The origin of lucky money

 

The origin of lucky money

 

New Year's money (called "Bilishi" in Guangdong) is one of the customs of the Spring Festival. New Year's money is distributed by the elders to the younger ones. After the New Year's Eve dinner, the elders should 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, and the younger ones can spend one year in peace after receiving the New Year's money. In some families, parents send money to the younger generation at night. After your children are asleep, place them under their pillows. Giving lucky money during the New Year reflects the concern and sincere blessings of the elders for the younger ones. In folk culture, New Year's money means warding off evil spirits and exorcising ghosts, and bless peace. The original purpose of New Year's money was to suppress evil spirits and drive away evil spirits. Because people thought that children were vulnerable to evil spirits, they used New Year's money to ward off evil spirits.

During the Chinese New Year, it is indispensable to give out lucky money. There are many folk legends about New Year's money.

It turns out that the three corpse gods have been doing evil to the people, and they were all discovered by Zao Ye and Zao Nai. The three corpse gods instigated the ferocious Nian beast to harm the people, but were defeated by the tiger tiger. The Three Corpse Gods came up with another poisonous trick. They gathered all kinds of imps to harass every house.

These little ghosts look very scary, with ferocious faces, black bodies and white hands. People call these little ghosts "sneaky", which is what people often call "sneaky".

Under the conspiracy and planning of the Three Corpse Gods, Sneaky sneaks into people's homes every New Year's Eve, specifically to scare children.

Sneaky always touches the forehead of children secretly. As long as the child is touched by Sneaky, he will have a high fever. After a few days, the fever will subside, and the child will become dull.

People are afraid that their children will be harmed by sneakers, so they don't dare to sleep on New Year's Eve and always guard their children personally. In folk custom, this is called "keeping sneakers".

Legend has it that at that time, there was a family with the surname Guan in Jiaxing Prefecture. They had children when they were old and cherished them very much. On the night of New Year's Eve, the old man kept playing with his children with copper coins. It took a long time, and it was late at night. While playing, the two of them fell asleep as soon as they stopped studying. As a result, the eight copper coins wrapped in red paper were scattered beside the pillow.

In the middle of the night, Sneaky sneaked into the house and was about to kill the child. Suddenly, a golden light came from the pillow. Sneaky screamed and ran away in fright.

As soon as this incident spread, everyone distributed New Year's money to their children on New Year's Eve. The money was wrapped in red envelopes and placed on their pillows. Sure enough, Guiyou didn't dare to go against the child again.

In the Song Dynasty of China, one copper coin was equivalent to one yuan. During the Chinese New Year, people gave their children new year's money, which was just a few small hemp coins. The small hemp coins were smaller than the one-yuan copper coins. There was a square hole in the middle that could be threaded with a string. . Rich people. Just give the child ten or a hundred small hemp coins, which means longevity. The coins are engraved with auspicious sayings such as "Long live forever" and "eliminate disasters and evils", and the reverse side also has auspicious patterns such as dragons and phoenixes, turtles, snakes, and Pisces. Therefore, giving out new year's money has become a symbol of seeking good luck, and it has been passed down to this day.

At that time, people called the red envelope money "lucky money" because the pronunciation of "祟" is the same as "year". Later, people changed the name of "lucky money" to "lucky money".