What are the four traditional holidays in China? From when did they exist?

Traditional Chinese culture is the root of our nation's existence, the soul of the world, the basis of inheritance. The traditional festival culture created and inherited by the working people of our country through the generations can be said to be the most vigorous and influential, with the most national characteristics and personality of the culture.

It centrally embodies the core values of traditional Chinese culture and vividly demonstrates the spiritual world of the general public. These festivals have survived the vicissitudes of life, cohesion of the wisdom and emotions of the working people of all generations, in the form of mass popularity, the value of its inheritance of the national bloodline, enhancement of the national spirit, and to strengthen the value of the national cultural memory, psychological identity.

The value of maintaining national unity, social harmony, family harmony, the value of stimulating and releasing emotions, and the value of coordinating the relationship between human beings and nature are difficult to be replaced by any form of culture.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, that is, the Chinese Lunar New Year, commonly known as the new spring, the new year, the New Year's Day, etc., and verbally known as the New Year, the New Year. The Spring Festival has a long history, evolved from the ancient times of the first year of prayer and sacrifice. Everything is based on the sky, people are based on the ancestors, praying for the year of sacrifice, honoring the sky and the ancestors, to report the original against the beginning.

The origins of the Spring Festival contain profound cultural connotations and carry a rich historical and cultural heritage in its development. During the Spring Festival, various activities are held throughout the country to celebrate the new year, with strong regional characteristics.

These activities are mainly to get rid of the old and bring in the new, drive away evil spirits and disasters, worship the gods and ancestors, and pray for the New Year in a colorful form, which brings together the essence of traditional Chinese culture. The Dragon Boat Festival originates from the worship of heavenly signs and evolved from the sacrifice of dragon totems in the ancient times.

Duanwu Festival in midsummer, the Dragon's seven lodges soared to the south in the sky, is the day of the Dragon's flight, that is, such as the "I Ching - Qian Gua" lines of the fifth line of the lines said: "Flying dragons in the sky"; this time, the Dragon Star is both "to get the middle" and This is the time when the Dragon Star is both "in the center" and "in the right", in a position of great good fortune, the grace of the universal also, the Dragon's virtue is obvious.

The origin of the Dragon Boat Festival covers the ancient astrological culture, humanistic philosophy and other aspects of the content, contains a profound and rich cultural connotation. The Dragon Boat Festival in the development of inheritance mixed with a variety of folklore as a whole, the festival is rich in customary content, picking the dragon boat and eating rice dumplings is the Dragon Boat Festival of the two major rituals, these two traditional rituals in China since ancient times, and has not ceased to inherit.

Qingming Festival

Also known as the Treading Green Festival, Line Qing Festival, March Festival, Ancestor Festival, etc., the festival is held at the intersection of mid-spring and late spring. The Qingming Festival originates from the ancient belief in ancestors and the rituals of the spring festival, both natural and humanistic connotations, is both a natural festival point and a traditional festival.

Sweeping tombs and offering sacrifices to ancestors as well as going on excursions are the two main themes of the Qingming Festival, which have been passed down from ancient times in China to the present day. The Qingming Festival is the grandest and most important ancestral festival of the Chinese nation, and is a cultural and traditional festival that honors the ancestors and traces the past to the present.

The Qingming Festival unites the spirit of the nation, passes on the sacrificial culture of Chinese civilization, and expresses the moral feelings of people respecting their ancestors and their ancestors, and recounting their deeds. Sweeping the graves is "tomb sacrifice", said to the ancestors "think of the time of respect", spring and autumn two sacrifices, ancient.

The Qingming Festival has a long history, originating from the ancient times of ancestral beliefs and spring rituals. According to the results of modern anthropology and archaeology, the two most primitive beliefs of mankind, one is the belief in heaven and earth, and the other is the belief in ancestors.

Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional cultural festival popular in China and Chinese regions of the world. In traditional culture, the moon, like the sun, these two alternating celestial bodies formed the object of worship for the ancestors. The Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the ancient people's worship of the moon, and is a remnant and derivative of the Chinese custom of moon worship.

Originated in the ancient times, popularized in the Han Dynasty, stereotyped in the early years of the Tang Dynasty, and flourished after the Song Dynasty. The term "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the Zhou Li. According to China's ancient calendar, there are four seasons in a year, with three months in each season, which are known as the three parts of the month of Meng, the month of Zhong, and the month of Quarter.

The second month of autumn is therefore called the Mid-Autumn Festival, and because the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar falls in the middle of the month of August, it is therefore called the "Mid-Autumn Festival". Mid-Autumn Festival to the moon's full sign of reunion, in order to send thoughts of their hometowns and relatives, praying for a good harvest, happiness, has become a colorful and precious cultural heritage.

Summary

The Mid-Autumn Festival is known as one of the four major traditional festivals in China, along with the Spring Festival, Qingming Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. Influenced by Chinese culture,Mid-Autumn Festival is also a traditional festival in some East and Southeast Asian countries, especially for local Chinese.

On May 20, 2006, the State Council listed the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage. Since 2008, the Mid-Autumn Festival has been listed as a national holiday.