The changes of lucky money in ancient and modern times

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During the Spring Festival, the elders will distribute the New Year's money prepared in advance to the younger ones. It is said that the New Year's money can suppress evil spirits, because "Sui" and "Evil" "Homophonous" means that if the younger generation gets the lucky money, they can spend their first year in peace. There are two types of New Year's money. One is made of colorful ropes threaded into a dragon shape and placed at the foot of the bed. This record is found in "Yanjing Years' Notes"; the other is the most common, which is given by parents wrapped in red paper. Children's money. New Year's money can be given to the younger generation in public after paying New Year's greetings, or parents can secretly put it under the child's pillow when the child is asleep on New Year's Eve.

Wu Manyun, a native of the Qing Dynasty, wrote in his poem "New Year's Money": "A hundred and ten pieces of money are threaded with long threads. I divide them and put them on my pillow to keep them. I discuss the price of firecrackers and flutes. It makes Jiaoer busy all night." From this point of view, New Year's money is tied to the innocence of children, and children's New Year's money is mainly used to buy firecrackers, toys, candies and other holiday items.

Nowadays, the custom of elders distributing lucky money to younger generations is still popular. The amount of lucky money ranges from tens to hundreds. These lucky money are mostly used by children to buy books and school supplies. The new fashion is lucky money. Given new content.

Folks believe that by giving New Year's money to children, when evil spirits, monsters or "Nian" harm the children, the children can use the money to bribe them and turn evil into good luck.

History

The earliest lucky money appeared in the Han Dynasty. The earliest New Year's money is also called Weishengqian, or Big Pressed Shengqian. This kind of money is not a currency circulating in the market. It is an anti-evil object specially cast into the shape of a coin for wearing and enjoying. Wearable items in the form of coins first appeared in the Han Dynasty. Some of them were cast with the words on the coins and various auspicious sayings on the front, such as "Long live the Qianqiu", "Peace in the world", "Eliminate disasters and eliminate evil", etc.; There are various patterns, such as dragons and phoenixes, turtles and snakes, double fishes, fighting swords, stars and so on.

In the Tang Dynasty, the practice of scattering money in spring was prevalent in the palace. At that time, the Spring Festival was the "beginning of spring", which was a day for worshiping each other in the palace. This custom did not exist among the people. Volume 26 of "Zizhi Tongjian" records that Yang Guifei gave birth to a son, and "Xuanzong personally came to see it and was happy to give the concubine gold and silver money to wash the son." The child laundering mentioned here is not only a congratulation, but also has a more important meaning as an amulet given by the elders to the newborn to ward off evil spirits.

After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the first day of the first lunar month replaced the Beginning of Spring and was called the Spring Festival. Many customs that originally belonged to the Spring Festival have also been moved to the Spring Festival. The custom of giving money to children in spring evolved into the custom of giving lucky money to children. The Qing Dynasty Fucha Dunchong's "Yanjing Sui Shi Ji" records the lucky money as follows: "Thread the money through colorful ropes, braid it into a dragon shape, and place it at the foot of the bed. It is called lucky money. Those who respect the elders and give it to children are also called lucky money."< /p>

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most of the New Year's money was given to children strung with red strings. After the Republic of China, it evolved into wrapping one hundred copper coins in red paper, which means "long life" and giving new year's money to the adults who have grown up. The red paper contains an ocean, which symbolizes "prosperous wealth", "One hundred thousand profits". After the currency was changed to banknotes, parents liked to choose new banknotes with linked numbers to give to their children, because "Lian" and "Lian" are homophonic, which indicates that future generations will "continue to get rich" and "continue to be promoted."

The custom of giving lucky money has a long history. It represents a kind of good blessing from elders to younger generations. It is an amulet given by elders to children to bless them with good health and good luck in the new year.

Legends

Legends say that in ancient times, there was a little demon with black body and white hands, named "Sui", which came out to harm people every New Year's Eve. Touching the child's head three times, the child was so frightened that he cried, then developed a fever, started talking gibberish and became ill from then on. After a few days, the fever subsided, but the smart and clever child turned into a demented fool. People are afraid that evil spirits will harm their children, so they light up lanterns and sit awake, which is called "keeping evil spirits at bay".

There is a family named Guan in Jiaxing Prefecture. The couple had a son in old age, and they regarded it as the apple of their eye. On New Year's Eve, they were afraid that evil spirits would harm their children, so they forced them to play. The child wrapped eight copper coins in red paper, unwrapped it, unwrapped it again, and played with it until he fell asleep. The eight copper coins wrapped in it were placed next to the pillow. The couple dared not close their eyes and stayed next to the child all night long. In the middle of the night, a strong gust of wind blew open the door and blew out the lights. When the little black man touched the child's head with his white hands, a bright light came out of the child's pillow. He hurriedly retracted his hand and screamed. Escaped. Guan and his wife told everyone about wrapping eight copper coins in red paper to scare away evil spirits. Everyone also learned to wrap eight copper coins in red paper after the New Year's Eve dinner and give them to the children to put on their pillows. Sure enough, the evil spirit would never dare to harm the children again. It turns out that these eight copper coins were transformed by the Eight Immortals, which secretly helped children scare away evil spirits. Therefore, people called this money "money to suppress evil spirits." Because "祟" and "Sui" are homophonic, as time goes by, it is called "New Year's money".