How have Anhui Spring Festival customs changed from the past to the present?

Anthropological studies have shown that people in different parts of the world do not differ much in their biological nature, but their cultures are far apart. Obviously, culture has been in a constant state of change, and change is an ever-present phenomenon in all cultures and social systems, and the study of cultural change has become a major subject of interest. In today's society, which is undergoing drastic changes in all material aspects, the regions and traditional cultures which were less affected by the impact of modern civilization in the past have also entered into a more drastic process of change.

1. Cultural Change and Its Causes

Different schools of anthropology and sociology have different interpretations of cultural change and its causes, but most of them agree that change may come from both discovery, invention, and long period of mutation within the culture as well as from contact, dissemination, and enculturation from outside. Among them, the American sociologist William Fielding? Ogburn argues that most social changes are triggered by changes in material culture, especially in science and technology; once material culture changes, the institutional culture of immaterial culture, i.e., values, norms and meanings, and social structures, also change. Clyde M. Woods, on the other hand, believes that change is generally caused by changes in the socio-cultural environment or the natural environment, where the socio-cultural environment refers to people, culture and society; and the natural environment refers to a particular ecological environment, including natural and man-made two kinds. The prerequisites for socio-cultural change are in place when changes in the environment are conducive to new modes of thought and behavior. Culture is a whole, and changes in one part of the cultural system usually cause corresponding changes in other parts. Material changes and different lifestyle requirements can lead to an increasing involvement of traditional culture in the modern world and an increasing alienation from traditional social, economic and folk beliefs.

The natural natural environment of southern Fujian has changed little, but the social environment has changed dramatically with economic and social development. This paper argues that changes in the social and cultural environment are the main factors causing cultural change. Specifically, in the process of Spring Festival in southern Fujian, the natural environment and material products as the basis of life have not changed much, and people have inherited the overall framework of traditional concepts and festive customs, such as the time schedule of festive activities and the composition of festive food, and most of the concepts of life are still able to be adapted to the requirements of the material environment in southern Fujian. In addition, from the perspective of cultural identity, people are not willing to overly destroy the long-accustomed way of life in the region, making themselves unrecognizable, so the taboos and folk beliefs with local characteristics have also been continued and are still in effect today. However, at the operational level of festival customs, some customs that are not adapted to modern economic methods and material production have been abandoned, such as the custom of "tailing teeth" and the arrangement of festival food preparation. Because of the conflict with modern time schedules, some of the stricter, more cumbersome procedures of traditional activities have been cut or modified to fit the gradually accelerating pace of life and the ensuing mentality of quick fixes that has become commonplace, such as the custom of "entering the head incense" in the early hours of the morning and setting off firecrackers in the early hours of the first nine days of the year. Modern factors do not completely replace traditional customs; people choose them according to their own social needs, sometimes adapting traditional behaviors to modern life, sometimes adding modern technology to traditional practices, and culture changes through such interactions. In this process of change, individuals move from traditional lifestyles to more complex, technologically advanced, and rapidly changing lifestyles.

But cultural change is a complex process, and what and how it occurs depends on a wide variety of circumstances, making it difficult to summarize in a single theory. Therefore, regarding the causes of cultural change, in modern society, with the changes in the structure and function of society, traditional culture needs to be adjusted from within itself to adapt to the changes in the material and technological environment, and needs to be harmonized with the changes in the various social systems, such as the economy and politics of modern society. In this sense, the Spring Festival, as part of the spiritual dimension of traditional society, cannot escape the wash of the waves of change. In addition, with the movement of people, the development of modern transportation, and the communication and dissemination of the mass media, the cultures and lifestyles of various modern societies have come into contact with traditional cultures, which have replaced, added to, and assimilated each other. Modern life and traditional culture are in the process of interaction and mutual influence.

2. Cultural change and its impact on social life

Festivals are an integral part of culture, and at the same time reflect the characteristics of social culture. Whether it is the order of life in a region or people's behavioral characteristics and social psychology, all of them can be expressed in festivals. It can be said that festivals, as carriers of culture, have a unique inner structure, cultural characteristics and social functions, and, at the same time, are people's way of life. The Spring Festival, a traditional festival, is undergoing a change "in progress", and the contrast between the old and new cultures *** time exists, so that we can clearly see the dynamic process of its change and the time regularity of different cultural factors in the change.

Traditional agricultural production in the "year" as a cycle, the Spring Festival is the traditional agricultural society of China's festivals, in time in the first after the agricultural leisure stage, people in this period of time for rest, consumption and rituals and other activities. The Spring Festival plays a role in adjusting production and life and expressing feelings. In the course of the traditional Spring Festival festivals, people arrange all aspects of material life as well as festive cultural activities mainly on the basis of families and clans, and the family's functions of rest, education, and recreation are more obviously brought into play. In addition, traditional festival customs contain a series of activities and rituals for the transmission of culture, such as ancestor worship, worship of gods, urban-rural exchanges, collective labor and other activities in the preparatory stage of the festival described above, so that traditional culture and values (e.g., the importance of kinship, respect for labor, etc.) are affirmed and inherited in the festive activities with rituals, and members of the community are integrated into the traditional culture in the process of this transmission. In this process of inheritance, members of society are incorporated into the traditional culture. However, with the development of the economy and society, and with the impact of modernization on traditional festivals, traditional festivals have changed from form to content and have influenced people's lifestyles. This was evident in the survey sites. First, the opportunities for family communication have been replaced by modern mass media, and traditional cultural education has been reduced in the process; second, with the popularization of modern school education, the influence of traditional concepts on members of the community has been gradually weakened, and people's awareness of and behavior towards cultural inheritance has been gradually weakened; the above changes in perceptions have been reflected in actual actions, which is the declining of the traditional part of the festival customs. The interplay between perceptions and actual behaviors has led to the gradual loss of the core elements of traditional culture, such as the importance of family structure and order, the spirit of upward mobility, and the determination to work towards a goal, and so on, in a cyclical manner. Of course, while emphasizing the external stimuli (e.g., economic and social development, especially the development of modern transportation, the popularization of mass media, and the spread of standardized education, etc.) that caused the change in festival culture, this paper also acknowledges the internal development of culture that led to the change, as well as the process of the operation of internal mechanisms of integration and adaptation of cultural change.

Traditional culture may become a resistance to modernization or a driving force for modernization, depending on the attitude of the members of the society towards both. The national spirit contained in traditional culture, the sense of social identity it evokes, and the cohesive effect it has on society as a whole, the core of culture, which has long provided the impetus for social stability and development, also need to be guided in the process of modernization in order to play its role. When societies are in transition, people's lifestyles need to be reinterpreted and transformed in order to adapt to material, institutional and cultural developments. Recognizing the changes in the economic base, political system, and cultural patterns of society, and scientifically guiding people's lifestyles so that the whole social system develops in a balanced way are precisely what researchers need to think about again and again in the face of cultural change.