What is the symbolism of the Mid-Autumn Festival?

The demand to elevate the three major traditional Chinese festivals to national holidays and to designate the birth day of Confucius, a symbol of traditional Chinese culture, as Teachers' Day obviously cannot be viewed simply as a reflection of the traditional complex in the world of contemporary Chinese people's minds. The return of tradition is not a question of whether it is possible or not, but an objective and natural process of social history.

The weather in Beijing has cooled down a bit after the summer. In the wind, which has become warm, it seems as if the fragrance of osmanthus flowers has been wafted. And in the street, see the business ads, the sky has been covered with information about the Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming again every year.

It goes without saying that for the Chinese, the Mid-Autumn Festival is still an indispensable part of the spiritual world. Unfortunately, every year on this day, people can not stop working, still have to go to work as usual, which makes the festival celebrations, can only be cohesive to the evening return to the short moment. This can not be said to be a great pity, so that people can not be in this day, quietly and completely with the family, together with the family to feel the warmth and friends of the cordial.

Why can't we change it so that the Mid-Autumn Festival really becomes a day of reunion? Several years ago, there have been initiatives to make the Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Qingming Festival, three traditional Chinese holidays, a national holiday. This call, in recent years has not been interrupted, and in the form, is no longer limited to discussions on the network, but into the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference members of the motion proposal, on the national political platform.

The festival seems to be better than traditional. Even Teachers' Day, for which there has been a lot of brainstorming in recent years, feels that it actually could and should be connected to China's own traditions.

During the past Teachers' Day on Sept. 10, many scholars called for Sept. 28, the date of Confucius' birth, to be designated as Teachers' Day, as they did this time last year.

The demand to elevate the three major traditional Chinese festivals to national holidays and to designate the birth date of Confucius, a symbol of traditional Chinese culture, as Teachers' Day can obviously not be viewed simply as a reflection of the traditional complex in the world of the contemporary Chinese people's minds. Why is it that at the beginning of the 21st century, when there are people advocating the reading of ancient scriptures, schools teaching children ancient rites, and some places quarreling over the birthplaces of some famous historical figures, it is not just a matter of two or three years that these phenomena occur. And these phenomena, not two or three, but a trend.

Renewed respect for tradition reveals the fact that, as the American scholar Huntington said, a country's sense of cultural indigenization is bound to be renewed after economic growth. Soft culture complements and feeds into hard economic, military and political capabilities. The return of tradition is not a question of what can or cannot be done, but an objective and natural process of social history.

There is, therefore, no point in opposing the "traditionalization" of China. Cultural tradition is the collective choice of a country and a nation for its own life form, and it cannot be changed just because it wants to. The reappearance and recreation of "traditional China" has a strong social psychological inertia, and is the result of the awakening of the Chinese people's subjective consciousness, which will not recede into the background just because some people are against it. Similarly, if the time has not yet come, not because some people agree and advocate, "tradition" will come in response.

So, does "tradition" mean just Confucius and Mencius, just bowing and scraping, just chasing after the past? In the minds of some radical traditionalists, tradition seems to be these things, only "Chinese" is "traditional". And such a "China", of course, cannot be "modern China", but only the "traditional China" before 1840.

Between 1840 and today, many things that are different from the "non-China" before 1840, such as scientific beliefs, the spirit of democracy and the logic of the market, are not "Chinese" and not "traditional"? tradition"? Scholar Gan Yang gives a negative answer to this question: many ideas and practices from 1840 to the present actually constitute part of the "Chinese tradition", are the enrichment and development of the "Chinese tradition", and are also implanted in the "Chinese culture". It is the enrichment and development of the "Chinese tradition", which is also implanted in the body of the "Chinese culture".

Without respecting this history and its choices, there is no respect for "China" and "tradition".

There should be two minimum cultural identities in the spiritual world of contemporary Chinese: a minimum identity with China's own history and culture over the past thousand years, and a minimum identity with the foreign cultures that have been embraced over the past hundred years. There is nothing purely "foreign" and there is nothing purely "Chinese". On the basis of these two minimum identities, free cultural choice and creation is the natural way for the revival of Chinese civilization.

Advocating something does not necessarily presuppose rejecting something.

Building a wall of separation against something outside "China" reflects a closed mind and a lack of cultural confidence. A strong and confident civilization dares to establish its own subjectivity while openly accepting and digesting the other. In this regard, some Chinese sages in recent times have set a good example. Mr. Liang Shuming, a traditionalist, in an interview with the American scholar Aikai, said that Confucianism is very good, Buddhism is very good, Christianity is very good, and Islam is also very good, which surprised the visitor and made him feel the greatness of Chinese culture.

Just as politics requires checks and balances, culture is enriched and developed through the checks and balances of different values.

Basically, as the British cultural theorist Arnold said, a healthy civilization has to strike a balance between the spirit of secular rationality and the spirit of religious faith, that is, between the Greek spirit and the Hebrew spirit. The current revival of Chinese civilization can be understood as the restoration of the traditional spirit of faith in China. However, in terms of China's own tradition, the spirit of science and rationality, similar to that of the West, is still very weak. Therefore, today China has to vigorously revitalize its inherent traditions on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has to prevent the excesses of "tradition" and the formation of the dictatorship of tradition.