Lu Chenggui even lent a helping hand when his wife packed up for a visit to
her parents' house early on Thursday, the fifth day of the Chinese lunar New
Year.
His in-laws live only four kilometers away but it is not an ideal day for a
visit.
The early morning temperature has dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius. More
importantly, it is considered improper for a married woman to visit her parents
on the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, which would bring misfortune to her
husband's family, according to old rural customs prevailing especially in the
northern part of the country.
Twenty-seven years after she married Lu, Chen Guixiang decided she would
throw off the taboo that has bound her as well as the majority of the rural
population that makes up 80 percent of China's 1.3 billion people.
In China, a country with diverse traditions and faiths, there are many other
taboos to be observed during the Spring
Festival, the most festive time of the year. Firm believers of the customs
say if you strictly follow the rules, you'll have a prosperous new year.
"We do have many taboos: some are handed down generation upon generation and
others come from unknown sources," said Li Guiting,an elderly who has lived in
Beiwangzhuang village in north China's Hebei
Province for nearly 80 years.
For centuries, the villagers abide by all the ancient rules out of fear they
might bring bad luck to their families or friends, said Li.
As the custom goes, the villagers have to watch their tongues before the
holiday. When families gather to make dumplings for the lunar New Year, no one
is allowed to ask whether the flour or filling has been "used up" -- because it
can be easily associated with the exhaustion of fortune.
On the Chinese lunar New Year's Day, which fell on Jan. 29 thisyear, the
villagers all keep to a vegetarian diet and avoid sweeping the floor because it
is believed they will sweep out fortune along with dirt.
It is also an unauspicious sign to break a bowl or vase during the holiday
season. If one accidentally breaks one, he or she must immediately say
"sui-sui-ping-an," meaning "have peace all the year round" as the Chinese word
for "broken" is pronounced in the same way as the word for "year."
Even children have to observe strict rules such as never to play with needle
or thread or to have a haircut in the first month of the Chinese
lunar calendar. Needle and thread, the villagers believe, would bring snakes
to their house and a haircut would bring bad luck to their mothers' brothers.
Brave as she is to visit her parents on a forbidden day, Chen Guixiang still
worries she might be playing with fire. "My husband doesn't believe the nonsense
and insists I should go ahead," she told Xinhua in an interview.
And the couple are not the only ones to break the taboo.
"Spring Festival taboos are being phased out in the countryside," said Prof.
Chen Jing, a folklore specialist with Nanjing
University in east China's Jiangsu
Province.
The professor attributed to the changes to the development of modern
civilization in rural areas.
"We don't take all the old rules too seriously nowadays," said Zhang Zhicui,
a woman in Xiyuan village, northwest China's Gansu
Province. "Many families do a thorough cleaning on the New Year's Day to
welcome guests."
Taboos are expressions of the people's wishes for a better liferather than
codes of conduct, Zhang said. "Many people have come to realize the fact, so
taboos are less binding these days."
As more farmers are working and living in cities, the new lifestyles and
ideas they bring back to their home villages also help brainwash the locals,
said Prof. Chen.
"Besides, the popularity of television, the Internet and other modern
communication devices have also helped change the rural people's thinking," he
said.
Li Hongming, a farmer who works in Gansu's provincial capital Lanzhou, said
he values traditions and folklore but opposes to superstitious beliefs.
"I visited my in-laws on the lunar New Year's Day, though I was supposed to
do that only three days later. There's no sign it's doing anyone any harm," he
said with a laugh.
Editor: Joey
