Holidays are an important part of traditional Chinese culture. Since the pre-Qin period, related to the demands of farming, leisure, changes in heaven and earth, religious beliefs and governmental administration, the habit of assigning holidays according to festivals was gradually formed, which had multiple manifestations and eventually became a common activity of the whole society. The occurrence, development and change of holidays in ancient times were closely related to the living habits, economic changes and ideological beliefs of the whole society, and had their own specific rituals and symbols, which changed with the times.
In fact, a great variety of ancient holidays not only contain a schedule of activities such as rest, recreation, celebrations and rituals, but also have special cultural connotations and spiritual activities, and thus have become an excellent portrayal of traditional Chinese culture and folklore.
From the early classical works such as the Book of Songs and the Book of Rites, we can see that the “style” and “elegance” of the society at that time, as well as the laws and rhythmic arrangements of the four seasons, were more or less reflected in the customs of holidays and festivals. During the Two Han Dynasty, through the inheritance of history, the classical explanations and descriptions of many scholars and literati, as well as government initiatives, festivals such as New Year's Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year's Eve were roughly finalized at that time, and gradually enriched the sequence of festivals that later popularized the whole country, including New Year's Day, People's Day, Lantern Festival, February Two, Cold Food Festival, Ching Ming Festival, Flower Day, Shangsi Festival, Buddhist Bathing Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Summer Solstice, Fu Day, Qixi Festival, Zhongyuan Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival, Winter Solstice, Lunar New Year's Eve and so on.
Of course, the theme of most holidays is hilarity and good fortune. In the case of the New Year, its manifestations and timing vary in areas inhabited by different ethnic groups. For example, the New Year of the Yi people in Sichuan and Yunnan is commonly known as the “Torch Festival”, also known as the “Star Festival”, the meaning of which can be traced back to “when the stars return to the sky is the New Year's Eve”; The date of the holiday is usually on the 24th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, which is called the “New Year”. However, the purpose of these festivals is the same, and they are all set for pursuing good luck.
Legend has it that a number of festivals were created to commemorate certain people or events. Eating zongzi at the Dragon Boat Festival is to commemorate Qu Yuan, a scholar of Chu; eating mooncakes at the Mid-Autumn Festival is to commemorate the people who fought against national oppression at the end of the Yuan Dynasty; eating Laba porridge at the Laba Festival is to commemorate Buddha Shakyamuni; and the activities of the Song Wei Festival of the Zhuang people in Guangxi are to commemorate the famous song fairy Liu Sanjie.
It should be noted that most of the ancient holidays are related to various types of religious belief activities. For example, in the activities of the Qingming Festival and the Mid-Yuan Festival, Buddhist thoughts and beliefs are specifically reflected in the behavior. As for the behavior of exorcism in daily life, it is also fully expressed during the holidays. Hanging peach charms and inviting door gods in the New Year, “getting over bad luck” in the Lantern Festival, wearing willow branches in the Qing Ming Festival, inserting mugwort, wearing colorful threads and drinking xionghuang wine in the Dragon Boat Festival, inserting cornelian cherry and drinking chrysanthemum wine in the Chung Yeung Festival, as well as cleaning up the houses and courtyards of many other festivals, are all customary practices which express the people's hope for a healthy life.
Since the Qin and Han dynasties, classic works dealing with festive activities and related customs, such as the Book of Rites, which describes ceremonial activities and social norms; the Four Seasons of People's Monthly Orders, which describes the relationship between agricultural production and festivals; the Book of the Han Dynasty - Geography, which explains customs and culture of different parts of China; and the Records of Customs and Fashions, which records objects and current customs, have been passed down among the people, and some experts and scholars have also added richer explanations of them in order to facilitate their circulation.
Since then, specialized works on seasonal customs have been increasing in number, and have become convenient materials for us today to understand the customs, folk beliefs, and festivals celebrated in various historical periods and regions. Representative works include Zhou Chu's Record of Terroir from the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, Liang Zonglin's New Year's Record of Jing and Chu, Sui Du Taiqing's Jade Candle Treasure Book, Tang Han E's Record of Gorgeous Memories, Song Zhou Mi's Old Story of the Wulin, Meng Yuanlao's Record of A Dream of Splendor, and Wu Zimu's Record of Dreams of State Liang, Ming Dynasty Liu Ruoyu's Drinking Log, as well as Liu Dong's and Yu Yicheng's Record of Scenic Spectacles of the Imperial City, Qing Gu Lu's Qing Jia Record and Tongqiao Boat Paddle Record, Pan Rongzhi's New Year's Chronicle of the Imperial Capital, and so on.
For example, the Jingchu New Year Records, which specializes in the New Year festivals and customs of the Jingchu region, that is, today's middle reaches of the Yangtze River, can be regarded as one of the earliest preserved monographs in China dedicated to the ancient festivals and seasons. It contains some interesting details of the festival, most of which are not well known to modern people. The Jing Chu New Year's Records recorded the festivals from the first to the seventh day of the first month: “The first day of the first month is for chickens, the second day for dogs, the third for sheep, the fourth for pigs, the fifth for oxen, the sixth for horses, and the seventh for people. On the first day of the first month, a rooster is painted on the door, and on the seventh day of the first month, a portrait of a human being is posted on the tent. Now on the first day no chickens are killed, on the second day no dogs are killed, on the third day no sheep are killed, on the fourth day no pigs are killed, on the fifth day no oxen are killed, on the sixth day no horses are killed, and on the seventh day no executions are carried out, these are for the same reason.” But these holiday traditions have not been carried on well in later times.
After a long period of inheritance and adjustment, those holidays that were eventually preserved became common activities agreed upon by the whole society. People who have a clear memory of the holidays can easily find that the cycles of the holidays are fixed on some numerical symbols with specific meanings. Some scholars, through analysis, pointed out that there are seven festivals where the month and the day are the same number, i.e., January 1, February 2, March 3, May 5, June 6, July 7, and September 9 of the lunar calendar. In addition to being easy to memorize, such an expression can indeed be visually aesthetically pleasing and affectionately pleasing to the eye. In addition, the date of many festivals to determine, there are “the middle of the month,” “symmetry in the middle of the year,” “different months of the same date,” “the beginning of the month”, etc., which are easy for the general public to grasp and memorize.
The last holiday of the year coincides closely with the first holiday of the new year. Most people refer to the festivals that occur during this time as “New Year's Day”, which is the biggest festival of the year and is highly valued by society and the nation as a whole. It is not only a festival of revelry, but also a symbol of the change of the old and the new, and the renewal of all things. Wang Anshi of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote: “People in the sound of firecrackers sending the old year away, the spring breeze sending the warmth over. The rising sun shines on every family, and people have replaced their peach blossom symbols with new ones", reflecting people's joy at the arrival of the New Year festivities and their hopes for the future. A popular New Year's Eve ballad in old Beijing, “December 23, making sugar melons; 24, sweeping the house; 25, making bean curd; 26, cutting meat; 27, killing roosters; 28, making noodles; 29, steaming steamed buns; 30, staying up all night; and dancing on the first day of the first month of the lunar year,” fully expresses people's busyness and joy of the New Year. During such festivals, families tend to reunite to realize the good wishes of the festive season.
Wang Wei, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, once took advantage of the festive background of the Chongyang ascent to write Nostalgia for My Brothers in Shandong on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Moon: “Being a guest living in another country, I doubly miss my relatives every time I celebrate the festival.” He used the Chongyang Festival as a theme to depict the traveler's feeling of missing his relatives. The Ming Dynasty poet Gao Qi's Dedicated to All of You at the Qingming Festival also says: “ The capital city of Nanjing is surrounded by countless green hills, and no one will not miss their hometowns at the festivals,” which similarly reflects the homesickness of people living in foreign places.
In the Tang Dynasty, the “Thousand Autumns Festival” was held in the 17th year of the reign of Emperor Tang Xuanzong on the fifth day of the eighth month of his birthday, and was later renamed as the “Festival of the Longest Day of the Sky”. After the Anshi Rebellion, Emperor Li Heng of Tang Suzong ascended to the throne and, imitating Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, designated his birthday, September 3, as the “Festival of Tianping Dicheng”. These two festivals were close in time, and after comprehensive consideration, they were combined on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, which was right in the middle of these two festivals, and this became the beginning of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The “Thousand Autumns Festival” thus disappeared naturally.
As for the custom of banning fire on the cold food festival, it was very popular in ancient times, and it was said that in Taiyuan area in Han Dynasty, this fire ban had been as long as one month. Later, because of the opposition of many scholars, the time was gradually shortened to three days, which was in the Tang and Song dynasties. However, in the Ming Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival generally no longer continue the custom of banning fire, and finally even the Cold Food Festival itself was incorporated into the Qingming Festival, so that the Cold Food Festival no longer exists in the form.
Many of the festivals that have been passed down to the present day, such as the Lantern Festival, when women walk to ward off illnesses, the threading of needles and begging for coquettish objects on the seventh day of the seventh month, the Bon Festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and the releasing of river lanterns to offer sacrifices to ghosts, are also no longer in vogue.