1. Now let's compare Chinese and western festivals. First of all, it compares the most grand festivals in China and the West, and it turns out that something has been found. I don't see China's New Year's Eve. I just have a family reunion. I will never invite outsiders. Even my closest friends are very aware of it. I won't break into other people's family dinners on this night. I have to get on the first day of the first month to celebrate the New Year. This has almost become an established custom, at least it has a history of thousands of years. Christmas in the west is different. The night before it is Christmas Eve. Santa Claus will come on this night and bring gifts and good wishes to everyone. Like China people, this night is also a time for family reunion. The difference is that friends and even foreign friends are often invited to participate in this annual festival. If it's New Year's Eve, when the New Year's bell rings, people jump for joy and can't help running into the street, hugging everyone they meet, whether they know them or not. Thanksgiving Day is equivalent to the Spring Festival in our country, and it is a festival for the whole family to get together to welcome the new year. However, both of them are family reunions, which fully reflect the family and kindness; They are both important traditional festivals in which people remember their ancestors and thank the earth for nurturing them, but the difference between them lies in the form of celebration. Before the Spring Festival, families in China will make a lot of preparations, clean the house and make special food. The red scroll is hung on the wall, and China people believe that the words on the scroll will bring them health, longevity and happiness. Not only that, all China people in the world like yangko and firecrackers in the Spring Festival very much. But when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, eating turkey and watching professional football on TV are typical activities in Thanksgiving. Walking is also an important part of the holiday. Reform and opening up have broadened our horizons, and people's social contacts have become more and more frequent. Besides family, there is a broader social space. Christmas Eve provides a gathering place for family and friends. Western customs just supplement the shortcomings of Chinese customs. How can they not be welcomed by people?
In recent years, fireworks and firecrackers have been banned in many places. Fireworks and firecrackers, which could have been exciting, have left us as a "bad habit", which makes the Spring Festival lose the traditional festive color of "firecrackers killing the old year", and we can only stay at home and watch the Spring Festival party, the first lunar month party and the Ministry of Culture party day after day ... Perhaps it is because of our actions that the charm of traditional culture is invisibly discounted in the minds of young people.
Every festival has its own regional or unique features. In America, there are Halloween, Thanksgiving and so on. In America, they spend almost a quarter of the year in festivals. In contrast, many traditional festivals in China, such as Dragon Boat Festival and Double Ninth Festival, are more elegant, with deeper cultural connotations and less "crazy". This is why many young people are keen on western festivals instead of traditional ones. Of course, we can't ignore the subtle effects of western economic strength and business hype.
2. There are obvious differences between festivals and customs in China and western countries. Festivals in China mainly originate from the solar terms at the age of 2 and pray for their own good fortune and happiness. The theme of festivals and customs is eating and drinking. The main reason is that China people's pursuit of life aims at health and longevity and is realized through diet. Western festivals mainly come from religions and related events, remembering God and asking for his blessing. The theme of festivals and customs is play. The main reason is that westerners' pursuit of life aims at health and happiness and is realized through religious and recreational activities. The differences in traditional festivals of different ethnic groups are closely related to the differences in the living forms and lifestyles of this ethnic group or the cultural system composed of many ethnic groups with the same cultural characteristics.
Keywords: cultural differences between Chinese and Western festivals
Traditional national festivals are extremely complicated social and cultural phenomena, including the character, psychology, beliefs, ideas, ways of thinking, moral sentiments, aesthetic tastes formed and precipitated by a national history, as well as the value orientation of many deep-seated structural connotations of national cultures. They are the result and important carrier of national spirit bred for a long time in a specific social soil, and are the most prominent and distinctive forms of a national existence. It is closely accompanied by people's production activities, cognitive activities and social and historical development, and it is controlled by people's different material life and different historical times, and it also adversely affects people's material and cultural development at different levels.
China's traditional festivals are basically formed and handed down during the feudal society, which inevitably bears the brand of feudalism: hierarchical, closed and family-style, and all festivals are centered on family and family internal activities. In festivals, young people must worship the elderly, and the whole family should have a family reunion dinner, celebrate and celebrate the whole family. Even during the Spring Festival, it is basically between relatives. It is inconceivable that a group of strangers are partying together. Even the outdoor yangko dance, which is attended by many people, is only a performance activity, not a national carnival. In addition, another notable feature of China Festival is that it embodies the custom of eating culture in China. Each festival has different special food requirements to distinguish it from other festivals. Such as eating jiaozi, Yuanxiao, Zongzi, moon cakes and so on. Festivals in China embody the virtues and fashions of China people. Respecting the old and caring for the young, and sharing affection with each other are fine traditions of our nation, which should be carried forward. Therefore, Chinese people have always adhered to the good customs and ethos of these China festivals. No one wants to abandon the China Festival, even those who like it.
Festivals in the West are different. They are more interactive, participatory, carnival, and the venting of warm emotions. They are self-centered and advocate individuality, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day. This is just the opposite of the closed and familial nature of China Festival. These reflect the needs of social development and the inevitability of social progress, the collectivity of human society and the participation of all people, and adapt to the desire of people in modern society to communicate with each other, participate in groups and vent their emotions together. It broke the feudal closed form, without the hierarchical bondage between superiors and subordinates, old people and young people, and embodied the characteristics of equality and free self-expression of everyone. In terms of eating, there are no strict requirements, and what festivals are celebrated is not in the difference of eating.
Festivals refer to the days in a year that are endowed with special social and cultural significance and interspersed in daily life. They are the concentrated display of people's colorful lives and the summary and extension of politics, economy, culture and religion in various regions, nationalities and countries. Festive customs are the customs and habits that appear in festivals, which are often different due to the differences in the festival system and the deeper natural and social environment. The reason is mainly caused by people's ideas and values. As an important part of cultural differences, customs differences have a more direct and concrete impact on people.
this paper reveals its own characteristics through the comparative analysis of the differences between Chinese and western festival customs, aiming at helping us to understand Chinese culture more objectively, and to understand and understand foreign cultures with positive significance more deeply and comprehensively, so as to improve our ability of cross-cultural communication.
Festival customs in China
The most important traditional festivals of the Chinese nation are mainly divided into three types: production, life and sacrifice. In addition to some individual sacrificial festivals, sacrifice is also one of the most important activities in most traditional festivals of production and life. In addition, these three types of festivals are all run through by the New Year's season with Chinese characteristics as a red line.
In China, the Spring Festival is an important festival in spring. The time is gradually changed from the day of beginning of spring in the lunar calendar before the Han and Wei Dynasties to the first day of the first lunar month. The festive foods range from early spring dishes, spring cakes and Tu Su wine to later rice, rice cakes and jiaozi. The ancients believed that the day of beginning of spring was the beginning of spring and the beginning of a year, so there was a custom of persuading people to farm on this day. "Were"? Etiquette annals "contains:" On the day of beginning of spring, when the night leaks for less than five minutes, all the officials in the capital were dressed in Tsing Yi, and all the officials in the county, the country and the county went down to the history of fighting for food, all of them served their green achievements, set up green banners, and put the people of Niu Geng outside the door to show their signs. " Farming requires a strong body, so there is corresponding food in the diet. The five spicy dishes, namely, Spring Dish and Tu Su Wine, first appeared, with the purpose of strengthening the body and facilitating farming. With the passage of time, the significance of persuading people to farm in the Spring Festival has gradually faded, but the meaning of being physically strong has been strengthened, and it is further hoped that the New Year will be happy and auspicious, and all the best, so new holiday foods have appeared, such as the rice meal symbolizing happiness and reunion, the rice cake symbolizing developed career, and jiaozi symbolizing abundant financial resources and good luck. All these foods for the Spring Festival are entrusted with China people's prayers and yearning for a happy life.
Spring Festival is also commonly known as "Chinese New Year", because it falls at the beginning of the lunar calendar, and it is also called "New Year". The ancient "year" and "year" were all related to the calendar and agricultural production. Hanshu? Emperor Wu Ji "contains:" In the first year of Tai Chu (the first 14 years), ... the first month is the beginning of the year. The Shang Dynasty took December in the summer calendar as the beginning of the year, and the Zhou Dynasty took October in the summer calendar as the beginning. " Also, "year" means that the grain is ripe. The word "nian" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the image of a bumper harvest of fruits, and the word "nian" in the bronze inscription is also the mature appearance of ears of grain. "Spring and Autumn Valley Liang Chuan? "Sixteen years of Xuangong" contains: "When the grain is ripe, it is a great year." It can be seen that "Year" was originally a day to wish a bumper harvest and celebrate, and it also meant "a unified start, a renewed Vientiane". Specifically, the Spring Festival consists of "New Year's Eve" and "New Year's Day", with New Year's Eve before midnight and New Year's Day after that. In ancient times, whenever New Year's Day came, people would hold La Worship's activities to pray for the New Year. This is what the Book of the Later Han Dynasty said: "The moon in the winter season, the stars return to the end of the year, yin and yang meet, and the farmers enjoy the wax." La Worship prayed for the New Year, not only for offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods, but also for farmers to have a rest and entertainment after farming, so as to meet the busy farming activities in the coming year, and to pray for a bumper harvest in the coming year with the sound of firecrackers. People's living form will inevitably affect the way and content of social life, which makes the festivals of traditional life types in China mostly rely on productive seasons.
Dragon Boat Festival is an important festival in summer, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Zongzi is the main holiday food. Many folklore scholars believe that the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the summer solstice. The summer solstice marks the beginning of summer and often appears in May of the lunar calendar. This period is the most vigorous period of crop growth, and it is also the period when weeds, pests and diseases are most likely to grow and spread, so field management must be strengthened. The farmer's proverb says, "The summer solstice is better than a poisonous snake bite." In order to remind people to pay attention to the summer solstice, manage the fields well, and pray for ancestors to bless the harvest of crops, as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the son of heaven specially tasted the main grain millet at that time on the summer solstice and used it to sacrifice to his ancestors. Book of Rites? The Moon Order says that in the midsummer moon, "The son of heaven is ashamed of Han Tao because he tasted millet, so he recommended the Temple of Sleeping first". This activity gradually infiltrated and influenced the people and formed customs, and a special food called "Jiao Shu", or Zongzi, appeared for people to sacrifice and eat on the summer solstice. As the Dragon Boat Festival evolved from the summer solstice, "horn millet" has also become the festival food of the Dragon Boat Festival. "Taiping Yu Lan" quoted the local customs in the Jin and Zhou Dynasties as saying: "The custom is to wrap the millet in leaves and cook it in pure gray juice, and it will be cooked on May 5 and the summer solstice. A dumpling, a horn millet, covers the image when yin and yang are still wrapped and not dispersed. " It can be seen that the emergence of Dragon Boat Festival and Zongzi is closely related to agricultural solar terms. At first, the Dragon Boat Festival seemed to be a festival for the ancient Baiyue people in the south to sacrifice their totem-the dragon. Later, it was linked with the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, which contained a deeper national cultural connotation of organically combining totem worship with ancestor worship.
Mid-Autumn Festival is an important festival in autumn. It falls on the 15th day of August in the lunar calendar, so it is named because it is in the middle of Meng Qiu, Mid Autumn and Ji Qiu. Its main holiday food is moon cakes. However, the formation of Mid-Autumn Festival and its corresponding relationship with moon cakes have gone through a long historical process. Autumn is the harvest season. People harvest all this with joy, and at the same time, they feel grateful to nature. The moon is not only an outstanding representative of nature, but also an important basis for China people to calculate the seasonal solar terms, so there are activities of offering sacrifices to the moon and Yue Bai in the Zhou Dynasty. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, people gradually discovered that the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival was the largest, roundest and brightest when they were worshipping the moon and Yue Bai, so they began to enjoy and play with the moon, forming the Mid-Autumn Festival with the main custom of enjoying the moon and harvesting the harvest at Qingfeng. Ouyang Zhan, a Tang Dynasty poet, said in "Preface to Playing with the Moon": "August is in autumn, and the season begins in Meng, and the fifteenth is in the night and in the middle of the month. If you are in heaven, you will be cold and hot; Take the number of months, then the toad is round. ..... Ascending to Donglin and entering the West Building, the muscles and bones are cool with it, and the air is cold with it. " In this beautiful and pleasing festival, China people who pay attention to "food is the most important thing for the people" will naturally not forget to accompany them with good wine and food. According to historical records, Tang Gaozu Li Yuan once gave a banquet on the Mid-Autumn Festival night, enjoyed the moon with his ministers, and shared the delicious food presented by Tibetan businessmen-a round cookie with stuffing and the surface engraved with the patterns of the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon and Yutu. This cake may be the ancestor of "moon cakes" in later generations. By the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet was very popular, and there was a name and variety of "moon cake" in the Dream of Liang Lu by Zimu in Song and Wu, but it was not associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival. Moon cakes became the main holiday food of Mid-Autumn Festival in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. According to legend, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when Zhu Yuanzhang launched an uprising, he hid a note with the time of the uprising in the moon cakes, and passed the news when giving each other moon cakes. This shows that the custom of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival was very popular in the Yuan Dynasty.
Tian Rucheng's Notes on Visiting the West Lake in the Ming Dynasty, "Pleasure in Xi Chao", says: "The 15th of August is called Mid-Autumn Festival, and the folks take mooncakes as a legacy to get together." Since then, moon cakes have at least two meanings: first, they are shaped like a full moon to worship the moon god and express gratitude to nature; Second, the cake is round, symbolizing reunion and pinning people's prayers and desires for family reunion and happy life. The so-called "I miss my relatives more often during the festive season" and "I wish people a long life and a thousand miles of beauty" are hard to appreciate in traditional festivals in the West.
The Winter Solstice Festival is an important festival in winter. It is in November of the lunar calendar, and there is no fixed date. There are many holiday foods, mainly wonton, mutton and rice dumplings. The winter solstice is one of the 24 solar terms of the lunar calendar, and it is also an important period for storing crops and other food raw materials in large quantities before and after the winter solstice. "twenty-four solar term" said: "In mid-November, the gas of the final hiding came to an extreme." At this point, the year's busy farming is coming to an end or has already ended. The grain is Man Cang, and the cattle and sheep are full of circles. It is time for people to enjoy the fruits of their labor for the first time. Therefore, people attach great importance to this day. Many researchers believe that the winter solstice has become a festival around the Han Dynasty. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, people expanded the scale of the celebration of the winter solstice, making it second only to the Spring Festival, and in some places it was called "sub-year-old". The Winter Solstice Festival is the time when yin and yang alternate and the sun is the spirit. Eating wonton implies that ancestors created chaos and created heaven and earth, and expresses their memory and gratitude for their ancestors and nature. In addition, mutton is also a holiday food on the winter solstice, which is not only an excellent nourishing food in winter, but also implies auspiciousness and expresses the hope for a happy life.
Engels pointed out: "The initial religious expression was a celebration that reflected natural phenomena, seasonal changes and so on. The specific natural conditions and natural products in which a tribe or nation lives have been moved into its religion. " The formation and development of these sacrificial festivals