Dreamers Side

Long time ago, lived a monster called nian (年) (*1). That monster was single horned, big eyed and sharp nailed. It lived in the sea, and stay hibernated for whole year. But every spring it will awaken and hunts for foods. It’s favorite food was human’s flesh. Not only hunting human, the monster also destroying the fields and crops.

Because of that monster whose hunt for human flesh every spring, so the villager always moved to the highland to take a shelter when the spring was coming. The villager prepared alot of food supply(*2). Because they never know what might happen tomorrow so they must finished their debt to each others(*3) before taking a shelter. The children will take a watch while their parents asleep (*4). They were also required to gather (*5) in the family so they can take care of each others.

The situation continued for a long time, until another spring. A beggar (*6) came passing the village to ask for food, he found that the village was empty. He walked along the village to find anyone to explain the cause of the disappearance of the villagers. Finally he met a grandmother and asked her. The grandmother gave him some foods and explains that it was due to the monster called nian. So he curiosly asked again why she stayed behind? She answered that her son and her grandson had been eaten by the monster and she is to old to moved to the highland so she intended to fight the monster as hard as she can.
The beggar began to pity the grandmother, so he taught her how to fought back. He explains that the monster actually afraid of three things : a bigger and scrarier creature (*7), a loud voices (*8) and redish color (*9). So He asked her to prepare a large cloth to make a bigger creature and painted the house in red also wore a red clothing, and he collect bamboo to make lousy noises.
After awhile, the monster nian appeared. The beggar quicke wore the cloth that already made into a big creature and asked the grandmother to burn the bamboo and beat whatever to produce lousy noices. With such a welcoming the monster was so scared and fly back to the heaven and never came back again.

With those victory, the villager celebrate it every years as a feast day. The feast was done with imitating what had been done by the beggar and the grandmother, as precautions to the returning of the monster nian. The villager visit their family to congratulate them because of freeing from the monster nian. As the return every family will provide food, beverage and cake for their guest, they also prepared candies and red paper (*10) for the children.

*1 : the word “nian” indicates a passing year.
*2 : as tradition, people always fill their barrels with rice and others food supply.
*3 : as tradition people pay their debt before sincia (faded over time)
*4 : shou yue (守夜), stay awake by playing mahjong etc.
*5 : tuan yuan (团圆), gather with family.
*6 : the beggar believed as incarnation of God.
*7 : the origin of barongsai (舞狮) and dragon dance (舞龙)
*8 : the origin of firecrackers and drums.
*9 : favorite color of sincia, poems at the door (对联)
*10 : angpao (红包)