In modern times, New Year's Day refers to the first day of the year (i.e. 65438+ 10/). Since the Gregorian calendar was introduced into China, the word New Year's Day has been dedicated to the New Year, and the traditional old calendar year is called the Spring Festival.
Before that, New Year's Day always refers to the first day of the Chinese New Year. Yuan means "early" and "beginning", but it means "day". New Year's Day is called "the first day" and is the first day of the year.
Second, the historical origin of New Year's Day
The word "New Year's Day" first appeared in the Book of Jin: "It is actually the spring of New Year's Day when the emperor was transferred to the first month." In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Xiao Ziyun wrote the poem "Jie Ya" in the Southern Dynasties: "Four Qi New Year's Day, long life at the beginning of this year." Record. Song Wu's "Liang Lumeng" Volume 1 "First Month" entry: "The first day of the first month is called New Year's Day, and the custom is called New Year's Day.
The first day of the first lunar month was first called "New Year's Day". "Yuan" means "early" and "start", and "Dan" means the time of dawn and also refers to a day. New Year's Day is called "Initial Day", that is, the first day of the year. The date of the first day of the first month was also very different before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, the New Year's Day of the past dynasties is not consistent. Meng Xiyue (1 month) is the first month of the Xia calendar, the twelfth month of the Shang lunar calendar (1February) and the winter month of the week calendar (1 1 month). After Qin Shihuang unified China, Yangchun month (October) was the first month, that is, the first day of October was New Year's Day. In the first year of Emperor Taizu of Han Dynasty, Sima Qian founded taichu calendar, which stipulated that Meng Xiyue (January) was the first month, and the first day of Meng Xiyue (the first day of the first month in the summer calendar) was called New Year's Day, which was used until the end of Qing Dynasty. But this is the summer calendar, that is, the lunar calendar or lunar calendar, and it is not what we call New Year's Day today.
19 1 1 year, the Revolution of 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the rule of the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China. In order to "follow the agricultural season and the western calendar for statistics", the first year of the Republic of China decided to use the western calendar (actually used as 19 12), and stipulated that the Gregorian calendar 1 was called "New Year's Day", but it was not called "New Year's Day".
1On September 27th, 949, the first plenary session of the China People's Political Consultative Conference decided that "the people of China and the national calendar should adopt the AD calendar method", which is what we call the solar calendar. In order to distinguish between the two New Years, and in view of the fact that the "beginning of spring" in the 24 solar terms of the lunar calendar is just around the Lunar New Year, the first day of the first lunar month is changed to "Spring Festival" and the solar calendar is January.