fireworks."
——Excerpt from Hou Yinguo's "Wind and Rain And Celebration"
▲ "Wind and Moon in the Same Day: Details in ancient cultural changes", written by Hou Yinguo, Gansu People's Publishing House| Published in January 2022
Author: Hou Yinguo
Editor: Xue Weiping
Editor-in-Charge: Zhu Zifen