1) Changes in material life and social customs since modern times Since the Opium War, profound changes have taken place in China society: the self-sufficient natural economy began to disintegrate, and Chinese national capitalism emerged and developed, showing a trend of industrialization; Politically, the ideas of constitutional monarchy, civil rights and equality of western capitalism were introduced and there was a trend of democratization; Ideological and cultural opposition to traditional Confucianism, advocating learning from the West, there has been a trend of scientific democracy. After the founding of New China, we are marching towards modernization, material civilization, spiritual civilization and political civilization step by step. With these changes, great changes have taken place in the social life of modern China. (1) Clothing: People's clothing basically reflects the economic outlook and modernization of a country or region. Before the Revolution of 1911, many people with lofty ideals took the lead in cutting off the braid symbolizing the Qing Dynasty and expressed their determination to oppose feudal autocracy. After the Revolution of 1911, the Nanjing Provisional Government issued a braid-cutting order, and in a few years, most men in the country cut off their braids. The change in clothing is the appearance of tunic suit and cheongsam; At the same time, the bad habit of foot-binding that harmed women's physical and mental health was abolished. For a long time before the reform and opening up in new China, people wore the same gray tunic suit or blue liberation suit, which was described as "blue (gray) ocean". At that time, people had to buy clothes by cloth tickets. After the reform and opening up, with the development of economy, clothing styles are gradually diversified. Men's suits and jackets are the main styles, and women's styles are more. Jeans are the favorite styles of boys and girls, and they are the most popular. Fashion shows showing novel styles will continue one after another, and the ever-changing fashion is dizzying. (2) Food: Eating habits have a strong national inheritance, and are also greatly influenced and restricted by the natural environment and production methods. For example, rice is the staple food in southern rice-growing agricultural areas, while oats and millet are the staple food in northern dry farming areas. During the Republic of China, there were new changes in the diet structure. In some coastal cities, western food has gradually become a fashionable delicacy. Cigarettes from abroad have largely crowded out China's tobacco and hookah. These phenomena have changed the traditional food industry in China. But in the vast rural areas, poor farmers still eat chaff and swallow vegetables, and there is no market for western food at all. From the late 1951s to the 1961s, the state implemented a food ration for urban residents. With the development of economy, especially since the reform and opening up, the diet structure of most people is changing. Mainly due to the diversification of diet, the proportion of staple food has gradually decreased, and the proportion of non-staple food and fruit has gradually increased. The content of staple food is also changing. flour and rice, such as rice and flour, is the staple food, and the number of people who eat corn flour and sorghum flour is gradually decreasing. Meat food, all kinds of fresh aquatic products, fresh vegetables and drinks can be bought everywhere. (3) Housing: In terms of housing construction, there were still a large number of old-fashioned houses in cities and thatched houses in rural areas during the Republic of China. In coastal cities, some wealthy businessmen and bureaucrats built "foreign houses". There are electric lights and running water in urban houses, which makes life convenient for the general public. Since the founding of New China, especially since the 1981s, the housing of residents has been continuously improved. Not only the per capita living area has expanded, but also the interior decoration and living environment have been significantly improved. (4) OK: The traffic during the Republic of China was improved to some extent. Sedan chairs and carriages are gradually decreasing, and rickshaws and bicycles have become common means of transportation. There are asphalt roads, buses and trams in the city. Road and railway traffic has also developed. After the founding of New China, the traffic has changed a lot. Many new railways have been built. In addition to buses and trams, there are taxis in urban transportation. A few big cities have begun to own subways. Bicycles are the main means of personal transportation for urban and rural people, so China is called "Bicycle Kingdom". Civil aviation has developed rapidly after the reform and opening up, and now all citizens can fly. Making use of holiday tourism is a great change in the life content of many people in China since the 1981s. People have gradually broken the closed living environment in the past, leaving their families, their hometowns and counties and traveling abroad. (2) Development of modern transportation and communication Transportation: (1) At the end of 2119, great powers competed to build railways in China. For example, Russia, Germany, Britain and France built Middle East Railway, Jiaoji Railway, Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway and Yunnan-Vietnam Railway respectively. The great powers gained high profits by building roads, controlling large areas of land and resources along the railway and transporting troops. Wherever the railways controlled by the great powers extend, their power extends there. (2) The first railway built by China people themselves was the Jing-Zhang Railway built by Zhan Tianyou. (3) The traffic developed in the Republic of China. (4) After the founding of New China, the people's government reformed the old railways, rebuilt many new railways and highways, and formed a brand-new network transportation pattern. For example, in the 1951s, more than 31 railways such as Baocheng and Yingxia were built, Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was built, and Kangzang, Qinghai-Tibet and Xinzang highways were built. From 1957 to 1966, the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway was completed; From 1966 to 1976, chengdu-kunming railway, Hunan-Guizhou Railway and Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge were completed. Since the reform and opening up, Daqin Railway and Beijing-Kowloon Railway have been newly built. The Ningxi Railway and Qinghai-Tibet Railway under construction are important measures to support the development of the western region. (5) In the early days of the founding of New China, the development of civil aviation was very slow. After the reform and opening up, the restrictions on flying have been gradually relaxed, and more and more people travel by air. There are dozens of airlines now, and the number of routes and flights is still increasing. At present, there are air routes in big cities and some medium-sized cities all over the country, and there are direct air routes between big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai and many countries.

Communication: Modern communication was influenced by the second scientific and technological revolution. In the late Qing Dynasty, it was introduced to China. During the Republic of China, postal services, telegrams and telephones, which were only used by the government, developed to a certain extent and gradually became the main way for people to communicate with each other. In 1951s and 1961s, communication mainly refers to the delivery of letters. Now, in addition to the traditional ordinary mail, registered mail and airmail, express mail and express mail items have been added. Since the 1991s, people began to use fax machines or networked computers to exchange emails with relatives and friends thousands of miles away. Telephones have basically spread to towns and villages, and more and more people use pagers and mobile phones. Since modern times, mass media such as newspapers, movies, radio and computer network technology have gradually become popular, which have further enriched people's spiritual and cultural life. For example, digitalization characterized by the Internet is changing the world. 1. The main factors that affect the changes of material life and social customs include: the changes of economic system and the improvement of economic development level; Changes in the political system; The influence of scientific and technological revolution on people's material life and spiritual life; The role of ideological enlightenment and so on. (1) Economy: The completion of the industrial revolution has created enormous social wealth and promoted the changes of modern people's lifestyles, such as the acceleration of urbanization. Since the founding of New China, especially since the reform and opening up, the rapid development of socialist construction in China has laid a material foundation for the change of people's lifestyle. The government attaches importance to the development of science and technology and puts forward that "science and technology are the primary productive forces". Three long-term plans for the development of science and technology have been formulated successively. For example, the third long-term plan plans to make breakthroughs in several major high-tech fields such as bioengineering, space technology, information technology and laser technology, which will have a great impact on people's lives. (2) Politics: After the bourgeois revolution in modern times, democracy replaced autocracy, rule of law replaced rule of man, and equality replaced privilege; In China, the criticism and exposure of feudal autocracy in the Reform Movement, the proposition that "the sovereignty of the Republic of China belongs to all citizens" in the Revolution of 1911 and the respect and protection of human rights developed on this basis accelerated the democratization process. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the guiding principle of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts was established, and great progress was made in the construction of democracy and legal system, creating relaxed conditions for the changes of modern life. (3) Scientific and technological revolution: The rapid development of natural science has a profound impact on people's way of life and way of thinking. New inventions are constantly emerging. Trains, electric lights, wired and wireless telegrams, telephones, movies, ships, typewriters and many achievements in high-tech fields have provided unprecedented help to the improvement of people's daily lives. The discovery of oil and the popularization of automobiles, trains and ships have promoted the development of transportation and expanded the scope of people's activities.

4) Ideological enlightenment: The Enlightenment in Europe, the Reform Movement of 1898 in China, the Revolution of 1911, the New Culture Movement, the May 4th Movement and the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee all promoted people's ideological liberation. For example, after the Reform Movement of 1898, new schools have mushroomed all over the country, and the number of young people receiving new education has greatly increased, which plays an important role in promoting new lifestyles. New China vigorously develops education, citizens' education level is generally improved, and higher education is becoming popular, which has a far-reaching impact on people's ideas, food, clothing, housing and transportation. 2. The spread and influence of western material civilization and lifestyle in China In more than one hundred years, the most changed area in China society is social life, and every aspect of clothing, food, housing, transportation and use is engraved with the influence of the West. The influence of modern western lifestyles on China is a gradual process from coastal areas to inland areas and from cities to rural areas. The urban population, especially the people in coastal cities, is the earliest group to accept the influence of the West, but the vast rural areas have not changed much. In the middle of the 9th century, western manufactured goods flooded into China, and the position of homespun in China people's clothes gradually gave way to foreign gauze and foreign cloth, and the home textile industry gradually disappeared. At the same time, with the disintegration of the natural economy, people have to start to seek a living in cities outside the countryside, which fundamentally breaks the traditional life mode of combining agriculture with cottage industry. The change of lifestyle has caused the relaxation of etiquette and law order. Ordinary people no longer worry about the clothing system and identity restrictions, but choose their own clothes freely. Urban residents eat flour and rice ground by machines and drink tap water, and some cities have gradually developed western-style catering industries. Milk, soda, beer, coffee, biscuits, bread, monosodium glutamate and other western or oriental foods all occupy a place in the China market. In coastal cities, some wealthy businessmen have built "foreign buildings", adding new content to China's construction industry. City residents no longer walk to work, but use bicycles and faster trams and cars. The modern western material civilization and lifestyle had a double impact on China: on the one hand, everything in the West was forced into the lives of China people with the brutal aggression of artillery and colonialism, which destroyed the long-term stable and quiet social environment in China, and forced China people to give up their original lifestyle and choose a new one, and suffered the pains brought by this change. On the other hand, the new appliances, new things and new lifestyles introduced into China by the west are advanced to some extent, representing the development direction of new productive forces; Moreover, once these things entered China, they played a powerful destructive role in the traditional backward productive forces and lifestyles, effectively promoted the transformation of modern social structure in China, and triggered new changes in China society towards modernization.

it is a long and long process for new things to replace old things. How should we view the changes in China's modern social life?

For example, the China Railway was only a few tens of kilometers at first, and then went up to Qian Qian meters; At first, modern means of communication had only a few wired telegrams and dozens of telephones in the whole country. Although it seems that the number is very small now, and its proportion in the whole social life is insignificant, and it could not be popularized to ordinary people's homes at that time, it can be seen that the changes in modern China's social life are limited. Although limited, these changes show that the social life in modern China is undergoing great historical changes, which conforms to the mainstream trend of human historical development, represents the direction of advanced culture in human history, and has unlimited vitality.