Birthdays are an ancient tradition. China's earliest birthday can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty more than 3000 years ago. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, although there was no complete birthday celebration etiquette, it was very common to celebrate birthdays. According to legend, Sun Bin, a famous strategist in ancient China, gave her a peach on her 80th birthday. Since then, it has become a custom in China to give birthday peaches to the elderly.
By the Southern and Northern Dynasties, China had formed a complete set of birthday etiquette and customs. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was the peak of the development of birthday customs. According to historical records, the romantic emperor of the Tang Dynasty took his birthday as the "Shengshou Festival" and began to celebrate the birthday of Emperor China. Since then, all emperors have their own "Shoushou Festival".
With the continuous development of society, birthday gifts have become an important means of interpersonal communication. Dignitaries use birthday gifts to climb the dragon and attach importance to it, while ordinary people use birthday gifts to maintain human feelings. At the same time, people pay more and more attention to birthdays, such as one-year-old grasping the week, ten-year-old long tail, year of birth, fiftieth anniversary, sixty-year-old longevity, eighty-year-old longevity, men doing nine but not ten, women doing enough and not doing zero, centenarians celebrating their birthdays and so on. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China had formed a birthday etiquette culture with unique national characteristics and became an important part of China's splendid national culture.
In the middle of the 20th century, western birthday culture was introduced into China, and birthday cakes, candles, greeting cards and birthday parties became an indispensable part of China people's birthdays. The twelve constellations, birthday codes and the unique gift-giving methods of westerners have also injected fresh blood into the ancient birthday culture of China.
Throughout the development of birthdays, no matter how the historical situation changes and the world changes, the theme of happy birthday has never changed, and people's pursuit of happiness has always been the same. Today, having a birthday has become a way for China people to express their feelings, friendship and love. The connotation of birthday gifts is getting richer and richer, and the style of gifts is becoming more and more personalized, diversified and fashionable. All these have laid a solid foundation for the formation of an infinitely broad birthday market and provided a strong guarantee for the arrival of the birthday economy.
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Why eat sushi noodles?
After Tang succeeded to the throne, he gradually neglected his wife, the troubled queen. One day, Queen Wang said to Tang Huamin, "Saburo, have you forgotten that on your birthday, I took off my new purple vest and replaced it with a bucket of noodles to make soup cakes?" This story reflects that people in the Tang Dynasty ate "soup cakes" on their birthdays. Soup cake is also called "water introduction", that is, noodle soup, but the custom of eating noodle soup on birthday has a long history.
Later generations called it "Shoumian" because it is used for birthdays. Because noodles are the longest-lived food in China, eating noodles every day means prolonging life. You must eat noodles on your birthday. Noodles are required to be three feet long, and each bundle must be more than 100 pieces. They are rolled into a tower and covered with red and green carved paper. As a birthday present, you must give two copies to the birthday girl. Birthday is on the birthday box. Eating birthday noodles is the most important diet in life.