The Chinese household god, Zao Jun, is honored with offerings during Chinese New Year. He reports on family deeds to the Jade Emperor and is sweetened with offerings of honey and sticky sweets. Some families have effigies, paintings, or plaques of him, and offerings are made on his birthday. Legends suggest that Zao Jun may have been a real person.
The kitchen god, or Zao Jun, is one of a pantheon of Chinese household gods. Many Chinese have an effigy of Zao Jun in their kitchens, and Chinese New Year celebrations typically include offerings to him. While Zao Jun hails from the Taoist tradition, Buddhists, atheists, and others in China often keep an effigy of the kitchen god around and may make offerings to him during Chinese New Year celebrations to keep him happy.
According to legend, on the 23rd day of the 12th month, one week before the Lunar New Year, the god of cooking goes to heaven and reports the family’s deeds to the Jade Emperor, the main deity of Taoism. If family members have behaved badly in the past year, the Kitchen God will not hesitate to tell and also report on the good deeds.
To sweeten the Kitchen God for his journey to heaven, family members make him numerous offerings, including offerings of honey and sticky sweets. Sweet foods are supposed to sweeten Zao Jun’s words, while sticky cakes bind his lips shut, so that he can’t report on the family. When it’s time for the Kitchen God to go to heaven, family members burn the effigy and set off firecrackers to speed him on his way, before scouring the altar, which will be set up again on Chinese New Year.
Throughout the year, people may make periodic offerings of food and incense to the Kitchen God, with the aim of keeping him in good spirits. Some families may have paintings, statues or plaques of Zao Jun, which are cleaned rather than burned when he travels to see the Jade Emperor. Offerings are always made on his birthday, which falls on the third day of the eighth lunar month.
Numerous cultures have some sort of tradition of worshiping hearth and kitchen gods. Chinese reverence for Zao Jun dates back to at least the 2nd century BC, and may be even older. Several Chinese legends also suggest that Zao Jun was a real person, although legends differ as to who he was and how he was elevated to godhood. Some of these legends give Zao Jun a wife and in some families an effigy of him may be accompanied by a picture of his wife.
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