小年 the Little New Year课件-2024届高三英语一轮复习

Traditional Chinese “Little New Year ”festival =the Festival of the Kitchen God 1. Offering sacrifices to the Kitchen God 祭祀灶神 In one of the most distinctive traditions of Spring Festival, a paper image of the Kitchen God is burnt on Little New Year, dispatching（派遣） the god's spirit（神的灵） to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year.（烧掉旧的灶王像，送灶王上天） Little New Year, which falls about a week before the lunar New Year, is also known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, the deity（神） who oversees the moral character of each household. The Kitchen God is then weled back by pasting a new paper image of him beside the stove. From this vantage point（从这个有利位置）, the Kitchen God will oversee and protect the household for another year. The close association of the Kitchen God with the Lunar New Year has resulted in Kitchen God Festival being called Little New Year. Although very few families still make offerings to the Kitchen God on this day, many traditional holiday activities are still very popular. Studies of popular Chinese religion indicate that the Kitchen God did not appear until after the invention of the brick cooking stove. The cooking stove was a fairly late development in the history of human civilization. Ancient writings indicate that the Fire God, the earliest form of the Kitchen God, was worshipped long before the stove was invented. Zhu Rong, China's ancient Fire God was a popular folk deity and had many temples built in his honor. Stone lined firepits, an early form of the brick stove, are still commonly used among China's ethnic minorities. People in these regions make offerings to the Firepit God. The Firepit God appeared between the Kitchen God and the Fire God in the history of Chinese folk deities. The Kitchen God appeared soon after the invention of the brick stove. The Kitchen God was originally believed to reside in the stove, and only later took on human form. The offerings to the Kitchen God are sweets of