Bright Moon in Northern Shandong： Miscellaneous Tan on New Year’s Day
As a national holiday, New Year’s Day has a history of only 70 years, but it carries the cultural genes that have been integrated into the nation for more than 3,000 years.
With regard to New Year’s Day, the accurate interpretation now refers to the first day of the Gregorian calendar (Gregorian calendar) every year, that is, January 1st of the Gregorian calendar. However, this interpretation strictly began with the founding of New China in 1949. In the long river of more than 3,000 years or even longer, New Year’s Day actually refers to the current Spring Festival, that is, the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, and there are many nicknames such as Yuanri and Yuanzheng. If you read "January Day" in ancient poetry, it is the ancient people’s singing or expressing their feelings during the Spring Festival. Among them, Wang Anshi’s poem "Yuan Ri" in the Northern Song Dynasty is the most popular poem: the sound of firecrackers is one year old, and the spring breeze sends warmth into Tu Su. The rising sun sheds light on doors of each household, New peachwood charm is put up to replace the old. Bai Juyi, a famous man in the mid-Tang Dynasty, wrote "Five Drinks on January Day in Seven Years" in one breath with great interest after drinking on the first day of the first month in 833 AD (seven years refers to the seventh year of Tang Wenzong Taihe), the third of which is: three cups of blue-tailed wine and one cup of gum-tooth enamel. Except for Cui Changshi, no one is arguing with me.
In the Tang Dynasty, people took turns pouring drinks, and the last seat was called "Blue Tail Wine". In the Song Dynasty, Dou Ge explained in the Book of Wine: Today, when people drink Tu Su wine, the clouds can avoid the plague, which is also called blue-tailed wine. Or drink it at the end of the year, so it has the meaning of tail. As for the "gummy tooth jar", Mr. Lu Xun mentioned this scene in "A Random Talk on the Day of Sending Cooks": On the day when Kitchen Jun ascended to heaven, there was still a kind of sugar on the street, the size of a citrus, and there was this kind of thing in our place, but it was flat, like a thick pancake. That’s the so-called gum tooth-in fact, the simplest explanation can be maltose. -I believe readers have found clues: how do firecrackers, peach charms, Tu Su wine to avoid plague and maltose to send to the stove day look more and more like the Spring Festival now, rather than the New Year’s Day in this Gregorian calendar?
Indeed. Bai Juyi, Wang Anshi and countless Yuan Day and New Year’s Day in the poems before Qing Dynasty all refer to the Spring Festival, which is often referred to as the first day of the first month. A little exploration: "New Year’s Day" is an ancient Chinese word, which refers to the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the yuan character is a human figure plus a horizontal, which means the head, so it has the meaning of beginning and initial. The pictograph of the word Dan points to the moment when the sun rises on the horizon, so New Year’s Day means "the first day", also known as "three yuan", that is, the yuan of the year, the yuan of the month and the yuan of the time. However, the so-called "first month" has also changed many times with the adjustment of the calendar in the long river of history. Of course, it is all about exploring the "first" or "beginning" of the year. The calendar of Xia Dynasty takes January in spring as the first month, that of Yin Shang Dynasty takes December in winter as the first month, and that of Zhou Dynasty is changed to November. After Ying Zheng, king of Qin, unified China and called him the first emperor, it was changed to October as the first month. The current first day of the first month, as New Year’s Day, started from Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and remained in use until the end of the Qing Dynasty. Of course, in addition to New Year’s Day and "Yuanri" in Bai and Wang’s poems, there are many names for expressing feelings on the initial day, such as Yuanzheng, Yuanchen, Shangri and Yuanshuo.
In 1949, the first plenary session of the China People’s Political Consultative Conference decided that the new China would adopt the universal method of AD chronology, and designated January 1st of the Gregorian calendar as the beginning of the New Year and listed it as a legal holiday, which is the current New Year’s Day or New Year. In order to distinguish the two "years" of the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar, the first day of the first month was renamed the Spring Festival. Back to January 1, 2024, this upcoming New Year’s Day, as a national holiday, actually has only a history of more than 70 years, but it carries the cultural genes that have been integrated into the nation for more than 3,000 years and is the "beginning" of countless hopes and bright future. As described by Xin Xiao, a Wei-Jin poet, in Poem of Yuan Zheng, Yuan Zheng started the Order Festival, and Jiaqing started from here. Salty plays for thousands of years, and the size is the same as Yuexi. Although the yuan in the poem refers to the present Spring Festival, we might as well use it without asking for a solution: wouldn’t it be nice to use this New Year’s Day to start all the beautiful things and warm up for the grand Spring Festival that will come soon?
However, regarding the blessing of New Year’s Day, it is somewhat ordinary to use Happy New Year or Happy New Year. There are enough treasures to be excavated in the profound Chinese traditional culture, such as the Book of Changes. In the Book of Changes, the combination of "Yuan Henry Zhen" appeared many times, and Confucius interpreted it as: "Yuan is good." Heng Zhe, Jia Zhi Hui also. Those who benefit are also the sum of righteousness. Chastity, things are done. A gentleman’s benevolence is enough to grow a man. Jiahui is enough to make a gift. Good things are enough to make peace. Zhen is solid enough to do things. A gentleman does these four virtues. Therefore, it says,’ Dry, Yuan, Heng, Li and Zhen.’ "This is an interpretation of the construction of personal and social virtues, which can be explained in a more popular way as Yuan is the origin, Heng is the collection, Li is the achievement, and Zhen is the righteousness. It can be said that "Yuan Henry Zhen" represents the four stages of virtue cycle upward, and also symbolizes the development logic of everything from weak to strong, which reveals the wisdom and self-confidence of Chinese culture concisely and clearly.
In this case, when we meet tomorrow on the banks of the Pujiang River near the East China Sea, we can smile and say: Yuan Henzhen! (Lubei Mingyue)
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