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 a Forbidden City full of festive New Year to the audience for the first time.
In the exhibition halls of the main building of the Meridian Gate and the East and West Yanchi Building, welcoming the New Year – a special exhibition of New Year in the Forbidden City, with a total of 885 cultural relics (sets), which fully demonstrated the New Year customs of the Qing Dynasty with six major themes: “Praying for blessings and welcomes good fortune, worshiping ancestors and filial piety, being diligent in the family, being diligent in business with the virtuous, traveling and enjoying the world”, comprehensively showing 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 festival objects during the New Year. It not only includes objects with court characteristics such as the ritual maps and palace lanterns, but also 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 feasted separately, the exhibition referred to the records of the meal base in the 48th year of Qianlong (1783), and Cinema alone restored this scene, and used more than 100 articles to present the spectacular scene of the Golden Dragon Banquet Table at the clan banquet. CinemaAudiences 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 of the Palace MuseumCinema 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 is welcome to the Forbidden City to celebrate the New Year.
Hanging the door god and pasting Spring Festival couplets, and the court festivals are of particular importance. For thousands of years, the activities of the New Year have been rich and colorful. Whether it is ordinary families or in the Forbidden City, they all express their beautiful expectations for the New Year through activities such as sending blessings, wearing new clothes, and eating reunion dinners.
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 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 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 carried out 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 hung on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month every year, starting from the Qianqing Gate, Qianqing Palace, etc. and spreading them in turn.
Palace Museum BlogCinema Associate Research Librarian Zhan Mengxia: People need to paste the word “Fu” in the folk, 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 they will write some more in other palaces, and then Babaylan will write them one after another, and then reward such ministers and foreign vassals.
In addition to the SpringBabaylanJianmen God, spring notes will also be posted in the palace. Spring strips are auspicious words written on long strips of paper.
Associate Research Librarian of the Artifact Department of the Palace Museum Zhan Mengxia: Spring strips are different from Spring Couplets. Spring couplets are paired. Spring strips are usually a Babaylan long single, post themIt’s more casual and can be posted anywhere. If there are more literary things like the welfare of our palace, the country is prosperous and the people are safe, the people can stick fat pigs in the pigpen, gold and chicken racks, well springs, and safe entry and exit, 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 New Year’s Eve dinner in the Forbidden City
The New Year is a day for family reunion in Chinese concepts, and the New Year’s Eve dinner is the most enjoyable moment for the family. The Royal Family is no exception.
The Emperors of the Qing Dynasty usually had their meals alone and only ate with their concubines during the New Year Festival, which was called the “family family banquet of clans.” The family dinner on the first day of the Lunar New Year is usually breakfast, held at 7 a.m., 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. Generally, he will have the New Year’s Eve dinner with his concubines in the morning, and then in the afternoon Komiks have the New Year’s Eve dinner with his clan 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 had a total of 108 kinds of food. The queen used the yellow dark cloud dragon plate inside and outside and the golden spoon and chopsticks. The food was reduced to 64 kinds of food. There were no gold tableware below the imperial concubine, and 32 kinds of food on each table. KomiksThis is the scene of the Cinema’s personal banquet during the Spring Festival of the 48th year of Qianlong. More than 100 cultural relics were used, which is very spectacular.
Associate Research Librarian, Utility Department of the Palace Museum, Han Qian: The table setting starts from the farthest point, called the Toulu. We saw 4 tall ones called pine hut fruit covers. They mainly place fruits. Then, in the future, there are two ways to place snacks, cold meat and candied fruits. The emperor did not place hot soup dishes before he sat down. After the emperor sat down, the hot dishes were served. 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 was eating dumplings, he must not put the wrong position.
Associate Research Librarian, Palace Museum Artifact Department Han Qian: This dumpling is also very particular. This small plate should be placed in the red case we saw immediately. There is a gourd in the middle of the red case, with the word “Da Ji” written on it. The plate must be placed on the word “A Ji Bao”. It is said that in the morning of 4KomiksThe emperor ate three of the four dumplings in the morning of 8 years. The dumplings are the same as our current customs. The emperor also put coins in it. The emperor’s family also puts such money, which says peace and auspiciousness. He ate all the two auspicious money that day.