Chinese New Year customs in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan

Hong Kong

Lunar New Year is a grand festival in our country traditionally, and I believe that every China does not recognize it. However, celebrating the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong is completely different from tradition in terms of customs and atmosphere.

In recent years, few Hong Kong people have traditionally posted Spring Festival couplets and New Year paintings at home during the Lunar New Year. Instead, they have posted Spring Festival greetings such as "Prosperous Business" and "Safe Access" in some shops or homes. Even so, the original intention of pasting Spring Festival is the same as that of pasting Spring Festival couplets and New Year pictures. It takes its auspicious meaning and hopes that everything will go smoothly and be safe in the coming year.

In addition, lion dances, dragon lantern dances, etc. will also appear in some villages and villages in the New Territories. Large-scale lion dances and dragon lantern dances are difficult to see on the streets of urban areas during the New Year. As for setting off firecrackers, firecrackers, etc., are all prohibited in Hong Kong. However, since 1982, a grand fireworks display has been held in Victoria Port every year on the evening of the second day of the Lunar New Year. This has become a festival for more than a decade.

Hong Kong is known as the "food paradise" and there are many customs related to eating during the Spring Festival. Most families also have "reunion dinner" during the Spring Festival. Generally, they hold a banquet at home, and the whole family goes up and down, inside and out on New Year's Eve. Get together and enjoy dinner. The first choice for a major event after dinner is to visit the flower market. During the Lunar New Year, New Year markets are set up in many places in Hong Kong and Kowloon, among which the flower market in Victoria Park is the largest and most lively. Hong Kong citizens are used to visiting the flower market with their families after dinner. On New Year's Eve, there is a crowd of people, and everyone celebrates the festival together.

When celebrating the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, there is no happier thing than children who receive benefits. During the Spring Festival, you can hear laughter of asking for benefits everywhere. "Beneficiousness" was originally a "beneficial thing", starting with good luck, good fortune and kindness. It has also become an indispensable custom with relatives during the Spring Festival.

Macao

Macau's New Year customs are unique. "Xie Zao" is one of the most traditional China New Year customs preserved in Macau. Sending the kitchen god on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month is called "thank the stove" by Macao people.

Macao people also use stove candy according to China tradition for the Kitchen God, saying that they use sugar to paste the Kitchen God's mouth to prevent him from saying bad things in front of the Jade Emperor. I saw a statue of Santa Claus in the kitchen of a Macau family in Flower Street, Macau. The strange thing is that there is a couplet on the statue of Santa Claus that read "God says good things, and return to your house to bring good luck."

Macao people celebrate the New Year on the 28th of the twelfth lunar month. On the 28th of the twelfth lunar month, it is said in Cantonese that it is easy to send food. Most business owners invite their employees to have a "reunion dinner" at the end of this year to show their wealth and good luck. The flavor of the New Year in Macau can be truly felt from the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month.

On New Year's Eve, keeping New Year's Eve and visiting the flower market are two major events for Macao people to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Watching the New Year means playing mahjong, watching TV, catching up and chatting, and sharing family happiness. Probably influenced by Western Christmas and Valentine's Day, Macao people also compete to buy some auspicious flowers and trees to welcome the New Year. Nowadays, it has become a Macao New Year custom. Macau has set up a flower market during the New Year's Eve. Most of them are peach blossoms, narcissus, pots of bamboos, and pots of oranges. The flowers bloom rich and wish you peace, and the flowers and trees symbolize a bright future for the New Year. Macau's flower market was held for three days. These three days have provided endless comfort to Macau people who have been traveling for a year.

On the Spring Festival, Macao people pay attention to "profit market", which is a red envelope. On this day, bosses meet employees, elders meet younger generations, and even married people meet unmarried people. The "profit market" is pure and crisp to show good luck. Macao people call the second day of the New Year's Eve the "beginning of the New Year". The custom is to eat "New Year's Eve" rice. This meal requires nostoci, lettuce, and carp, which is intended to make money. Starting from the beginning of the New Year, the Macau government allows civil servants to "gamble"(gambling) within three days. After the "New Year's Eve", Macau completely returned to the traditional Spring Festival customs of China. Until the Lantern Festival, it was also the Smoke Festival with firecrackers, dragon and lion dances, and the world was filled with joy.

Taiwan

The Spring Festival is the most solemn traditional folk festival with a long history of the Chinese nation. In Taiwan, which is separated by water from Fujian Province, its history, culture, customs, kinship, etc. are all in the same line as the mainland of the motherland, especially the southern Fujian region of Fujian. Therefore, the Spring Festival customs of the people on the island are naturally similar to those of the mainland of the motherland.

Since most of the ancestors of Baodao residents were from southern Fujian and Hakka people) went to Taiwan for development, it has been a long time and has experienced many vicissitudes. The Spring Festival customs there have gradually formed some unique patterns and colors.

Every day on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, Taiwan compatriots must put on good clothes and provide livestock and seafood such as pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, and fish, as well as melons, candies, fragrant tea and other offerings at home. They then burn incense and set off firecrackers to see off the kitchen god, hoping that he would "say good things to God." From this day on, the "New Year" began.

Before New Year's Eve, Taiwan compatriots also have to carry out comprehensive cleaning and tidy up courtyard rooms, and they are very busy preparing for New Year's Eve.

On New Year's Eve, every household often first posts Spring Festival couplets symbolizing the auspicious signs of the New Year, good luck, and soliciting wealth and treasures on their doors and windows, grain stores, pig pens, well stands, etc., and then arranges offerings and incense sticks on the altar tables in the main hall to worship ancestors and welcome them to "go home for the New Year." From this time on, the sound of fireworks and firecrackers began to rise, making it very lively and continued until the morning of the first day of the New Year.

On New Year's Eve, the whole family on the island gathers together to "surround the stove", that is, a family of men, women and children sit around the stove or hot pot to eat New Year's Eve dinner or "reunion dinner"). This meal will of course be extra generous.

During the New Year's Eve dinner, in addition to eating fish balls, meatballs and chicken, which symbolize the reunion of the whole family, which means "starting from eating chicken", and leeks, which means "long life", there are also various fried foods with a very local flavor., glutinous rice dumplings, and rice cakes, especially the "turtle bean paste rice cake", a rice cake made from a wooden mold engraved with a turtle shape and wrapped in bean paste stuffing), it means to prolong life. In addition, there is a salty radish rice cake that needs to be roasted over fire and then wrapped in seaweed. In addition to removing meat and flavor, it also contains the wish of "good luck" for the coming year. Taiwan calls radish vegetable head, which is homophonic with "colorful head").

After the New Year's Eve dinner, the elders give "New Year's money" to their descendants is also quite unique: for older children, the "New Year's money" is pre-wrapped with red paper and handed to them; while for young children, the "New Year's money" is wrapped by adults with red thread ropes in advance and tied into a small lantern ring, which is wrapped around their necks.

On the first day of the first lunar month, people will get up early. After dressing up and washing, they will start to pay each other's greetings, greetings, blessings, visits to relatives and friends, or visits to parks, etc., welcoming and sending people away. It is lively and comfortable. People are generally immersed in a festive atmosphere of joy, celebration, happiness and happiness.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, it is the day when the new son-in-law takes his wife to pay homage to his father-in-law's house. The son-in-law came to the door and the daughter returned to her mother's home, which naturally had a more interesting feeling.

On the third day of the third day, it was regarded as an unlucky day by Taiwan compatriots. Most people don't go out and eat early and go to bed early at night. This is also a good opportunity to rest in the chaos.

The fourth day of the lunar new day is the day to welcome the "Kitchen God" into the mortal world, so naturally it will be lively again.

Starting from the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, many people have started their own businesses and started their own businesses.

According to legend, the ninth day of the lunar new day is the birthday of "Tiangong". Every household needs to prepare the best wine and food, burn incense and worship, perform and recite scriptures to celebrate the birthday of this "Tiangong". This is the last day of the annual Spring Festival.

After that, the "Lantern Festival" came one after another, which was the last scene of the entire Spring Festival. On this day, every family should eat glutinous rice balls and enjoy lanterns according to traditional habits. Under the full moon, all kinds of colorful lights compete to shine brightly, and there are activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern playing, and "drum boys", which are colorful and dazzling. Especially those children full of childlike interests, carrying lanterns and chanting songs across the streets, like fish swimming on the bottom of the sea, adding to the lively Lantern Festival night!

The folk Spring Festival in Taiwan originated in the mainland of the motherland, especially Taiwanese who speak Minnan dialect. The New Year style is more similar to that in southern Fujian.

Taiwanese New Year activities begin on the "tail tooth" on December 16 of the lunar calendar. On this day, every household would worship the land lord, especially businessmen. In order to pray for wealth in the New Year, they would sacrifice with animal bodies and gold paper, and share the sacrifices with colleagues to reward employees. This is called "eating tail teeth". When "eating teeth", employees who were about to be dismissed were treated with a chicken head and said that they would like to find another job next year. Therefore, there is a proverb in Taiwan: "Eat your tail teeth and worry about your face, eat your head teeth and touch your mouth and beard." It means that the tail meal is related to whether or not work is done.

The 24th day of the lunar calendar is the day when ordinary people send their gods to heaven, which is the same as the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month in southern Fujian. The sacrifices must include "sweet round" glutinous rice balls), which must be stuck at the mouth of the stove, so that the kitchen god can "spread good words to the sky and bad words to the side." On this day, we will also need to clean up all the "bad luck" in the home to welcome the New Year.

On New Year's Eve, Taiwan is called the "29th Ming" and "30th Ming", depending on the size of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. "Ming" means the end of the year. Before it gets late, families prepare offerings, such as sweet oranges, sweet rice cakes,"spring rice","New Year's money", etc. "Spring rice" is to insert paper-cut spring characters on sharp rice. Because "spring" and "surplus" in southern Fujian dialect are homophonic, which means "there is surplus grain every year, and there is not enough food every year." In addition, behind the gate, two sugarcane with whiskers and leaves are placed vertically, called "Long-term sugarcane". They are long and sweet, with the meaning of "strengthening the family's luck".

When eating New Year's Eve dinner, a new charcoal stove and a new sunflower fan were placed under the Eight Immortals table. The characters "Spring" and "Fu" were posted on the fan and stove on red paper. When surrounding the stove, say auspicious words, such as "Eat red dates, it will be good every year! "Eat New Year's Eve and make money every year!" Wait, there must be mustard on the table, called "long-term vegetables", symbolizing longevity. Some people also need to have "leek" on their tables, which means that "leek" and "long" are homophonic, symbolizing longevity. Radish is also indispensable. In Minnan dialect, it is called "caitou", which means a good omen of "good luck"). There must also be chicken meat. The homophonic word for chicken is "home"."Eating chicken to start a family" can make the family famous. The vegetables during the "stove" are not chopped with a knife. They are washed and cooked even by the roots. They are not bitten off when eating. Instead, they are slowly eaten from beginning to end to end to wish parents a long life.

After the New Year's Eve dinner, it is time to keep the New Year. In Taiwan,"Shousui" is also called "Longevity Night", symbolizing that younger generations wish their parents a long life. As soon as the "handover time" passes through 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, people gather old and young to worship the gods with red and white rice cakes, and worship the grandparents, namely the grandparents), and then set off firecrackers to welcome the blessings of welcoming the spring.

During the New Year, Taiwanese also make red turtle rice fruits, fat rice fruits, and vegetable head rice fruits as rice cakes. The red turtle rice fruit is shaped like a turtle, dyed red on the outside and stamped with a turtle shell seal, which is used to symbolize people's longevity and longevity. Every family uses this kind of cake to pay homage to the heavenly lord who nurtures all things. If guests come to visit New Year greetings and ask for candies and sweet kernels, and say different auspicious words according to men, women and children. For example, a child can say to an elderly person: "Eat sweet and I wish you a long life!" Peasants can say: "Eat sweet, I wish you a lot of money!"