Have the traditional festivals of the nation been neglected?

A grim reality is that many traditional festivals in China are disappearing, and some even exist in name only. Experts believe that the traditional festivals that have evolved in China for thousands of years contain extremely high cultural and spiritual values. Digging deep into its cultural connotation can not only improve national cohesion, but also tap business opportunities, expand people's consumption and promote social and economic development and prosperity.

"Now the Chinese New Year is becoming more and more tasteless. Even the traditional door-to-door New Year greetings and visiting relatives and friends have been changed to texting and calling. " Aunt Zhang, 70, complained to reporters. Not only old people but also young people find the New Year boring. Mr. Li, who works in a foreign-funded enterprise in Beijing, said: "I feel deeply lacking in culture when I return to my hometown in Northeast China for the New Year this year. Even among friends and relatives, I still feel depressed and lonely. In addition to drinking and playing cards, I have been looking forward to going to work as soon as possible, even regardless of my family's feelings, and coming back soon. "

Traditional festivals are left out in the cold.

"The taste of the year is something that has always been recognized by the nation, something that is related to life, a national feeling and family complex that is deepening in the new year, and a true feeling that is constantly carried forward and has strong cohesion and affinity." Professor Gao from Peking University Institute of Sociology and Anthropology briefly summed up what "the flavor of the year" is when interviewed by reporters.

People's anxiety about the fading flavor of the year shows that people have begun to reflect on China's traditional culture. With the great development of China's material, people's spiritual culture is becoming more and more boring. Experts believe that to revitalize traditional festivals in China, we can find spiritual pillars buried in people's hearts.

Now some young people are keen to celebrate foreign festivals, such as Valentine's Day and Christmas. This is only a superficial phenomenon, and the deep-seated reason is the fault of our traditional culture, and some traditional festivals with rich cultural connotations are left out in the cold, which is regrettable. "Because the carrier of the Chinese New Year is lost, the feelings of the Chinese New Year are particularly special. This is because China people will feel inexplicably lost during the New Year. "

Another phenomenon is that the flavor of the New Year has faded, that is, the carrier of the New Year has disappeared, and people no longer know what to do in the New Year, and so do other festivals. Only moon cakes, New Year's Eve dinners, zongzi and Yuanxiao are left, and there is only one kind of food, which basically turns these traditional festivals of the Chinese nation into food festivals. This is the sorrow of our nation. Experts believe that the urgent task is to re-recognize and build our festivals, study our festival culture, create our festival culture, and restore the cultural connotation of these traditional festivals through various forms and restore their true colors.

The traditional taste of Chinese New Year is inseparable from the worship and belief of the people, from all kinds of family ties among the people, and is deeply pinned on the custom of Chinese New Year. It can be said that 2008 is the biggest custom festival of the Chinese nation. Gao believes that what we lack now is not all kinds of novel or nondescript entertainment programs after the traditional and new gadgets are grafted with each other, but how to embody our current taste culture and taste, and how to make the taste culture continue and develop.

People's needs for festivals are mainly spiritual and emotional needs, and emotional value is the most important core of festivals, which is more distinctive and distinctive for our nation. For example, people must eat Mid-Autumn Festival reunion dinner and Spring Festival dinner, which is also the reason why Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival are produced and paid attention to. This demand is the embodiment of national affinity and cohesion, and it is the biggest spiritual core of our nation that has been together for five thousand years.

Return the true colors of traditional culture.

Nowadays, people often feel very lost during their holidays and don't know how to spend their holidays. "At this point, we can't blame young people. The inheritance of culture and civilization takes a generation, and the older generation will not understand it. If even the older generation is confused, talking about inheritance and development will become a luxury. " Professor Gao said to me.

During the Spring Festival this year, the Chinese Folklore Society organized an international seminar on traditional festivals of the motherland. Experts discussed how to revitalize and carry forward national culture and maintain traditional festivals.

Ethan, Institute of Ethnic Literature of China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that traditional festivals mainly include food culture, costume culture and festival ceremonies. Traditional festivals are developed on the basis of ancient sacrificial ceremonies. Out of respect for the gods, before the festival comes, people will prepare various foods for them according to their "hobbies", and after the sacrifice, people will share a delicious meal. On the fifteenth day of the first month, beginning of spring, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Laba not only inherited the unique holiday food customs such as Yuanxiao, spring cake, spiced plate, zongzi, moon cake and Laba porridge, but also developed from many banquet dishes that Jackie Chan matched, such as New Year's Eve dinner, offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors. Protecting the traditional holiday diet is the essence of protecting the traditional diet culture. Traditional festivals also keep a lot of holiday dress customs for us. There is no doubt that holiday costumes contain more humanistic information, aesthetic information and technical content. Festivals originated from sacrificial ceremonies. Today, almost all the festivals we see are closely related to ancient memorial ceremonies, various competitions to meet the gods, exorcising evil spirits and eliminating disasters, but with different degrees of evolution. These cultural heritages are the core of traditional festivals, which deserve our careful exploration and inheritance. In the process of investigation and protection of festival ceremonies, we should systematically investigate and prototype protect folk literature styles such as sacrificial words and related myths, legends and stories, performing arts such as sacrificial songs and dances, dramas, and folk crafts such as scaffolding, paper binding and color binding.

Jaco, Department of History of Shandong Normal University, believes that traditional festival culture can strengthen the emotional connection between individuals and families, families and hometown, and meet the needs of community members for a sense of security and belonging. "I have lived in a foreign land for a long time, and I miss my relatives every holiday." Why do you miss your loved ones on holidays? Because in many activities of traditional festivals, it is very important for relatives to get together and enjoy the food and entertainment in the festival. It is in the festival gathering that the feeling of affection, affection and hometown is strengthened. Until the present age, the impulse of migrant workers and "city dwellers" coming out of the countryside to go home for the New Year is not only to return to their parents and relatives, but also to their homes. Today, with the improvement of living standards, people no longer want to eat and drink simply, but this festival will still arouse many people's thoughts about their relatives in their hometown, reminding people to temporarily put aside their intense work, take time to reunite with their families and enjoy their affection.

Traditional festivals can also adjust and strengthen interpersonal relationships, further integrate communities and strengthen people's collective consciousness. For example, on the occasion of the Spring Festival, after family reunion and joy, people will go out with their families to watch and participate in various festivals and entertainment activities during the Spring Festival, such as lion dance, dragon dance, walking on stilts, boating and visiting temple fairs. * * * Entertainment, face-to-face communication, mutual greetings and gifts can resolve interpersonal conflicts and reconcile interpersonal feelings. Coupled with the festive atmosphere, it is more conducive to the cognition, recognition and understanding between people, dispelling the loneliness and helplessness of individuals, and experiencing the sense of security and belonging given by a harmonious group.

Scholars have found that there are quite a few customs related to competitions or competitions in traditional festivals, such as dragon dancing, lion dancing, walking on stilts, swinging, rowing dragon boats, climbing mountains and Lantern Festival. The research shows that the interaction between group members and the emotion between members play an important role in group unity. In the colorful custom activities of traditional festivals, people participate in singing and dancing, enjoy food and wine, so that their body and mind can be relaxed, their nervous and depressed spirit can be alleviated, and their psychological state can reach a new balance.

Call for government support

How to inherit traditional festivals needs great attention from all walks of life, especially the government. For a long time, the traditional festivals in China have been neglected, even criticized explicitly or implicitly. Officials advocate new commemorative festivals, such as November, July 1st, June 1st, March 8th and May 1st. During the Cultural Revolution, many traditional festival activities, together with related festival legends, were criticized as feudal superstitions, which led to a serious break in the inheritance of traditional festival culture.

Gao believes that the history of festival development proves that the state endows festivals with certain statutory holidays, which is an affirmation and promotion of festivals and will greatly promote the prosperity and prosperity of festivals. Therefore, in order to revitalize national traditional festivals, we must first use state power and public opinion tools to give traditional festivals legal status and change the incorrect understanding of traditional festival culture, thus providing a broad space for their utilization.

In recent years, folklore experts in China have been calling for traditional festivals to be national statutory holidays. At the beginning of 2004, Professor Ji Baocheng, deputy to the National People's Congress and president of China Renmin University, submitted a proposal to the Second Session of the Tenth National People's Congress, suggesting that Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival and other traditional festivals in China be national legal holidays. This proposal was signed by 36 NPC representatives. After the proposal was put forward, it was widely concerned by the society, and the relevant departments of the central government entrusted several scholars of the Chinese Folklore Society to investigate its feasibility. Recently, at the international symposium on "Traditional Festivals of the Motherland" held by the China Folklore Society, scholars suggested that, in addition to requiring New Year's Eve and Dragon Boat Festival holidays, the May 1 Golden Week and the Eleventh Golden Week should be replaced by Qingming Holiday and Mid-Autumn Festival respectively.

Folklore experts believe that the requirement of increasing legal holidays is not because western festivals such as Christmas and Valentine's Day are increasingly influential in China, but a country's national ethics, which must be fully reflected in the respect for the cultural heritage of folk activities. This respect should naturally be manifested as an institutional arrangement of the country.

"At present, in terms of the country's institutional arrangements, the Spring Festival seems to be just on an equal footing with May 1 and 11, while May 1 and National Day are at best festivals for urban people, and the cultural connotation is far lower than the Spring Festival. But every year, "May Day" and "Eleventh Day" are three days off, plus rest, which is usually seven days; The Spring Festival is connected with the Lantern Festival, only three days off, plus rest, up to seven days. " Gao believes that this is too disproportionate to Spring Festival travel rush's status. In China, New Year's Eve is the most important day of the year, at least the Spring Festival. Legal holidays should respect this tradition.

Hongkong, Macau and other places are more open and "westernized" than our mainland, but in fact, they pay more attention to and organize China folk traditions than we do. For example, Hong Kong has designated the Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Double Ninth Festival as five traditional festivals, and made them statutory holidays, so has Macau. Even the Mid-Autumn Festival in Korea has three legal holidays.