The first morning of the year
In the Song Dynasty, which ruled China from 960 to 1279, Chinese New Year unfolded over weeks rather than days. The festive mood began to gather around the Winter Solstice and extended past the Lantern Festival, forming a season that could stretch nearly two months. Yet amid this prolonged celebration, the first day of the new year stood apart.
Earlier generations called it “Kaizheng” or “Xinzheng.” In the Song period it was known as “Yuandan.” Whatever the name, it marked a ceremonial threshold. It was the day when households reset their fortunes and the state reaffirmed cosmic order.
Many customs would appear familiar. At dawn, families rose early, put on new garments, and stepped out to pay New Year visits. Greetings were exchanged. Gifts were presented. Elders handed children lucky money, offering wishes for safety and growth in the year ahead.
Outside, cities stirred with organized noise. Drum and wind ensembles advanced through neighborhoods. Acrobats and puppet troupes set up along main thoroughfares. Gongs sounded, firecrackers snapped in rapid succession, and the urban landscape seemed to vibrate with shared anticipation.
Yet beneath this recognizably festive surface lay practices that would strike modern observers as unexpected.
Success
You are now signed up for our newsletter
Success
Check your email to complete sign up
When ghosts knocked at the door
Song-era accounts, including the notebook Mengliang Lu, describe a scene on the morning of the first day that was at once comic and unsettling. Groups of impoverished residents gathered in threes and fives, donning masks and costumes to resemble underworld judges, the demon-quelling figure Zhong Kui, or small ghosts. With painted faces, protruding fangs, and clashing percussion, they moved from door to door requesting money.
The practice was known as “da ye hu” or “da ye he.” Originally a term for itinerant performers who staged street shows, it came to include this form of performance-based begging.
These figures did not simply extend their hands. Some executed somersaults. Others played the huqin, a traditional bowed instrument, or sang lianhualuo, a rhythmic storytelling form. Many relied on shock value, rushing forward as doors opened, their masks filling the doorway in exaggerated grimace.
On an ordinary day, such behavior might have provoked annoyance. On New Year’s morning, it carried symbolic weight. The beginning of the year was a moment of vulnerability and possibility. To give a few coins to these embodied “ghosts” and send them away was to enact, in miniature, the expulsion of misfortune. What appeared as street theater functioned as ritual purification.
The deeper logic of Nuo
This custom drew on a much older tradition known as “Nuo,” a ritual system dedicated to driving out malevolent forces. Participants assumed the forms of spirits and demons in order to confront and banish them. Through representation, danger was made visible. Through choreography, it was expelled.
In the Song Dynasty, this logic operated at multiple levels of society. The masked beggars on residential streets represented a vernacular continuation of Nuo practice. Within the imperial palace, the same cosmological principle took on grander proportions.
On New Year’s Eve, the court staged what sources describe as a “Grand Nuo Exorcism” ceremony. Soldiers from the Imperial City Office and performers from the Jiaofang Office wore elaborate masks and colorful robes painted with dragon and phoenix motifs. They carried golden spears, silver halberds, flags, and swords, assuming the roles of divine generals, judges, Zhong Kui, Liuding Liujia, and other protective deities.
Accompanied by drums and formal music, the procession formed inside the palace before moving outward through the city. Beyond the urban boundary, a ritual known as the “burying of misfortune” symbolically dispatched calamity and inauspicious forces outside the walls. The ceremony was at once solemn and visually arresting. It affirmed the court’s role not only as political authority but as guardian of cosmic balance at the year’s turning.
Continuity beneath change
Placed alongside contemporary Chinese New Year celebrations, the structural continuity becomes evident. Families still gather on New Year’s Eve, counting down to midnight. Greetings circulate in person and through digital networks. Red envelopes remain central, though many now arrive as electronic transfers. Lanterns illuminate shopping streets. In some cities, drone formations write celebratory messages across the night sky.
Dragon and lion dances persist, sometimes integrated with modern lighting technology. Children hear both the echo of firecrackers and the alert tone of incoming digital gifts. Video calls supplement physical visits, enabling what is often described as a “cloud reunion.”
Technology has altered the medium, not the intention. The desire to secure good fortune, dispel lingering misfortune, and begin the year in harmony remains constant.
In the Song Dynasty, the act of opening one’s door on the first morning carried similar resonance. A few copper coins cast toward masked figures stood in for a larger hope. Within the palace, divine protectors marched to the rhythm of drums, escorting unseen dangers beyond the city’s threshold. These gestures were not theatrical embellishments but embedded features of social and spiritual life.
From street-level “da ye hu” to imperial exorcism ceremonies, from ancient Nuo rites to digital red envelopes, the turning of the year has long been framed as a passage requiring both celebration and protection. Across a millennium of transformation, Chinese New Year has preserved this dual character: exuberant in sound and color, yet anchored in a serious concern with order, renewal, and the management of fate.
By Xiao Guang
