Celebrate Spring Festivalin Xuzhou 徐州过年纪实

李雅琦

When it comes to customs in Xuzhou when celebrating Spring Festival，we usually think about sachets， flour lamps and other interesting customs.

In Xuzhou， the atmosphere of Spring Festival is very strong. Sachetshave a long history in Xuzhou. As it known toall， Xuzhou is the birthplace of Han culture.At that time， sachets had already appeared in Xuzhou. Xuzhou sachets are usually red and beautiful， which are very suitable for Chinese Spring Festival. In moderm times， President Xi once bought sachets from Xuzhou. As Intangible cultural heritage， sachets gain popularity in Xuzhounow.

People often make some delicate flour lamps on the Lantern Festival. The four lamps have various patterns： dragon， rabbit， fish and so on. The elderly are ofen skilled in making flour lamp. Then childrenwill take the flour lamps and lighten the whole room with some words of blessing in their mouths in order tospray luck to every corner in the home. What's more， Lighting Festival are often held nowadays. You can see some fantastic scene consisting of many bright and colorful light， such as some cartoon characters， Chinese zodiac and so on. It's definitely a visual feast on the Lantern Festival.

In Xuzhou， there are some interesting customs when celebrating Spring Festival. When Spring Festival approach， people will clean the whole house and do the haircut before the next year. They usually eat vegetarian dumplings on the morning of the Chinese Spring Festival. The moral of this practice is that vegetarian means "su"， praying for purity and peace the next year. Moreover， people put coins into dumplings， and the person who happens to eat the coin will be very lucky the next year. In addition， the god of wealth will be welcomed on thefifthdy of e frt lunar month.

Celebrating Spring Festival in Xuzhou is very interesting and happy， and these customs are passed on year by year.