The Spring Festival: from the first day of the first lunar month, people open their doors and set off firecrackers, called “opening the door to embrace the spring”. They set incense burner tables to offer sacrifice to their ancestors and gods. Neighbors and relatives send best wishes to each other. No drawing water, no sweeping, no handling knives and scissors, no dunning, no quarreling, and no laboring. People visit neighbors and relatives, sending gifts and drinking festival wine. All the customs are collectively called “paying a new year call”, which lasts till the eighth day. Families with beravement take the second day as the “white day”, on which they sacrifice and worship, called “accepting spiritual money”. Folk teams of dragon dance and lion dance give performance across villages; folkloric shows such as Sachi, Liaohualao, Paijie, Hualongchuan, Songyuanbao, Songqilin, Goudaomi and flower-drum performance are offered to households. On the third day, people welcome the land god. On the fourth, they welcome the kitchen god. On the fifth day, everything returns to normal condition and shops resume their businesses. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the government requires three days as the statutory holidays for the festival, and often organizes large-scale cultural and entertainment activities. Before the festival, leaders of every organ and enterprise express greetings to families of martyrs, soldiers and retirees. People working outside will go home to spend the festival and visit their families.
The Lantern Festival: It is also called “the mid-night of the first lunar month”. The most important night is on the fourteenth day. Dragon lanterns and lion dancing troupes travel around the city. People view lanterns on the street. Red candles are lit in every room called “lighting every room”. Lanterns are delivered to the grave called “Lanterns on the grave”. Fermented glutinous rice soup is eaten in every house. It is said that at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Wei Chiliao, Prefectural Governor of Taizhou, started the construction of the city wall against theft on the fourteenth day. Though it was chilly, according to the military rules, it was forbidden to drink alcohol. Therefore, the civilians brought to the soldiers the soup made of the fermented glutinous rice and flour and seasoning to resist the cold days. Later, the custom passed on. In fact, the custom was a sequel of that of the Jingchu Area in ancient times, when people drank the soup made of seven vegetables on the eighth day.
The Qingming Festival: People make Qingtuan as the cold food and visit and sweep the graves. Activities for the festival may last till the Spring Flower Harvest Festival or the Duanwu Festival, as a saying goes “The Qingming Festival lasts till wheat harvest” or “The Qingming Festival lasts till the Duanwu Festival”. People also eat sea margarya on that day. It is said that it helps clear eyes, called “clearing eyes”. After the 1950’s, it became a new fashion to sweep the martyrs’ graves at the festival. However, people still visit their ancestors’ graves nowadays.
The Beginning of Summer: It occurs at the turning point from spring to summer. To avoid summer fever, people tone up themselves through nutrients such as eggs for healthy feet bones, greengage against soreness of waist and longan for clearing eyes. People weigh themselves to find out their physical change. People also like eating “barley rolls”, for “without barley rolls in summer, the life is not worth living”. However, in the past, poor families could only eat green “barley worms”. So people say “barley rolls for the rich and barley worms for the poor in summer”. People drink a little even they do not drink, or eat sweet fermented-rice, called “summer intoxication”.
The Duanwu Festival: It is a day to eat rice dumpling. People give as presents to relatives and friends. On the door, the five-evil picture is pasted and artemisia leaves and calamus sword are hung. People drink calamus wine, spread realgar wine in the house and hang sachet made of five-color thread in front of the tent and the chest so as to avoid evil and illness. The five-color thread is tied around the feet and neck of children, in order to avoid illness, keep them healthy and make them robust and strong. People simmer houttuynia, thistle, verbena, artemisia and cyperus rotundus for the noon bath of children. People also eat duck eggs with cyan to avoid illness and summer heat and damp. Dragon-boat races are not held.
The Sixth Day of the Sixth Lunar Month: People dry in the sun clothes and books to avoid vermin. Proverb says “Dry things on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month”. Also, people eat Yanggao to avoid illness. People drive cattle into the river to clean flea, so there goes the proverb "Dogs bath on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month".
The Seventh Day of the Seventh Lunar Month: It is also called the Double Seventh Festival. In the past, women wished for cleverness. All of them threaded the needle with seven threads and the one who finished it first would be deeded as the cleverest. They spread flowers of seven different colors in the basin to receive dew, called “receiving the tears of the weaving girl”. The next morning, they used the dew to clean eyes, thinking that it could clear their eyes. Hibiscus leaves were used to wash hair and combs to brighten the hair and remove dirt. It is the Children’s Day in Shitang Area of Wenling. Parents make for their children paper pavilions, which are burned after the lunch banquet.
The Fifteenth Day of the Seventh Lunar Month: It is also called the Ghost Festival. People sacrifice soup and rice to their ancestors. Water lamps or street lamps are set to help the spirits.
The Mid-autumn Day: It falls on the sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month. People celebrate the festival with a family banquet. All the family members view the moon and eat moon cakes together. According to the old customs, the sacrifice to the moon was held mainly by women. The moon was regarded as the sun, so men did not participate in the sacrifice. People ate duck simmered with taro. The sons-in-law brought cakes and ducks to homes of their parents-in-law to spend the festival, as “brining children to eat duck together on the sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month”. Engagement was often made on the festival because it is a festival for reunion. At present, the sacrifice to the moon has already canceled, but other customs still remain.
The Chung Yeung Festival: It is also called the Double Ninth Festival. People climb and eat pastry, meaning longevity and luck. According to Linhai Annals in the Southern Song Dynasty, “there is a flat hill capable of holding hundreds of people on its top. People pay much attention to the folk customs, so they meet on the hill on the Double Ninth Festival to drink chrysanthemum wine in three and four hundred”. It was the early data of the ancient customs in Taizhou. Sticky Rice Cakes were popular in Linhai, Huangyan, Sanmen and other counties. Customs other than climbing has gradually faded away.
The Winter Solstice: People sacrifice to ancestors at the festival. Spiritual money is burned to support spirits at the crossing road and Leiyuan made of glutinous rice is cooked at the festival.
The New Year's Eve: The last day of the twelfth lunar month is called “New Year’s Eve". The twenty-forth day is called the Minor New Year’s Day. People do cleaning this day, called “dust clearing”. On the evening, people sacrifice to the kitchen god. After the day, preparations for the Spring Festival are launched such as killing pigs and chickens, and cooking pastry, rice dumpling, steamed bread and frozen rice candy and buying commodities for the festival. Before the Spring Festival, the sacrifice to the god is done to “say goodbye to the old year”. The Spring Festival couplets are pasted and a family banquet called “the year-end dinner” is held. Around Shitang in Wenling, fishermen burn at the gate spiritual money and cypress leaves. They also leap across the ash of fire, saying “a good festival this year will bring a good fortune next year”, called “jumping dragon ash”. The whole family sit together to “stay up for the New Year”, while children get money from adults as the lunar New Year gifts. Besides, firecrackers are set off to say good-bye to the old year.
