Celebrating the Lunar New Year with You | An Appreciation of the Sequential Art Series “One Hundred Scenes of Ancient Customs” (Part 8)

Winter Rice Pounding (Song Dynasty)
 

In the twelfth lunar month, saving brings benefits in all things; first and foremost, one should pound rice for the New Year.
 

The clamor of the crowd filled the courtyard, and the rhythmic pounding of pestles resounded like thunder that shook the earth.
 

When sifted evenly, the grain is free of chaff and bran; a hundred bushels require only three days of hard work.
 

The arrows, straight and perfectly rounded, are long; through the fence, sunlight glimmers, and the snow seems to shine.
 

——Song Dynasty, Fan Chengda, “Winter Rice Milling”


 

Festive Gift-Giving (Song Dynasty)
 

“Gui Sui,” or the custom of exchanging gifts at year’s end, was a traditional Chinese New Year practice. During the Northern Song dynasty, at the close of the year, people would present one another with gifts—known as “gui sui”—regardless of whether they were wine and food or wild game. Each time the year drew to a close, they would send out “nian pan,” or New Year gift platters. Though the gifts were modest, the spirit was warm and sincere, fostering bonds of friendship and neighborly goodwill.

Affection overflows across mountains and rivers.
 

The villagers, admiring the ancient customs, exchanged courteous responses among the four assembled.
 

To the east lies the Yixi Village, where houses spring up one after another like ants at a grindstone.
 

I would rather go without food and drink than have you blame me for my fault.
 

Together we celebrate the New Year, our faces radiant with joy and harmony.
 

— Song Dynasty, Su Zhe, “Three Poems in Rhyme to Zi-zhan’s Record of Rural Customs at Year’s End”



 

Selling Spring Couplets (Qing Dynasty)
 

Children learning to write wield their brushes with diligence, and New Year couplets hang in rows, selling a refined elegance.
 

When people came to ask the price, it was raised threefold; yet I would not let the flock of geese enclose Right Army.
 

——Qing Dynasty, Zhou Zongtai, “Gusu Zhuzhi Ci: Spring Couplets”

 

Drinking Bean Porridge (Qing)
 

Joy arrives on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, and the custom of scattering beans before the door has been passed down through the ages.
 

Devout disciples simmer porridge through the night, and with each recitation of the Buddha’s name, they weave auspicious karmic ties.
 

——“Drinking Bean Porridge”


 

The Kitchen God Festival (Song Dynasty)
 

According to ancient tradition, on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Kitchen God ascends to Heaven to report on the household.
 

Cloud‑car and wind‑horse linger fondly; at home, the table is laden with sumptuous fare for the ancestral rites.
 

Pork head, tender and well-cooked, paired with fresh carp; sweet bean paste, fragrant with sandalwood, mixed into rice dumpling balls.
 

Men offer libations, while daughters keep their distance; pouring wine and burning paper money, the Kitchen God is pleased.
 

— Song Dynasty, Fan Chengda, “Ode to the Kitchen God”



 

Eating Stove Candy (Qing)
 

At year’s end, one finally thinks of pleasing the Kitchen God; fragrant melons and ingot-shaped sweets are all made of malt candy.
 

Why bother with such fuss? Just buy one and let the child taste it first.
 

——Qing Dynasty, Anonymous, “Eating Hearth Candy”
 

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