The Household God of the Hearth Who Reports to Heaven in Chinese Popular Faith
The Kitchen God is the household deity of Chinese popular faith who governs a family’s cooking and hearth and watches over its good and evil; tradition holds that on the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month he "ascends to report," giving the Jade Emperor an account of the family’s year of words and deeds. Hence the custom of offering sticky sweets before the Kitchen God’s image and smearing them on his mouth — meaning "sweet words" or "sealing his lips" — so that he will say more good and less ill in heaven, a custom that vividly embodies the worldly, "bargaining with the gods" character of Chinese popular faith.
New Year prints of the Kitchen God commonly bear the couplet "speak well above in heaven, keep us safe below on earth," expressing the plain hope that the Kitchen God will put in good words and hold back the family’s faults before the Jade Emperor; the rites of "seeing off the stove" on the 23rd of the twelfth month and "welcoming the stove" on New Year’s Eve survive in the New Year customs of some regions to this day.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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