Little New Year (Chinese: 小年), also known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, is a festival in the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. It honors the Kitchen God and takes place roughly a week before the Chinese New Year. In northern China the Little New Year is celebrated on the 23rd day of the twelfth month of the Chinese calendar, while in southern China it is celebrated on the 24th day.[1][2][3]

Traditional Activities

Sacrifices to the Kitchen God

When little new year rolls around the Jade Emperor decides accordingly to the family's yearly behavior to decide if he will reward or punish them. The Kitchen God serves as the messenger to report back to the Jade Emperor. Folks burn a paper image of the god in order to dispatch his spirit into heaven to do so and afterwards they put a new image next to the stove to welcome him back in order to oversee and protect the family again. While that happens, sacrifices are made to him in hopes to seal his mouth and leading him to only saying good things about the family.[4] Sacrifices may include spirit money, sweet food such as cakes and dried fruit, tea, and straw for the Kitchen God's horse.[5][6] People sometimes throw beans on the roof to represent the sound of the Kitchen God's horse's hooves.[5][6] Less commonly, people feed beans to the horse.[6]

Traditionally, the sacrifices are only made by men, not women.[6][7] The god's journey is also marked by fireworks.[6]

House cleaning

House cleaning happens between the eighth day of the last lunar month (when Laba Festival happens) and Little New Year, Chinese beliefs call for folks to clean themselves and their housing since it is said that ghosts and spirits must either return to Heaven or stay on Earth. So to ensure that they leave, people clean every corner of their home. During this time, the house is also cleaned with the goal of making it anti-virus so the new year does not start with a sickness.[8][4]

Eating Guandong candy

Guandong candy is a treat made of glutinous millet and sprouted wheat. It is said that if your mouth was full of candy you wouldn't be able to bad-mouth others.[9] Traditionally, people melt the candy and put it on the mouth of the kitchen god, so that he cannot tell the Jade Emperor anything bad;[7] either he will only be able to say sweet things, his mouth will be stuck together so that he cannot talk, or the candy is simply a bribe.[5][6] In some areas, people put honey or sticky rice on his mouth instead.[5]

Pasting paper cuts on the window

Red envelopes packed with money inside with the word 福 on them.

Similarly to the kitchen god picture, the old paper cuts are taken down and then new ones are put up and it is an indication to the beginning of spring. The paper cuts are usually of the word 福 indicating the people's wish for a lucky year. The cut is also usually up side down since in Chinese "upside-down" sounds like "to arrive" so they are wishing for luck to arrive.[8]

Spring Festival preparation

The preparation process has to be all done in advance. There is a wide variety to things to do and prepare with most of them revolving around the word "new", often new clothing. Things like firecrackers are bought to use as celebration and a popular item is the red envelopes since it is the peoples belief for the young ones to "respect the elderly" and in return the elderly "love the youth", usually it is money inside the red envelopes.

References

  1. ↑ "Little New Year". China Internet Information Center. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  2. ↑ "Culture Insider: Little New Year". China Daily. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  3. ↑ "What Is Little New Year and Why Do the Chinese Celebrate It?". Global Volunteers. 20 January 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  4. 1 2 "Culture Insider: Little New Year". en.chinaculture.org. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Stepanchuk, Carol (1991). Mooncakes and Hungry Ghosts: Festivals of China. San Francisco: China Books & Periodicals. pp. 6–9. ISBN 0-8351-2481-9.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Eberhard, Wolfram (1952). "The Sacrifice to the Hearth God". Chinese Festivals. New York: H. Wolff. pp. 17–26.
  7. 1 2 Wei, Liming (2010). Chinese Festivals: Traditions, Customs and Rituals (Second ed.). Beijing. pp. 12–14. ISBN 9787508516936.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. 1 2 "Celebrating the Lunar New Year | University of Central Florida News". University of Central Florida News | UCF Today. 2022-02-01. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  9. ↑ Ninchanese (2022-01-25). "Xiaonian: Kick-off Chinese New Year with sweets". Ninchanese. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
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