Off-year is a day for people to sacrifice their stoves. Because people in China basically eat rice, cooked food is generally difficult to preserve and must be cooked at any time. Unlike western bread, you can bake a lot at a time and keep it for eating. Therefore, for China people, "firewood" (fuel) is the first of the "seven things" in life (rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar tea). Without fuel, even with basic food, you can't eat it. Therefore, every family in China should have a stove.

Step 2 clean the dust

Sweeping the dust means sweeping the new year, which is actually cleaning up the family environment. Northerners call it "sweeping the house"; Southerners call it "dust removal". Traditionally, every household gets up at dawn on this day, cleaning houses and windows, washing clothes, scrubbing pots and pans, and carrying out thorough sanitation cleaning. According to the records in the Notes on Collection and Interpretation, this custom can be traced back to more than 3,000 years ago, when it was a religious ceremony to drive away epidemic ghosts and pray for well-being. After "dust" and "Chen" are homophonic, so sweeping dust means sweeping away old things, which means both the old dirt in the courtyard and the unhappiness encountered in the old year.

Step 3 cut the window grilles

In all the preparatory work, window cutting and stick grilles are the most popular folk activities. There are also various animal and plant stories, such as the magpie climbing plum blossoms, the swallow wearing peach willows, the peacock beating peony, the lion rolling hydrangea, the three sheep opening Thailand, the two dragons playing with pearls, the deer and the crane (in the same spring), the five bats (crouching) holding their longevity, the rhinoceros looking at the moon, the lotus (lotus) carrying fish (the rest), the Yuanyang playing in the water, and the bangs playing with golden cicadas.