What are the characteristics of traditional Chinese festivals?

The characteristics of traditional Chinese festivals are as follows:

1. Long history and long history

The origins of traditional Chinese festivals are ancient, and the dates of the festivals, once fixed, have remained unchanged for thousands of years, and the timing of the festivals has always remained unchanged, despite the accompanying change of dynasties and the transformation of the times. Because of their ancient origins, it is difficult to tell exactly when and why many festivals originated, which is also a major feature of traditional Chinese festivals.

2, rich in content and diverse forms

The traditional festivals of the year are distinguished into three categories of people, ghosts and gods in the people's classification of time. The human festivals are Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, which focus on human activities. Ghost festivals include the Ching Ming Festival, the Mid-Yuan Festival, and the First Day of October, which honor the spirits of the dead. God festivals are March 3, June 6, and September 9, focusing on sacrifices to the gods. China's traditional festivals can be divided into agricultural festivals, sacrificial festivals, celebration festivals, entertainment festivals and so on according to the types of festivals.

China's traditional festivals are rich in content and diverse forms also reflected in the timing of the festival, the first day of the month for the festival, like the first day of the first month for the Spring Festival, the first fifteenth day of the first lunar month for the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the seventh month of the Mid-Yuan Festival, the 15th day of the eighth month of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the 15th day of the tenth month of the Lower-Yuan Festival, and so on. Days with repeating numbers on the day of the month are often identified as festivals, such as the Spring Festival on the first day of the first month, the Spring Dragon Festival on the second day of the second month, the Shangsi Festival on the third day of the third month, the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month, the Auntie's Festival on the sixth day of the sixth month, the Tanabata Festival on the seventh day of the seventh month, and the Chongyang Festival on the ninth day of the ninth month.

Traditional festivals are rich in content and diverse forms as reflected in the following: Qingming Festival is a day for Chinese people to sweep their tombs and pay homage to their ancestors; Dragon Boat Festival originated from the legend of Qu Yuan throwing himself into the river, with strong patriotic colors; Mid-Autumn Festival is the second largest traditional festival after the Spring Festival, in the form of enjoying the moon and eating mooncakes, which brings out the truth, goodness and beauty of the traditional Chinese nation to the extreme; the Lantern Festival and the Festival of the Dragon Boat fully reflects the good traditions of maintaining family harmony and respect for the elderly. and the fine tradition of honoring the elderly.

3, heavy ethical concepts of rituals and ceremonies

China is a country that emphasizes human decency and precious family ties. Ancestor worship is one of the oldest elements of Spring Festival customs. The Spring Festival ancestor worship is the largest ancestor worship activity in a year. Before the festival, all the ancestral portraits or tablets in the ancestral hall should be organized. Before the Spring Festival or on the first day of the festival, offerings are set up to collectively worship all the ancestors. Sacrifices to the gods are often seen in various folk rituals of the Spring Festival. A hundred gods are sacrificed on Lunar New Year's Day, and the god of the stove is sacrificed on the twenty-fourth. New Year's firecrackers, folk interpretations to meet the god of the stove, the god of wealth and so on.

4, pay attention to the holiday diet

The Spring Festival to eat rice cake dumplings. Rice cake, also known as sticky cake, harmonic "year high", contains people's hope for a happy life in the future. It is more popular in the south. The most popular New Year's food in the north is dumplings, also known as dumplings, jiaozi, and flatbread. Mid-autumn festival food is moon cake, moon cake in folklore called "reunion cake", has a strong symbolic meaning. Other festival foods, such as dumplings at Dragon Boat Festival, mooncakes at Mid-Autumn Festival, dumplings at Winter Solstice, congee at Lapa Festival, and Lantern Festival Lanterns, are all interdependent with traditional festivals in China. Festive food is an important and indispensable aspect of festival culture, and is a festive feature with national characteristics.

5. Inheritance

The inheritance of folklore refers to the spatial dissemination and temporal inheritance of folk cultural phenomena. Any folk activities once produced, is bound to spread in a certain range of groups, and in a certain period of time repeatedly reproduced, and constantly copied, after generations of circulation, into a fixed form, constraints on a region or ethnic people, so that they *** with the observance of the insurmountable, thus forming the inheritance of the festival. Content and form of continuity and stability is the main manifestation of folklore inheritance.

Expanded Information

Traditional Chinese festivals include New Year's Eve (the last day of the Lunar New Year), Spring Festival (the first day of the first lunar month), Lantern Festival (the fifteenth day of the first lunar month), Cold Food Festival (the day before Ching Ming Festival), Ching Ming Festival (solar calendar: around April 5), Shangsi Festival (lunar calendar: the third day of the third lunar month), Dragon Boat Festival (lunar calendar: the fifth day of the fifth lunar month), Tanabata Festival (lunar calendar: the seventh day of the seventh lunar month), Mid-Autumn Festival (lunar calendar: August 15), Chongyang Festival (Lunar: September 9), Cold Clothes Festival (Lunar: October 1) Lunar Festival (Lunar: the eighth day of the month of Lunar), Lunar New Year (Lunar month 23 ~ ~ Lunar month 24), and so on.

Additionally, all ethnic minorities in China also keep their own traditional festivals, such as the Water Festival of the Dai, the Naadam Conference of the Mongols, the Torch Festival of the Yi, the Danu Festival of the Yao, the March Street of the Bai, the Song Wei of the Zhuang, the Tibetan New Year and the Wangguo Festival of the Tibetans, and the Flower Jumping Festival of the Miao, etc.

In addition, all ethnic minorities in China also keep their own traditional festivals.