＋ luluxjg2 或者工号 璐璐的英文小酒馆索取【用英语说中国】系列精美文稿啦
Hi everyone, and welcome back China Story, 欢迎回来【用英语说中国】, it has been a while.
Today is the Little New Year in Chinese culture.
今天是小年了, 确切说是北方的小年, 南方应该会晚一天.
The major celebration of the Chinese New Year is just around the corner and I bet many of you are taking stock of the year we just had and getting ready to ring in the new one. And may I just say: What a year!

相信经历了诸多起伏诸事不顺的2022年，大家都迫不及待想要翻篇儿了吧。过去的三年可以说关键词就只有一个: The COVID-19 pandemic，新冠疫情。

那么今天，趁着小年，咱们就来聊聊中国文化里的：瘟神。

瘟神usually translated into God of Plague or God of Pestilence, is a god or group of gods responsible for illness, plague, and disease in Chinese folk religion.

瘟神或者叫疫病神, 是中国乃至东亚民间信仰中的瘟疫之神。

In some belief systems, 瘟神(Wen Shen) is identified as a single entity who commands wen spirits; in others, the term is used for a grouping of several distinct gods.

各地信仰的瘟神其实并不一致, 可以是一位也可以是几位神的组合.
In the olden times, when medical knowledge was not yet as advanced as today, people believed that plagues were caused by evil spirits.

In order to ward off these epidemic spirits, protection gods were worshipped that were thought to dispel the plague.


瘟疫其实就是急***病, 在古代民智未开医, 疗条件比较低劣的情况下, 大家对于这种可怕的疾病恐惧至极, 甚至很多的时候认为是鬼神作祟, 因此也会祈求神灵保护.
And this could be found in many different cultures.
Now we call them God or Gods of Plague or Pestilence, but initially, there weren’t gods at all. In fact, there were more considered evil spirits. Three to be more precise.