New Year's custom "Keeping the year old"
Watching the year old on New Year's Eve is one of the most important annual customs. The custom of keeping the year old has been around for a long time. The earliest record can be found in the "Fengtu Zhi" of Zhouchu in the Western Jin Dynasty: On New Year's Eve, each person greets each other with gifts, which is called "giving the new year"; "Dividing the year old"; everyone stays up all night waiting for dawn, which is called "keeping the year old".
“One night is two years old, five o’clock is divided into two days.” On New Year’s Eve, the whole family gets together, has New Year’s Eve dinner, lights candles or oil lamps, sits around the fire and chats, waiting to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year. At this time, the all-night vigil symbolizes driving away all evil plagues and looking forward to auspiciousness in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. In the early Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem about "keeping the year old": "The cold leaves the winter snow, and the warmth brings the spring breeze." To this day, people are still used to staying up late on New Year's Eve to welcome the new year.
In ancient times, staying up late had two meanings: older people staying up late meant "saying goodbye to the old year", which meant cherishing time; young people staying up late meant to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the transition time between the new and the old year has generally been at midnight.
The legend of staying up late on New Year’s Eve
Staying up late on New Year’s Eve is commonly known as “staying up late”.
There is an interesting story circulating among the people: According to legend, in the ancient times, there was a ferocious monster, and people called him "Nian". Every New Year's Eve, the Nian beast will crawl out of the sea to harm people and animals, destroy farmland, and bring disasters to people who have worked hard for a year. In order to avoid the Nian beast, people would close their doors early on the 30th night of the twelfth lunar month before it gets dark. They would not dare to sleep and wait for dawn. In order to kill time and strengthen their courage, they drank alcohol. Wait until the Nian beast stops coming out on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year before you dare to go out. When people meet, they bow to each other, congratulate each other, and are glad that they were not eaten by the Nian beast. After many years of this, nothing happens, and people relax their vigilance against the Nian beast. One year on the eve of the 30th, the Nian beast suddenly rushed to a village in the south of the Yangtze River. Almost all the people in the village were eaten by the Nian beast. Only a newlywed couple wearing red curtains and red clothes were safe. There were also a few children who lit a bunch of bamboos and played in the courtyard. The fire was bright red, and the bamboos made a "pop-pop" sound after burning. The Nian beast turned here and turned around and ran away when he saw the fire. Since then, people have known that the Nian beast is afraid of the color red, light, and noise. At the end of each year, every household would put up red paper, wear red robes, hang red lanterns, beat gongs and drums, and set off firecrackers, so that the Nian beast would not dare to come again. . In the "Book of Songs·Xiaoya.Ting Liao", there is a record of "Ting Liao's light". The so-called "Ting Liao" is a torch made of bamboo poles. After the bamboo poles burn, the air in the bamboo joints expands, and the bamboo cavity bursts, making a crackling sound. This is the origin of "firecrackers". But in some places, villagers don't know that the Nian beast is afraid of red, and they are often eaten by the Nian beast. This incident later spread to Ziweixing in the sky. In order to save people, he determined to destroy the Nian beast. One year, when he waited for the Nian beast to come out, he knocked it down with a fireball, and then locked it to the stone pillar with a thick iron chain. From then on, every New Year, people always burn incense and ask Ziweixing to come down to the next world to ensure peace.