The Kitchen God Legends And Folk Customs

YANG JIA BU village is located some 20 miles northeast of WENGFANG City, Shandong Province. It has been famous at home and abroad for its abundant woodcut New Year pictures from ancient times to the present. The history of new year pictures of YANG JIA BU can be traced back for a long time, YANG JIA BU Woodprint New Year pictures represent one of the most three famous styles of Chinese New Year pictures, which have been popular among the Chinese people for over 400 years for the unaffected portraits, auspicious implications, festive colors and a local flavor. YANG JIA BU pictures have produced wild influence to the development of civil year pictures to many other places, such as Jiangsu, Anhui, HEBEI provinces and northeast."YANG JIA BU first, Then have the Kitchen God."This folk saying has spread around in YANG JIA BU for many years. As the famous place of making New Year pictures, the Kitchen God picture in YANG JIA BU has rich contents and diversified styles. People buy different kinds of the Kitchen God New year pictures, and the wild distribution of the Kitchen God New year pictures has their varied styles due to different natural conditions and customs. There are three kinds of the folklore of the Kitchen God in China. The investigation in the traditional Kitchen God New Year pictures can prove this.During my visit to YANG JIA BU Village, I was deeply impressed by the people fanatical passion for their New Year picture. They love pictures and enjoy the pleasure from New Year pictures and those pictures play an important role in their lives. With the pictures we may find three types of folk legend, namely,"Zhanglang devoicing wife","Beating the Kitchen God"and"Seeing the Kitchen God off", plus some other folk customs. This paper discusses the historical development, types of related folk legends and customs around the Woodprint New Year Picture and tries to reveal some deep meanings beneath them.This article split into five Chapters altogether in order to introduce the Kitchen God in the folklore. Chapter one analyzed the Kitchen God origin, Chapter two analyzed YANG JIA BU Woodprint New Year pictures origin, Chapter three analyzed, Chapter four analyzed YANG JIA BU the Kitchen God Woodprint New Year pictures in the folklore.