Reunion and Regeneration: Nianhua and the Lunar New Year

Having examined the changing modes of nianhua activity in the home and

market, I will now situate nianhua within a broader repertoire of ritual practices tied to

the Lunar New Year. The timed renewal of nianhua on household doorways can only be

appreciated when it is connected to the many rites of renewal carried out during the

“turning the year” or what anthropologist Stephan Feuchtwang calls “the annual

apocalypse.” In his study of Chinese popular religion, Feuchtwang has argued that

despite the presence of orthodox discourses expounding a well-ordered cosmic hierarchy,

the Lunar New Year festival often betrays “another demonic cosmos of great destructive

powers and the capacity to withhold or command them.”160 Thus what is celebrated is not

a “benign imperial cosmos” but the family and community’s survival during the

apocalyptic death of the old year and the precarious birth of the new year.161 According to

Feuchtwang, the completion of this passage is thus a powerful manifestation of renewal

and reunion that most Chinese families cherish: “The eve is a return home and a

completion of the family household. At the very least a member of a Chinese family

would feel absence from it. Many would regret their absence poignantly.”162

Building on this, anthropologist Charles Stafford’s study of contemporary

Chinese Lunar New Year activities divides the festival’s ritual activities into that which

happens in the days leading up to the Lunar New Year and that which occurs

immediately afterwards. Prior to the turning of the year, a range of rituals are held for

dealing with the movements of spirits, including “1) the ‘sending off’ of gods 2) the

160 Feuchtwang, Popular Religion, 55.

161 Ibid.

162 Ibid., 25.

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‘greeting’ of ancestors 3) the ‘sending off’ of ancestors 4) the ‘greeting’ of gods.”163 At

the moment of the Lunar New Year’s arrival, in conjunction with the ancestral greeting,

“then for many days following, a series of reunions are held between various categories

of living persons, including family members, friends, and colleagues.”164 Stafford argues

that these activities underscore the preoccupation with renewal and reunion during a

“crucial calendricalal juncture,” when “one encounters a fleeting solution to the

separation constraint: a suspended moment during which work is halted, divisions and

death overcome, the pace of visits intensified, and meals and games prolonged as if

people could produce, through sheer collective will, a state of permanent, celebratory

reunion.”165

In Mianzhu, I observed a less structured approach to celebrating the Lunar New

Year, where these elements were still present in varying degrees or not at all, depending

on the family or individual. For instance, the string of reunion meals with friends and

family would begin well before the Lunar New Year and continue for weeks afterwards.

To give a sense of the changing practices tied to the turning of the year and the role of

nianhua within them, I include here additional excerpts from the interview session with

Gong Jinlan 􀜇􀣁􀦧, a woman in her mid-fifties who grew up in rural Mianzhu as a child

before moving to the town center as a young adult. I met Gong through my parents who

have many friends and relatives in Sichuan, so there was an immediate sense of

familiarity and intimacy when we met for tea in her urban apartment. When I asked

about her earliest memories of the Lunar New Year, she recounts how the usual Lunar

163 Charles Stafford, Separation and Reunion in Modern China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2000), 31.

164 Ibid., 31.

165 Ibid.

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New Year activities continued to take place during the Cultural Revolution, when she

was a young girl:

Life here did not seem to be affected much by the Cultural Revolution. I don’t

remember ever seeing any Red Guards or anybody getting in trouble for

celebrating the Lunar New Year. During the Cultural Revolution, you could still

buy simple mimeographed prints [􁂲􁂆] in the rural open-air markets. These were

made on red paper with auspicious words and door deity images [Gestures the

shapes of the small squares with her fingers.] We continued all our Lunar New

Year activities, but they just weren’t as showy and loud as before…166

This account is significant because the prevailing view of the nianhua industry is that it

ceased to exist during the Cultural Revolution, when works were officially confiscated,

destroyed, and banned. However, Gong’s account serves as a reminder that these policies

were not uniformly enforced in all areas, especially in rural areas less affected by national

political movements. Furthermore, researchers have also documented instances where