Chinese traditional festivals

Celebrate New Year’s Day and welcome the new year.

New Year’s Day is a traditional festival in China. Yuan is called "beginning" and the beginning of every number is called "yuan". Dan said "day". New Year’s Day means "the first day". It first appeared in the Book of Jin: "Zhudi took the first month of Meng Xia as the yuan, in fact, it was the spring of New Year’s Day." That is, the first month is called Yuan, and the first day is Dan.

New Year’s Day refers to different times. In the Xia Dynasty, the first month of the summer calendar was January in spring. In Shang Dynasty, December in winter was the first month of Yin calendar, and November in winter was the first month of Zhou calendar. During the Qin dynasty, October in winter was the first month, and the first day of October was New Year’s Day. During the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, it was stipulated that January in spring was the first month, and the first day of January was called New Year’s Day, which was used until the end of Qing Dynasty.

The Revolution of 1911 overthrew the rule of the Qing Dynasty, and the government of the Republic of China decided to use the Gregorian calendar, calling January 1 of the Gregorian calendar "New Year’s Day". Later, when People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded, in order to communicate with the world better, it was decided to adopt the Gregorian calendar, which is now our universal solar calendar. Therefore, the previous "New Year’s Day" became the Spring Festival, and January 1 of the solar calendar took over as New Year’s Day.

The legend about New Year’s Day is that during the reign of Emperor Yao and Shun more than 4,000 years ago, he paid attention to people’s livelihood, worked diligently and benefited the people, and did many good things for the people, which was deeply loved by the people. However, due to his son’s lack of talent and virtue, it is difficult to achieve great things, so Emperor Yao passed the throne to Shun, who has both moral integrity and outstanding talents, and told Shun to pass the throne well in the future, so that he could rest assured. Later, Shun passed the throne to Yu, who had made contributions to water control. Yu has also done many good things for the people.

Later, in order to commemorate these three monarchs, people regarded the day when Shun Di offered sacrifices to heaven and earth and the first emperor Yao as the beginning of the year.

New Year’s Day is the beginning of the new year, also known as the "new calendar year" and "solar calendar year". New Year’s Day is also called ternary "Yuan of the year, Yuan of the month and Yuan of the hour". In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Liang Zonggu wrote a book called A Record of the Age of Jingchu, which recorded various festival customs in ancient Chu. When it comes to "New Year’s Day", it is mentioned to pay homage to Hebi, followed by pepper and cypress wine, peach soup, Tu Su wine, táng, and five-spice plates, which are spread and scattered, and each one eats an egg. Among them, there are drinks, food and medicines, all of which have their own special meanings, expressing the wish of happiness, harmony and well-being in the coming year.

Today, New Year’s Day has become a fixed festival, which is generally organized by groups, such as New Year’s Day Gala, hanging slogans to celebrate New Year’s Day, or holding collective activities. Most of the rural areas retain the traditional way of celebrating in China. Every New Year’s Day, the whole family gathers to kill chickens and geese to celebrate New Year’s Day.

Synthesis of Late Journals in the Pearl River Source