As the Spring Festival is approaching, this year’s Spring Festival, you might as well come to the Forbidden City in Beijing to see exhibitions, enjoy palace lanterns, taste delicious food, and feel the flavor of the New Year! The Palace Museum will display nearly a thousand cultural relics in a record-breaking manner, restore a variety of ancient palace customs, and present the audience with a festive New Year atmosphere for the first time.
In the exhibition hall of the main building of the Meridian Gate and the East and West Yanchi Tower, welcoming the New Year – a special exhibition of New Year in the Forbidden City. A total of 885 pieces of cultural relics were exhibited, and the six major themes of “praying for blessings and welcoming good fortune, worshiping ancestors and filial piety, being diligent in the family, being diligent in business with the virtuous, traveling and enjoying the world”, fully displaying the New Year customs of the Qing Dynasty court in the Qing Dynasty. The “Praying for Blessings and Welcomes Fortune” in Xiyanchi Tower shows the indispensable festival objects during the New Year. It not only includes objects with palace characteristics such as the ritual maps and palace lanterns. You can also see the word “Fu” written by the five emperors of Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang.
Responsible Dean of the Palace Museum Ren Wanping: At the junction of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (the first day of the New Year), the emperor must make a wish on behalf of the whole world. The so-called auspicious words to write, the emperor’s first writing is not written casually, but to bless everyone, wishing everyone a prosperous harvest, good weather, peace in the world, etc.
In order to show the scene where the emperor, clan relatives and concubines feasted separately, the exhibition referred to the records of the meal base in the 48th year of Qianlong (1783), and the original scene was restored by more than 100 cultural relics to present the spectacular scene of the Golden Dragon Banquet Table at the clan banquet. The audience can intuitively feel the atmosphere of the Royal New Year’s Eve dinner. In addition, the entire open area of the Forbidden City is decorated according to the New Year Festival that restored from the old customs of the Qing Palace. The palace gates are covered with New Year pictures and Spring Festival couplets, and the long corridors are hung with palace lanterns. As long as the audience enters the Forbidden City, they can feel the strong New Year atmosphere.
Director Shan Jixiang: We can meet our audience with more collections of Chinese New Year culture. We hope that in addition to watching the Spring Festival Gala and eating dumplings at home to reunite, the audience will be welcome to celebrate the New Year in the Forbidden City.
HangCinema Door God posted Spring Festival couplets. The palace festival is of particular importance. For thousands of years, the activities of the New Year have been rich and colorful. Whether it is ordinary people or the Forbidden City, they are all given byActivities such as Fu, wearing new clothes, and eating reunion dinner to express the beautiful expectations of the New Year.
As soon as you enter the Forbidden City, the strong New Year atmosphere comes to you. In order to cooperate with the exhibition, the entire Forbidden City was dressed up. As a symbol of “year”, the Spring Festival couplets and door gods hanging on each door are very eye-catching.
Deputy Director of the Artifact Department of the Palace Museum and Associate Researcher Xu Wei: Door gods are hung in pairs, including couplets hanging on both sides of the door. Generally, door gods are also attached to different door gods according to different positions. Generally, the martial gate gods are mainly used in the outer courts, and the literary gate gods, fairy gate gods and boy gate gods are mainly used in the inner courts.
The production of Spring Festival couplets in the palace is generally jointly responsible by the Ministry of Works and the Office of the Internal Affairs. The writing of Spring Festival couplets was mainly done by Hanlins who were good at calligraphy. Unlike today’s customs, the Spring Festival couplets in the palace are not posted on New Year’s Eve, but are Babaylan hanging Spring Festival couplets on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month every year, starting from Qianqing Gate, Qianqing Palace, etc. and spreading them in turn.
Associate Research Librarian of the Palace Museum Babaylan Associate Research Librarian Zhan Mengxia: People need to paste the word “Fu” in the people, and the same is true for the palace. From the first day of the twelfth lunar month, the emperor had to write the first word “Fu” on the dragon stairs. The first word “Fu” must be posted on the door of the Qianqing Palace, because it was his home. Later, some will be written in other palaces, and then they will be written in succession, and then they will be rewarded with such ministers and foreign vassals.
In addition to the Spring Festival couplet gods, there will also be Cinema to post spring posts in the palace. Spring strips are auspicious words written on long strips of paper.
Agent of the Artifacts Department of the Palace Museum Cinema Deputy Research Librarian Zhan Mengxia: Spring strips are different from Spring Festival couplets. Spring couplets are paired. Spring strips are generally a long single piece, and they are more casual and can be pasted anywhere. If there are more literary families in our palace to be blessed and prosperous, the people can be covered with fat pigs and golden roosters on the pigpen.”>Komiks, good luck in and out, it is even more casual to post it.
In addition, there are some special “year objects” that are not available in the folk, such as the Sui Dynasty map, the sky lantern, the Wanshou Lantern, the Palace Lantern, and the palace lantern.
Family Palace Banquet Except in the Forbidden City href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks New Year’s Eve dinner
The New Year is a day for family reunion in Chinese concepts, and the New Year’s Eve dinner is the most fun time for the family, and the royal family is no exception.
The Emperors of the Qing Dynasty usually eat alone on weekdays, and only eat with their concubines during the New Year’s Day, which is called the “family family banquet”. The first day of the New Year’s Day is usually breakfast, which is held at 7 o’clock in the morning, and is located in the Qianqing Palace. Although it is a family banquet, the hierarchical etiquette system must be strictly followed.
Palace Museum EquipmentKomiks Associate Research Librarian of the Department of MaterialsKomiks Han Qian: Although the reunion banquet on the first day of the first lunar month is called the family reunion banquet, it is not as we imagined now that the emperor’s whole family is together. It is actually divided into two parts. Generally, he will come to celebrate the New Year with his concubine in the morning. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>BabaylanEve dinner, and then it was afternoon when I had New Year’s Eve dinner with my relatives, princes and grandchildren, and some princes from the neighborhood.
KomiksIn fact, the tableware for the palace family banquet is also divided into levels. The emperor used a golden dragon bowl and a golden dragon plate, and a total of 108 kinds of them were on the table. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>KomiksEach food, the queen used all yellow dark cloud dragon plates, bowls, and chopsticks inside and outside, and reduced the food to 64. There were no gold tableware below the imperial concubine, and there were 32 kinds of food on each table. This was the scene of the ancestral feast during the Spring Festival of the 48th year of Qianlong. More than 100 cultural relics were used, which was very spectacular.
Associate Researcher of the Artifact Department of the Palace MuseumHan Qian: The table setting starts from the farthest point, called the Toulu. We saw four tall ones called pine hut fruit covers. They mainly place fruits, and then there will be snacks and candied fruits in the future. There are two ways in the middle that the emperor will not place before he sits down. The hot soup dishes will be served after the emperor sits down. The group closest to the emperor will put some side dishes and sauces.
There is also a small red case here. Don’t look at it as small, on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, when the emperor eats dumplings, he must not put the wrong position.
Associate Research Librarian, Palace Museum Artifacts Department Han Qian: This dumpling is also very particular. This small plate should be placed in the red case we see immediately. There is a gourd in the middle of the red case with the word “Da Ji”. The plate must be placed on the word “A Ji” Cinema. Because of this pattern, this case has this pattern. We call it the Da Ji Bao case. It is said that on the morning of the 48th year of Qianlong, the emperor ate three of the 4 dumplings. The dumplings are the same as our current customs. There will be steel stews inside. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>KomiksThe Di family also put out coins and put out such spending money, which said peace and auspiciousness. That day he ate all the two auspicious money.