Investigation and Practice of Traditional Culture

As the most important festival in China, the Spring Festival continues to this day, and it is a conscious habit that China people are most eager for. However, with the development of the times, many folk customs of the Spring Festival are like dust in the vast waves of smoke, gradually submerged in the torrent of history, and no longer have the glory of the past. The original meaning of some customs has faded, and more is its symbolic meaning. At the same time, with the social changes and economic development, some brand-new folk customs have gradually emerged.

First, the definition of the Spring Festival and traditional customs and styles

The Spring Festival refers to the Lunar New Year. In ancient times, it first refers to the festival sequence in spring. Spring has come, everything has revived, and the season of sowing and harvesting in the new year has begun again, so people will sing and dance to welcome this festival. Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival in China. The custom of the Spring Festival has a long history, which lasted for three or four thousand years and has strong national characteristics. During the Spring Festival, various folk activities, such as stars and stars, are celebrated in different ways, which reflects people's psychology of eliminating disasters and praying for peace and happiness. Traditional folk customs, such as sugar cakes, shadow play, cockfighting, walking on stilts and dragon lantern dancing, have left a colorful chapter in the history of China Spring Festival. Spring Festival popular activities such as posting Spring Festival couplets, posting door gods, posting blessings, observing the old age, and offering sacrifices to the god of wealth. It is a Spring Festival activity that every family must participate in. Fireworks, firecrackers and firecrackers have a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment for the festival. It is precisely because of these that it can be regarded as "the taste of the year." In southern China, especially in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and other places, a large number of pickled products will be smoked in advance before the New Year, which is a necessary food and a signal for the New Year. Eating New Year's Eve should be the climax of the Spring Festival. The significance of the New Year's Eve dinner is not only a reunion dinner, but also a more important significance, that is, to worship ancestors and watch their homes. New Year's Eve is a well-prepared reunion dinner. Fish is an essential dish for New Year's Eve. "Without fish, there is no meal" because "fish" and "fish" are homophonic, which means that every household has no worries about food and clothing in the new year. At the same time, families should worship ancestral tablets, share the cooked New Year's Eve dinner with their ancestors, symbolize the reunion of ancestors and descendants, and pray for their blessing. There is also a dragon lantern dance, which is also a traditional cultural activity of the Chinese nation, meaning to pray for the Dragon King to bless the good weather and good harvests. Generally, lights will be lit on the third day of the first lunar month and end on the fifteenth. Dragon lantern dance is very lively. There are two or four pairs of lanterns to clear the way, followed by fish, shrimp, mussels, lanterns and so on. Swinging their heads and tails in the sound of gongs and drums and trumpets, they traveled all over the streets.

Second, the decline of traditional folk customs in the Spring Festival and its manifestations

With the rapid development of the times and economy, the accelerated pace of people's life, the influence of multiculturalism and the individualization of lifestyle choices have led to the decline of traditional Spring Festival customs. Modern young people are not so familiar with the folk culture of the Spring Festival. Many customs have gradually disappeared from the city, and Spring Festival activities have become more and more simple. For example, less than 20% of people around us will "burn paper to worship their ancestors", and this proportion is even less in cities. In the past, every household would write the word "Fu" and couplets on New Year's Eve, and then hang them on the doors and sides. In ancient times, in the Song Dynasty, people wrote couplets on mahogany boards. First, mahogany has the meaning of killing evil; Second, express your good wishes; Third, it is to decorate the facade for beauty. Today, people write couplets on red paper because red paper symbolizes auspiciousness and celebration. On New Year's Eve, people stick their own hand-made Spring Festival couplets on both sides of the door to express their best wishes for good luck in the coming year.

Nowadays, with the improvement of people's economic and living conditions, many changes have taken place. Some families choose to get together in restaurants instead of at home. Of course, there will be no ancestor worship before meals. This kind of New Year's Eve dinner is not so sacred and grand, but it may be more in line with the living conditions of modern people, which is inseparable from the economic development and fast-paced life of modern people. Firecrackers have many functions. At the moment of "making friends", firecrackers can distinguish the old from the new. Firecrackers also have the function of driving away ghosts and evil spirits. The Chronicle of Jingchu in the Southern Dynasties records: "On the first day of the first month ... the rooster crows and firecrackers are set off in front of the court to ward off evil spirits." This "mountain shame" is said to be a monster in the western mountainous area. It is more than a foot high and has one foot. It is never afraid of people. If people violate it, it will make you feel hot and cold and make you sick. If you put the bamboo tube on the fire and make a crackling sound, "Sister-in-law Shan" will be surprised and scared, and run away quickly. Therefore, people set off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters, hoping that the grain will be abundant and people and animals will prosper.

Third, the change of folk culture in the Spring Festival-the rise of "new folk customs"

Culture is changeable, and when the objective environment changes, culture will also change accordingly. With the accelerated pace of life and the weakening of people's clan groups, people's ways of celebrating the New Year are also advancing with the times, adding many "new folk customs" for the New Year. People will pay New Year's greetings in advance by SMS on New Year's Eve, instead of going door-to-door during festivals. You can create your own blessing messages to express your feelings more truly, instead of blindly sending them in groups with prepared messages.

Setting off firecrackers during the Spring Festival is a folk custom in China that has lasted for thousands of years. Since the 1990s, many large and medium-sized cities have issued "prohibition of alcohol" from the perspective of fire safety. Without the crack of firecrackers, the taste of the year has naturally been reduced. However, in the era when fireworks were banned, people's enthusiasm for setting off firecrackers was not concealed. Since a few years ago, the state has restricted the setting off of firecrackers, limiting the place and time of setting off firecrackers, but in any case, firecrackers have now "returned" to the people. In dealing with firecrackers, the state has taken some measures to satisfy people's entertainment behavior as much as possible and ensure safety.

Chinese New Year pays attention to reunion, but in today's society, people choose to stay home for Chinese New Year because of the unbearable Spring Festival travel rush craze or various economic reasons, and some people start to pursue the taste of Chinese New Year online. You can set off firecrackers online, and different firecrackers will have different "setting off effects", and you will also listen to the crisp sound of firecrackers online. There is also an electronic "food city" on the Internet, where you can "taste" the food such as "electronic jiaozi". In the virtual community, people can take part in online activities, such as visiting temple fairs and answering riddles on lanterns online. Netizens can also photograph the Spring Festival customs in their hometown and put them in online community space for everyone to enjoy. Although these activities are virtual, they can still feel the atmosphere of the New Year, and such activities are quite popular with many fashionable young netizens. Traveling abroad during the Spring Festival is an important force of population movement during the Spring Festival, and it is also a new way for people to celebrate festivals. During the Spring Festival, various tourist attractions all over the country have launched folk cultural tourism related to the Spring Festival. For example, Wuhou Temple in Chengdu holds a large-scale temple fair every year from the first day of the first lunar month to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, including daydreaming, solve riddles on the lanterns, shadow play performance, Sichuan opera performance and various folk acrobatics, which attracts a large number of tourists. These traditional folk cultures represent the external and internal spirit of a nation, and the combination of folk culture and tourism has opened up a new way for these folk cultures to return to the people.

Fourthly, the inheritance and protection of folk culture in the Spring Festival and its great significance for building a harmonious society.

In the face of the gradual disappearance of old folk customs and the rise of new folk customs, it is very important to protect and inherit the "flavor of the year" of the Spring Festival. Culture is passed down, and these interesting folk customs should be passed down from generation to generation. The state takes various measures to protect: firecrackers have been "banned" from the past to "restricted" now; The country has listed the Spring Festival as the first place for China to apply for World Heritage. The Spring Festival is an intangible cultural heritage gradually formed by the people in the process of long-term material and spiritual production. It has many social functions, such as national identity, social integration, social communication, cultural education, folk customs, moral education, filial piety, religious belief, ancestor worship, recreation, economy and trade, cultural bearing and so on. The folk custom of the Spring Festival is a nation's cultural heritage and national memory, as well as a nation's spiritual pillar and cohesion. In a sense, culture, including folk customs, is not only a national tradition, but also a kind of dignity.

During the Spring Festival, some ancient folk customs were moved into temple fairs. Although many of them were divorced from the specific environment at that time, they also played the role of inheriting and protecting valuable culture. For example, sweeping dust is year-end cleaning. The north is called "house cleaning" and the south is called "dust removal". Every year on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, you will know that the Spring Festival is coming. Dust removal not only plays a cleaning role, but also has a prayer to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Cleaning before the Spring Festival is a fine traditional habit of China people. Clean thoroughly outside, in front of and behind the house to welcome the Spring Festival. This tradition has a long history. According to Lu Chunqiu, there was a custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in China during the Yao and Shun period. According to the folk saying, because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust in the Spring Festival means "getting rid of the old and not being new", which means sweeping away all "unlucky" and "unlucky". Such excellent traditional folk customs should be passed down. Inheriting the tradition of the Spring Festival is not only a slogan, but also an innovative action. The custom of Spring Festival is a kind of culture, which changes with the development of society. This custom will move from time to time and change according to needs, which is full of the flavor of the times and rich in content.

From the protection and development of the Spring Festival, we can see that its significance lies not only in the inheritance of culture itself, but also in the construction of a contemporary harmonious society. Excellent national culture is a solid foundation and profound resource of harmonious culture. The Spring Festival is a traditional festival that best embodies Chinese civilization and has a special position in the national cultural heritage. First of all, it is a national cultural way of life that takes years as a cycle and has a direct and important relationship with people's lives. Thirdly, traditional festivals are a grand symbolic national culture, which can significantly reflect the characteristics of national culture and strongly influence other ethnic groups' attention and understanding of China's national culture. Traditional festivals are also a window for different cultural groups to understand our national culture. Wanderers and overseas Chinese abroad, while integrating into the local society, also attach great importance to maintaining their own traditional customs to celebrate the festivals of the motherland, which is particularly prominent in the Spring Festival every year. In this way, overseas Chinese comfort their humanistic feelings for the motherland and show their cultural identity and characteristics to different cultural groups around them. The basic theme of traditional festivals is to maintain and promote interpersonal harmony. As the largest traditional festival, the Spring Festival is the most prominent in strengthening interpersonal communication, which embodies the characteristics of attaching importance to people and family. Harmony between man and nature is an important theme of traditional festivals. Most of the traditional festivals in China are twenty-year-old festivals, which are the product of our ancestors' organic combination of natural time process and social activity rhythm. Protecting traditional festivals is helpful to realize people's emotional harmony and generate strong spiritual power for social harmony. As the node of cultural existence, traditional festivals are an important way to pin people's spirit. They are manifested in a prosperous and striking way in the custom of the Spring Festival, creating a festive and peaceful holiday atmosphere, conveying people's auspicious celebrations, and protecting traditional festivals is to respect people's emotional needs and safeguard people's spiritual interests.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) conclusion

Spring Festival, an ancient folk festival, has gradually formed a cultural spirit of harmony, stability, self-confidence, optimism, historical and cultural connotation and national identity in the process of development and perfection for thousands of years. In the fusion of old and new folk customs, the Spring Festival can expand its extension, excavate its connotation, and have more significance of the times, so that this ancient festival can be engraved in the spiritual world of the Chinese nation, enhance the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese nation, enhance the national pride of the people of China, and make the ancient Spring Festival glow with vitality handed down from generation to generation.