Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional festivals - English tabloids: Chinese and foreign famous holiday customs

English tabloids: Chinese and foreign famous holiday customs

First, the roots of traditional festivals in China The important traditional festivals in China are mostly related to the calendar system. China National Museum researcher Ms. Li Lulu's new book "China Festival-Illustrated Folk Traditional Festivals" (Fujian People's Publishing House, 65438+2005 10) classifies the statistics of China's more important traditional festivals into 20, of which 16 comes from or is related to the seasonal intersection of the sun and the moon: Spring Festival, beginning of spring, Lantern Festival and Zhonghe Festival (February On the surface, there are a few things that have nothing to do with the times, such as the Dragon Boat Festival, Laba Festival (the eighth day of December), Kitchen Festival (December 23rd) and New Year's Eve Festival. Folk beliefs believe that May is a poisonous month and the fifth day is a poisonous day. There are five poisons, namely snakes, centipedes, scorpions, lizards and toads. This month is full of disasters, even if you give birth to a child, you will die. Therefore, you must take various measures to prevent it. Avoiding the five poisons is the original intention of the Dragon Boat Festival. Laba, cooking stoves and New Year's Eve are all "companion festivals" of the Spring Festival, which are naturally related to the weather. The other four festivals are based on legends, myths and religions, such as the Victory Day of mankind on the seventh day of the first month, the Buddha Washing Festival (Sakyamuni's birthday) on the eighth day of April, the Mid-Yuan Festival (Ghost Festival) on July 15th and the Xiayuan Festival (Shuiguan Emperor's birthday) on October 15th. The origin and even the inheritance and development of traditional festivals in China lie in the Millennium farming civilization, which is supported in three aspects. The China lunar calendar, which serves agricultural production, has designated specific seasonal nodes for it; People in China highly admire the philosophy of "harmony between man and nature". The significance of protecting traditional festival culture "We can't forget the religious tradition and traditional festival culture of the Chinese nation, which also contains many wonderful cultural contents. Its role in improving people's cultural quality, maintaining social morality, enhancing national cohesion, and conducting patriotic education cannot be underestimated. " Li Lulu expressed his understanding of the cultural significance of protecting traditional festivals. Liu emphasized from the perspective of cultural nationality: "Why should a nation have its own traditional festivals? To survive in a certain natural environment, every nation must have its own unique natural perspective, and this unique natural perspective is different from the unique way of adapting to nature (using nature). Just like all of us walk, but everyone walks in a different posture; Everyone speaks with different voices and different vocabulary. And this is a very important nation. " Mr. Song, vice president of the Chinese Folklore Society, talked in more detail: "First, festivals are an important carrier of folk culture. We say morning glory should lead them by the nose. Studying folk culture and grasping festivals can bring out a series of problems such as folk literature, folk myths and legends, which is of great academic research value. Second, festivals are also changing. We should consider how to make full use of this situation, keep the good and eliminate the bad, so as to make it better.