As the Spring Festival is approaching, this year’s Spring Festival, Komiks, you might as well come to the Forbidden City Beijing to visit the exhibition, enjoy the palace lanterns, taste delicious food, and feel the New Year’s atmosphere! 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 cultural relics were exhibited. Babaylan was fully displayed with the six themes of “Praying for blessings and welcome auspiciousness, worshiping ancestors and filial piety, serving relatives and harmonious families, working hard and taking good care of the virtuous, traveling and enjoying the world”, comprehensively showing the New Year customs of the Qing Dynasty court in the Qing Dynasty. The “Praying for Blessings and Welcomes Fortune” in the Cinema Building shows the indispensable festivals during the New Year. It not only includes the utensils of the Year and the palace lanterns and other objects rich in the palace characteristics of Komiks, but also the word “Fu” written by Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang.
Responsible Director of the Palace Museum Ren Wanping: KomiksWhen New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (the first day of the Lunar New Year), the emperor must make a wish on behalf of all the people in the world. The so-called auspicious words for writing, the emperor did not write casually for the first time. He would bless everyone, wishing everyone a good harvest, good weather, peace in the world, etc.
In order to show the scene where the emperor and his clan relatives and concubines feasted separately, the exhibition referred to the records of the meal base in the 48th year of Qianlong (1783) and restored this scene by just restoring more than 100 cultural relics to present the spectacular scene of the Golden Dragon Banquet Table at the clan relatives’ 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 the New Year Festival in accordance with the old customs of the Qing Palace., New Year pictures and Spring Festival couplets are posted on the palace gates, and various palace lanterns are hung in the long corridors. As long as the audience walks into the Forbidden City, they can feel the strong New Year atmosphere.
Director Shan Jixiang, Director of the Palace Museum: We can meet our audience with more collections of cultural relics related to 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 the Forbidden City for the first destination 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 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 exhibition, the entire CinemaThe 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.
Komiks Deputy Director of the Artifact Department of the Palace Museum, 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 hung on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month every year. Starting from Qianqing Gate, Qianqing Palace, etc., and spreading them according to Babaylan times.
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 that was his home. After that, Babaylan will write some more in other palaces, and then write them one after another, and then reward such ministers and foreign vassals.
In addition to the Spring Festival couplets, the palace will also postSpring sticks. Spring strips are auspicious words written on long strips of paper.
Associate Research Librarian, Palace Museum Artifacts Department Zhan Mengxia: Spring strips are different from Spring Couplets. Spring couplets are paired. Spring strips are generally long singles, and they are more casual when posted and can be pasted anywhere. If there are more literary things like the welfare of our palace and the peace of the country, the people can stick fat pigs, golden roosters, wells and springs, and safety in and out, it will be even more casual to stick them.
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, 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 the Chinese concept, and the New Year’s Eve dinner is the most happy moment for the family, and 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.” Family dinners on the first day of the Lunar New Year are usually Komiks breakfast, held at 7 a.m., and are located in the Qianqing Palace. KomiksAlthough it is a family dinner, the hierarchical etiquette system must be strictly followed.
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 held in two parts. Generally, he will have a New Year’s Eve dinner with his concubines in the morning, and then in the afternoon he will have a 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 the scene of the family 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 Toulu. We saw 4 tall ones, called pine hut fruit covers. They mainly place fruits, and then there will be snacks, cold meat and candied fruits and candied fruits. There are two ways in the middle that the emperor will not place before he sits down. The hot soup dishes from Komiks 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 be in 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 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 “Da Ji Lan”. Because of this case, 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 Babaylan case. Komiks is the same as our current custom, and there will be steel pounds inside. The emperor’s family also puts coins and puts such money, which says peace and good luck. In such auspicious words, he eats out all the two auspicious money.