{"id":555,"date":"2023-01-18T01:11:57","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T17:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/?p=555"},"modified":"2024-08-23T08:29:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T00:29:21","slug":"chinese-new-year-stories-and-legends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/555","title":{"rendered":"Chinese New Year Stories and Legends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zhang<\/a><\/p>\n

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is the most important festival in China and a major event in several other East Asian countries.<\/p>\n

Chinese New Year is near, so have you decorated your house with red?<\/p>\n

The Chinese New Year Festival is thousands of years old and rich in legends, including:<\/p>\n

1. The Legend of \u201cNian\u201d<\/h4>\n

According to legend, there was a monster named \u201cNian\u201d in ancient China, with sharp fangs and claws, very fierce.<\/p>\n

\u201cNian\u201d lived deep in the mountains for many years, and only came down the mountain every Chinese New Year\u2019s Eve to devour cattle and injure people.<\/p>\n

Therefore, every New Year\u2019s Eve, people in every household leave their homes to escape the catastrophe from the Nian monster.<\/p>\n

One New Year\u2019s Eve, an old man is begging from outside the village.<\/p>\n

Some people closed windows and locked doors, some packed their bags, and there was panic everywhere. No one cares about the old man.<\/p>\n

Only an old woman cared about him, made dumplings for the old man, and advised him to go up the mountain to avoid the Nian monster.<\/p>\n

To repay the old woman\u2019s kindness, the old man told her that Nian was most afraid of red, fire, and explosions, and asked her to wear red clothes, stick red paper on the door, light red candles, and burn bamboo in the yard to make explosions.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the night, Nian broke into the village. He found that the old woman\u2019s house was brightly lit, his eyes were forced open by the dazzling red color, and heard the loud sound of firecrackers coming, making him run in a tremble.<\/p>\n

Soon, the story spread in the village.<\/p>\n

Since then, people know how to drive away the new year. Every Chinese New Year\u2019s Eve, every family decorates their house with red and sets off firecrackers.<\/p>\n

On the morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year, they will visit relatives and friends to greet and congratulate them for passing through the Nian.<\/p>\n

Guo Nian, Guo Nian (Chinese: \u8fc7\u5e74 ; pinyin: gu\u00f2 ni\u00e1n) that means already passed through Nian.<\/p>\n

2. The Legend of \u201cPeach Charm\u201d<\/h4>\n

Once upon a time, Mount Dushuo in the East China Sea had a beautiful view.<\/p>\n

There is a peach forest on the mountain. Among them was a large peach tree with lush branches and leaves. People who eat the peaches from this tree can become immortal.<\/p>\n

One night, a ghost with a blue face, long fangs, red hair, and green eyes wanted to steal the fairy peaches.<\/p>\n

The two brothers Shen Tu and Yu Lei, masters of the peach forest, used peach branches to defeat the ghosts and tied them with straw ropes to feed the tiger watching over the mountain.<\/p>\n

Since then, the names of the two brothers have been feared by ghosts, and after they died, they became immortals who punished evil ghosts.<\/p>\n

Later generations used peach wood planks one inch wide and seven or eight inches long to draw statues of Shen Tu and Yu Lei and hung them on both sides of the door to ward off ghosts and evil spirits.<\/p>\n

3. The Legend of the \u201cSticking Fu Character\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u798f (Pinyin: F\u00fa) means luck, good fortune, or blessing.<\/p>\n

Ming Taizu, Zhu Yuanzhang uses the word \u201cFu \u798f\u201d as a secret to prepare to kill people.<\/p>\n

The benevolent Empress Ma tried to eliminate this disaster so she ordered everyone in the city to put labels with the characters \u201cFu \u798f\u201d on their doors before sunrise the next day.<\/p>\n

Naturally, no one dared to disobey Empress Ma\u2019s will, so the word \u201cFu \u798f\u201d was plastered on the door of every home.<\/p>\n

Among them, an illiterate family posted the word \u201cFu \u798f\u201d reversed.<\/p>\n

On the second day, the emperor sent someone to go out on the street to check and found that every family had affixed a label with the character \u201cFu \u798f\u201d, and one family had the character \u201cFu \u798f\u201d reversed.<\/p>\n

The Emperor was furious upon hearing the report and immediately ordered the Royal Guard to kill the entire family of that people.<\/p>\n

Empress Ma saw this, and said to Zhu Yuanzhang, \u201cThe family knew you were visiting today, so they deliberately reversed the writing. Doesn\u2019t that mean \u2018good luck arrived\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u798f (Pinyin: F\u00fa)\u201d reversed in Chinese is \u201c\u798f\u5012\u4e86 F\u00fa d\u00e0o le\u201d and its homonym is \u201c\u798f\u5230\u4e86 F\u00fa d\u00e0o le (Fu has arrived, or means luck and good fortune has arrived)\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u798f f\u00fa : luck, good fortune, or blessing<\/p>\n

\u5012 d\u00e0o : reversed<\/p>\n

\u5230 d\u00e0o : arrived<\/p>\n

As soon as the emperor heard that it made sense, he ordered the people to be released.<\/p>\n

From then on, people started to put labels with the character \u201cFu \u798f\u201d reversed, to wish good luck, and commemorate Empress Ma.<\/p>\n

\n

The origin of the Chinese New Year has several versions and legends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is the most important festival in China and a major event...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[41,42,59,106,60,324,589,590,62,587,291,588],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-culture","tag-chinese-culture","tag-chinese-history","tag-chinese-new-year","tag-chinese-story","tag-cny","tag-fu","tag-guo-nian","tag-nian","tag-spring-festival","tag-587","tag-291","tag-588"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zhangruying.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}