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 on a record-breaking basis, restore a variety of ancient palace customs, and present a festive Forbidden City to the audience.
In the exhibition halls of the main building of the Meridian Gate and the East and West Yanchi Building, Babaylan welcomes the glory of the New Year – a special exhibition of New Year in the Forbidden City. A total of 885 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 in the Qing Dynasty. The “Praying for Blessings and Welcomes Fortune” in Xiyanchi Tower shows the indispensable festivals during the New Year. It not only includes the pictures of the year and palace lanterns and other objects with palace characteristics. You can also see the characters “Fu” written by the 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 and clan relatives and concubines had a banquet separately, the exhibition refers to the records of the meal base in the 48th year of Qianlong (1783) and restored this scene alone, more than 100 cultural relics were used 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 in accordance with the New Year Festival restored by the old customs of the Qing Palace. The palace gates are covered with New Year pictures and 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 cultural relics related to New Year culture. We hope that the audience will not only watch the Spring Festival Gala, but also eat dumplings at home to reunite.The first destination welcomes you to the Forbidden City to celebrate the New Year.
Hanging Komiks Door God posted Spring Festival couplets. Palace festivals are of particular importance. Over the past thousands of years, the activities of the New Year have been rich and colorful. Whether it is ordinary people or the Forbidden City, they all use activities such as sending blessings, wearing new clothes, and eating reunion dinner to express their beautiful expectations for 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 Babaylan exhibition, the entire Forbidden City was decorated. 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 Cinema is mainly used in the inner courts, the literary gate gods, the fairy gate gods and the boy gate gods.
The production of Spring Festival couplets in the palace is generally jointly responsible by the Ministry of Industry 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 habits, the Spring Festival couplets in the Cinema Palace are not posted on New Year’s Eve, but are hung on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month every year, starting from Qianqing Gate, Qianqing Palace, etc. and spreading them in turn.
Babaylan Associate Research Librarian Zhan Mengxia: People need to paste the word “Fu” in the palace, 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 that was his home. Then I will write some more in other palaces, and then I will write them one after another, and then I will reward the ministers and foreign vassals with such ministers.
In addition to the Spring Festival couplet gods, spring notes will also be posted in the palace. Spring strips are auspicious words written on long strips of paper.
Associate of the Palace MuseumResearch librarian Zhan Mengxia: Spring strips are different from Spring Couplets. Spring couplets are paired. Spring strips are usually long singles, and they are more casual and can be pasted anywhere. If there is more literary style like the family in our palace, the country is prosperous and the people are safe, the people can stick fat pigs in the pigpen, golden roosters in the rack, the wells are auspicious, and the entry and exit are safe. It will be even more casual.
In addition, there are some special “year objects” that are not available among the people in the palace, such as the Sui Dynasty map, the Sky Lantern, the Wanshou Lantern, and the Palace Lantern.
Family Palace Banquet New Year’s Eve in the Forbidden CityKomiksNew 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 happy time for the family, and the Royal Family is no exception. Komiks
The Emperors of the Qing Dynasty usually had their meals alone on weekdays, and only ate with their concubines during the New Year Festival, which was called the “family family banquet”. Family dinners on the first day of the Lunar New Year are usually breakfast, held at 7 a.m., and are located in the Qianqing Palace. Although it is a family banquet, the hierarchical etiquette system must be strictly observed.
Associate Research Librarian, Artifact Department of the Palace Museum, 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 and his whole family are together. It is actually divided into two parts: Babaylan. Generally, he will have New Year’s Eve dinner with his concubines in the morning, and then in the afternoon he will have New Year’s Eve dinner with his relatives, princes and grandchildren, and some princes from the nearby branches.
In fact, the tableware for the palace family banquet is also divided into levels. The emperor used the golden dragon bowl and the golden dragon plate. The table has a total of 108 kinds of food. The queen used the yellow dark cloud dragon plate bowl and the golden spoon and chopsticks inside and outside. The food of each color has been reduced to 64 kinds. There are no gold tableware below the imperial concubine, and 32 kinds of food on each table. This is a scene of the Qianlong clan banquet during the Spring Festival of 48th year of Qianlong. More than 100 cultural relics were used, which was very spectacular.
Associate Research Librarian, Utilities Department of the Palace Museum, Han Qian:The table starts from the farthest, called Toulu. We saw 4 tall ones, called pine hut fruit covers. The main ones are placed with fruits. Then there will be snacks, cold meat and candied fruits and candied fruits. There are two other ways in the middle that the emperor did not place before he sat down. The hot soup dishes were served after the emperor sat down. The group closest to the emperor would 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” because of this picture. 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 four dumplings. The dumplings are the same as our current customs. There will be steel steaks in it, and the emperor’s family also put coins. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan put out such money, which said peace and auspiciousness, and that day he ate all the two auspicious money.