Images of Chairman Mao and communist soldiers were circulated and consumed during

the years of the Cultural Revolution in the place of door deities or other household

deities.167 I go on to ask Gong how the Lunar New Year activities have evolved since

those days, to which she gives a detailed account of both past and present practices:

Celebrating the Lunar New Year was much more fun in the past than it is today.

As soon as the eleventh lunar month arrived, we’d start curing meat, fish, and pig

heads and tails. We’d cure the fish so that there would be “plenitude year after

year” [􀭍􀭍􁂵􁃅] and we’d prepare pig heads and tails so that “what begins also

ends” [􁂵􀹨􁂵􀻁]. During the twelveth lunar month, we’d start all the preparations

166 Gong Jinlan, in discussion with the author in Mianzhu, Sichuan, June 2006.

167 See Stefan R. Landsberger, “The Deification of Mao: Religious Imagery and Practices during the

Cultural Revolution and Beyond,” in China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: Master Narratives

and Post-Mao Counternarratives, ed. Woei Lien Chong (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 139-184.

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in the home, including a full cleaning and the preparing of special foods. On the

eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, for the laba festival [􀦛􀏖􀢫], we had laba

congee to celebrate. Before, we used to make this by putting all sorts of

ingredients in a pot, but now the restaurants make them with eight standard

ingredients and people no longer go to the trouble of cooking it at home. But you

know such dishes always taste better when they are made in the home! Ah, I

really do miss those homemade dishes! [Sighs and rubs her stomach.]168

In mentioning specific recipes, it is possible to see direct parallels between the renewal of

nianhua and the preparation of auspicious dishes. For instance, the preparation of certain

foods is tied to the sounds of their names, which bear homophonic connections to

auspicious phrases, such as the cooking of fish (yu 􁃈) to signal plentitude (yu 􁃅) or the

phrase “plentitude year after year” (niannian youyu 􀭍􀭍􁂵􁃅). At a time when the home

becomes a ritually charged space for the renewal of family ties, these activities work

together to activate auspicious speech. Gong goes on to elaborate on the many traditional

recipes that would be painstakingly prepared at this time of year, including meat stuffed

tofu cakes, steamed red buns, sweet yams, fish, chestnuts, popcorn, and other flavored

sweets. She then goes on to discuss the particular timed renewal of images in the home,

including the stove deity image that would be replaced on the twenty-third day:

After the laba banquets, it was time for people to start heading home and we

would plan for visits to the ancestral burial sites. Before the twenty-third of the

twelveth lunar month, we would have to go to the ancestral graves to burn money,

candles, incense, and paper goods. By this time, all the hired help in the house had

to leave so that there would be no outsiders in the home. We’d also make

offerings to the stove deity on the twenty-third and put up his new picture next to

our wood stove. Then all the children would get so excited because we would get

168 Gong Jinlan, in discussion with the author in Mianzhu, Sichuan, June 2006.

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to eat stove deity candy made of ginger, dough, and all sorts of flavors. On the

last day of the year, we would have our big New Year’s Eve dinner and early the

next day there was a race to the temple to see who could light the first incense of

the year, which was considered most auspicious. Today people don’t go there

themselves to the light the incense, but they’ll hire somebody to do it for them!

Can you imagine this? [Throws her hands in the air as if in exasperation.]169

In yet another parallel between food and nianhua display, the renewal of the stove deity

image coincides with the preparation of stove deity candy, which is sometimes smeared

onto the stove deity’s mouth so that the deity provides a positive report on the family’s

affairs when he makes his annual journey to the divine realms. When I ask her to discuss

the ritual display of any other images in the home, she replies:

We used to always hang up door deities and spring couplets. When I was a child,

these were simple mimeographs, the kind made on red paper. There were no shiny

prints back then, those only came later. We also had double-leaf doors back then,

instead of the single-leaf ones in our apartment today. We’d place the door deities

facing eachother and my grandfather wrote the spring couplets. By the first day of

the New Year, the entire house had to be ready with new images. Inside the

house, we had handprinted works of people, flowers, and other auspicious images.

We had an altar [􀴪􀷻] set up in the living room [􀸖􀻬] so that you would be

facing the ancestors as soon as you opened the doors to the room. We put the

names of the ancestors there with couplets on either side, and an incense burner in

the middle surrounded by offerings such as food, liquor, flowers, and the back end

of a roasted pig.170

Gong Jinlan’s description here captures the full transformation of the home into a ritual

space for ancestral worship before the Lunar New Year. The renewal of the exterior

169 Ibid.

170 Ibid.

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doorway with door deities and spring couplets coincides with the renewal of the indoor

altar, which also bears couplets on either side. When I ask her whether her family has

continued to display such images over the years, she explained the major shifts in how

the Lunar New Year is celebrated:

Today we are in apartments with single-leaf doors and we just put up a single

fudao [􀚞􀖚] image or nothing at all. 171 We buy them in the bookstores where

they sell really nice ones. These cost more and you can’t find them in the street

markets, which only sell the crude ones. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution,

Mianzhu has been growing really fast, with paved roads in places were there were

only dirt roads. Now people go to eat in restaurants and play mahjong all day.

There are TVs and computers everywhere you go and little communication

between the generations in one family. Before, the kids would perform songs and

dances for the elders to get some more New Year’s cash out of them. The elders

would also tell stories around the pictures in the home. My grandma couldn’t

read, but she had lots of stories to tell and she liked to perform a fan dance for the

kids. There’s no longer that kind of interaction between the generations. Even

nianhua is commercialized and made for art collectors.172

Gong’s detailed account sheds light on the significant role these year-end ritual

practices play in shaping family relationships and in maintaining the ties between the

younger and older generations. It also situates the annual renewal of nianhua within a

broader repertoire of ritual activities tied to renewal, including cooking, feasting,

cleaning, reuniting with ancestors, playing games, and sharing stories. In performing

these various activities, participating family members and friends strengthen their

existing social bonds and create new ones. They also renew the bonds between the living

171 The fudao image is the written character for “prosperity” (fu􀚞) displayed upside down on a doorway,

window, or wall. Since the character for “upside down” (dao􀖚) is a homophone for “arrive” (dao􀖞), this

method of display serves as a rebus image for the phrase “prosperity arrives” (fudao 􀚞􀖞).

172 Ibid.

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and the deceased and between the worldly and the divine. It should also be added here

that these activities take place in the realm of the marketplace as well, where company

bosses are often expected to host banquets for their employees while all debts are

collected and squared. It is thus possible to see how “pursuing the auspicious, repelling

the portentous” is a concept that comes into play across a wide range of ritual practices

tied to renewal, regeneration, and reunion in all facets of life. As an open-ended concept,

it encompasses a vast range of associations both secular and divine. When asked, “What

does ‘auspicious’ [􀠝􀽖] mean?” Gong Jinlan enthusiastically replied, “All things

good!”173

In selecting these particular excerpts from the interview, I am also highlighting

the changing nature of these activities, which inevitably respond to shifting trends in

fashion, technology, and the architectural configurations of the family’s lived space, such

as the simplified modes of nianhua display on single-leaf apartment doors. Gong gives

many examples of how the festival practices are changing, including the increasing

number of people who eat in restaurants or who hire people to burn incense for them at

the temple. She also points to how TVs and computers are replacing direct forms of

human communication, producing a divide between the younger and older generations.

Later in the discussion, Gong mentions a recent survey that reported seventy percent of

Chinese families watch the Spring Festival Gala broadcast on the official CCTV

networks across the nation. The gala is a variety performance not unlike the Lunar New

Year street parades that are held on the first day of the New Year, although the gala shifts

the spectacle experienced indoors and to the eve of the Lunar New Year, from about 8:00

173 Ibid.

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pm to 1:00 am. For Gong, these changes have taken away from the intimacy and joy of

the festival, which was “much more fun in the past.”174

Interestingly, this nostalgic sentiment repeatedly shows up in the scholarly

literature on nianhua, including a recent essay by art historian Bo Songnian, who laments

the commercialization of the nianhua industry and the decline in traditional rituals tied to

the Lunar New Year.175 However it should be kept in mind that these are often urban

perspectives that are not necessarily shared by those living in rural areas. During my

research trips, rural residents or those who still return from the cities to their rural homes

for the Lunar New Year often spoke with great enthusiasm over the elaborate festivities

and homemade meals that were still carried out at home. For instance, one male rural

resident argued that the traditional Lunar New Year rituals were not dying out at all but

actually growing and expanding due to the greater wealth in his village:

We display many new images around the home nowadays, as there is so much