Festive songs and prayers to welcome the new year
The Spring Festival is the grandest traditional festival of the Chinese nation. As an important intangible cultural heritage and a form of cultural practice that everyone can participate in, it plays an important role in building the spiritual home shared by the Chinese nation. Recently, when "Spring Festival - Chinese People's Social Practice of Celebrating the Traditional New Year" was included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO, the "Celebrating the New Year - Spring Festival Theme Exhibition" was unveiled at the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum.
More than 120 representative items of intangible cultural heritage, more than 300 works related to national and provincial representative items of intangible cultural heritage, multiple interactive performances... Based on the in-depth exploration of the historical and cultural connotations of the Spring Festival, the exhibition uses the themes of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, praying for blessings and good fortune, and reunion and harmony as clues, and outlines and connects the representative items of intangible cultural heritage related to the Spring Festival in different regions, allowing audiences from all over the country to experience the cordial experience of "going home for the New Year". It is reported that the exhibition will last until March 2, 2025.
The origin of colorful festivals
The "La Festival" held at the turn of the old and new years to celebrate the harvest and worship gods and ancestors had become a custom in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Taichu calendar was implemented, and the New Year at the beginning of the year and the beginning of spring at the beginning of the four seasons basically coincided. The color of the La Festival for worshipping gods faded, and the color of worshipping ancestors gradually became stronger. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, staying up on New Year's Eve became a common custom, and the New Year celebration became a good time full of joy and festivity... Tracing its origins, the Spring Festival has a long history and has accompanied the Chinese nation all the way through the long river of history.
According to the traditional Chinese calendar, the first day of the first lunar month is the Spring Festival, which is the beginning of the new year. Around the Spring Festival, people carry out a series of social practice activities around the common themes of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, praying for blessings and good fortune, and reunion and harmony to celebrate this most important traditional festival of the Chinese nation. This process is commonly known as "Chinese New Year".
Nowadays, in the vast land of China, various regions and ethnic groups have colorful folk customs for celebrating the New Year. From Laba Festival, Little New Year, New Year's Eve, Spring Festival, to Lantern Festival, various New Year customs are like a drama that progresses layer by layer, expressing the Chinese nation's long-cherished wish for harmony between man and nature and the growth of all things, and inspiring the spiritual pursuit of continuous hard work and progress.
The winter solstice brings spring. After the winter solstice, the days get longer, the yin energy fades, the yang energy rises, and the cold winter is about to pass. Every household gets rid of the old and puts on the new, respectfully sends off the Kitchen God, buys New Year goods, and the wanderers return home. Walking into the exhibition hall, there are the Jiu Jiu Xiao Han paintings that express people's hope for spring and peace and cold, the Jingxi Taiping drums that welcome the new year in the twelfth lunar month, the blessings and calendars sent by the Spring Official, the ceremony of whipping the spring ox on the day of the beginning of spring to encourage farmers to work hard, and the flower street decorated with flowers to enrich New Year goods... In the exhibition hall, the diverse and rich festivals and customs of various places and ethnic groups depict a warm picture of people celebrating the New Year.
Fine craftsmanship and craftsmanship convey wishes
During the Lantern Festival, people from all over the country sing and dance, and celebrate with lanterns in the gardens. In the exhibition hall, carefully selected lanterns from all over the country are lit up, and the unique lanterns "compete for splendor", illuminating the exhibition hall.
Among them, a "boat" with gorgeous lights attracted the attention of many viewers. This is the national intangible cultural heritage Yueqing Jewelry Dragon (also known as "Dragon Boat Lantern"), which is mainly spread in Beibaixiang Town and Liushi Town of Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province. Around the Lantern Festival, locals will carry the jewelry dragon and parade through the streets and alleys to pray for good wishes such as good weather, good harvests, and peace and prosperity for the country and the people.
The jewelry dragon is based on the structure of a fishing boat, with an arc-shaped wooden strip as the foundation. The hull has multiple floors, and there are various puppets in the floors, which show life scenes such as husking rice and farming, or historical stories, myths and legends, and drama repertoires, which are lifelike and vivid. There is a set of "mechanisms" inside the entire jewelry dragon, which connects all the puppets together. As long as the handle is turned, the puppets in each scene will move, each performing different actions, and the many decorations hanging on the hull will collide with each other and jingle. The jewelry dragon is complex to make, integrating multiple craftsmanship techniques such as woodworking, rapeseed, paper-making, dragon lanterns, and paper cutting. After every New Year's Day, the locals will light the exquisite jewelry dragon, so that this "dragon" will return to the sky with people's infinite good wishes, year after year, and repeat this cycle.
Climb up to the second-floor viewing corridor in the exhibition hall, and you can take in the bustling scene, including the dazzling temple fairs and street markets, the rural Spring Festival Gala with singing and dancing, and the "burning" Huairen fire, which indicates a prosperous new year... Here, visitors can guess riddles, visit temple fairs, taste local specialties, enjoy a variety of intangible cultural heritage performances, and experience the local Spring Festival customs in one exhibition hall.
A long journey home with peace of mind
A harmonious family brings prosperity. A well-known saying describes the core theme of the Spring Festival - family reunion. On New Year's Eve, people worship their ancestors and stay up all night to celebrate the New Year, and the Spring Festival begins with greetings and visiting relatives and friends. When you enter the exhibition hall, there is a brand new peach charm posted on the "courtyard gate" to welcome the return of the wanderers. There are family rules and mottos to remember the ancestors and not forget the virtues of the ancestors, and there is also a New Year's Eve dinner table for family affection.
"Home" has irreplaceable and profound significance to the Chinese nation, and spatial distance cannot diminish people's emphasis on "home".
There is a coastal village called Dongshi in Jinjiang, Fujian and Chiayi, Taiwan. The two places share a unique Lantern Festival custom, which is known as "Dongshi in Fujian and Taiwan share one palace lantern".
This custom is related to the history of Dongshi Village in both places. According to research, people from Dongshi, Jinjiang went to Taiwan to make a living before the Ming Dynasty. The number of people going to Taiwan increased during the Jiajing period. They opened up mountains and seas, reclaimed new areas, named their settlements after their hometowns, and formed villages such as Dongshi and Budaizui in Taiwan. They also split the spirits of the "Three Lords" of the Jiaying Temple in Dongshi, Jinjiang, across the sea and built temples in Dongshi Township, Taiwan for worship. Now there are more than 20 Jiaying Temple branches in Taiwan.
The Dongshi Lantern Counting Activity begins on the 13th day of the first lunar month every year. The newly married grooms in the two Dongshi villages in Fujian and Taiwan hang the lanterns that the bride brought as a dowry in the Sangong Palace. The two places report the number of lanterns to each other and wish for the prosperity of their descendants. This Lantern Counting Custom, which has been passed down from generation to generation, reflects the eager expectation of the Dongshi people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait for the prosperity of their families and descendants, and is a vivid manifestation of the cohesion of Chinese culture.
The Spring Festival is a festival for the Chinese nation to gather together, and it embodies the common desire to build a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation. Chinese people all over the world celebrate together, demonstrating the profound and lasting power of Chinese culture. The Spring Festival carries the common values ​​of mankind, such as harmonious coexistence between man and nature, family harmony, and social tolerance.
At the end of the exhibition hall, the immersive fireworks display is fascinating. The photo wall is filled with the smiles of people from all over the world celebrating the festival. The New Year greetings filled with blessings and expectations represent a new beginning... (Photo courtesy of China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum )
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