The significance of celebrating the Spring Festival

The significance of celebrating the Spring Festival

Do you know the significance of celebrating the Spring Festival? During the Spring Festival, China holds an annual major festival, and travelers who are far away from home will go back to their hometown to reunite with their families. I collected and sorted out the information about the significance of the Chinese New Year to everyone. Let's take a look at the significance of the Spring Festival to China people.

The significance of celebrating the Spring Festival 1 The Spring Festival, that is, the Lunar New Year, is the beginning of a year and a traditional festival. Commonly known as Spring Festival, New Year, New Year's Eve, etc. Verbally, it is also called Chinese New Year and Chinese New Year. The Spring Festival has a long history, which evolved from praying for the New Year at the beginning of the year in ancient times.

Everything is based on the sky, and people are based on their ancestors. It is also the opposite to pray for the ancestors who worship the sky. The origin of the Spring Festival contains profound cultural connotations, and it carries rich historical and cultural connotations in its inheritance and development.

During the Spring Festival, various activities will be held all over the country to celebrate the Spring Festival, which has strong regional characteristics. These activities are rich and colorful, which have condensed the essence of China traditional culture, mainly to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, exorcise evil spirits and disturb disasters, offer sacrifices to gods and ancestors, and pray for the New Year.

In the early era of observing the image and time, "bucket handle returns to Yin" was regarded as spring (the beginning of a year), and beginning of spring means the beginning of everything and the rebirth of everything, which means the beginning of a new cycle.

In the traditional farming society, beginning of spring, the first year of the year, is of great significance, and a large number of festivals and customs related to it have been derived. In the historical development, although the calendar is different and the date of the first festival is different, its festival framework and many folk customs have been passed down.

In modern times, people set the Spring Festival on the first day of the first lunar month, but generally it doesn't end until at least the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The Spring Festival is a folk festival that combines offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, praying for evil spirits, family reunion, celebration, entertainment and food.

Headed by the centennial festival, the Spring Festival is the most solemn traditional festival of the Chinese nation. Influenced by China culture, some countries and regions in the world also have the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival.

According to incomplete statistics, nearly 20 countries and regions have designated the Spring Festival in China as a legal holiday in all or part of the cities under their jurisdiction. Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival are also called the four traditional festivals in China. The folk custom of Spring Festival was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

Spring Festival is the most important festival with the most cultural connotation in China, and it is also an important internal driving force to promote industrial economy and domestic consumption. With the rapid growth of the national economy and the continuous improvement of the disposable personal income of residents, the consumption of Spring Festival has also developed from the traditional purchase of new year's goods to holiday products and services with the characteristics of the times, such as new year's goods works, product technology, leisure and entertainment.

During the Spring Festival, the large-scale flow of people, goods, information and art promoted the overall prosperity of culture, commerce, transportation, tourism, telecommunications, finance and catering, and formed a unique "Spring Festival economy".

Chinese New Year is a concentrated expression of people's annual consumption. With the emergence of new consumption concepts, the Spring Festival is not only a "New Year" in the traditional sense, but also a "shutter" that drives the market economy. People began to turn from the traditional festival busyness to a new celebration trend.

The "Spring Festival Economy" has injected new vitality into the lives of ordinary people. Although it is impossible for everyone to wait until the New Year to put on new clothes and enjoy delicious food, it is still an eternal holiday tradition of the Chinese nation to buy new year's goods, honor the elders and care for the younger generation.

The significance of celebrating the Spring Festival. First, refine and carry forward the modern cultural connotation of traditional customs.

There is no contradiction between the modernity of festival cultural connotation and the reasonable existence of some traditional customs. On the one hand, some ancient customs with characteristics have the significance of display and commemoration in modern society itself; On the other hand, these old customs will be reborn.

The original meaning of the Chinese New Year is to sacrifice to the gods and practice witchcraft at the turn of the New Year. This custom and connotation will inevitably decline gradually in modern times, while a few related customs have become a means to create a grand, festive and peaceful holiday atmosphere and a way for people to express their ideal of a stable and prosperous life. For example, setting off firecrackers, which was originally a ceremony to enlighten the spirit or exorcise evil spirits, has now become a way to celebrate. Other festivals and customs, such as posting couplets, observing the new year, welcoming the new year and suppressing the new year, can also be similarly explained.

It can be said that the Spring Festival has adapted to the evolution of modern society to a certain extent, resulting in new folk customs that modern people like, such as watching the Spring Festival Evening on New Year's Eve, and residents setting off more ornamental fireworks instead of paying attention to sound firecrackers. The evolution of New Year greetings is more representative. The traditional way to pay New Year's greetings is to visit relatives and bow down. At present, only a few rural areas still have the etiquette of bowing down to pay New Year greetings, and most areas have changed from visiting their homes to paying New Year greetings by telephone and text messages.

The large-scale Spring Festival temple fairs held in some cities are successful examples of the combination of traditional customs and modern life. In recent years, every Spring Festival in Beijing, temple fairs are held in Ditan, longtan lake, Baiyunguan, Liulichang and other public places, which are very popular with the masses. There are crowds of people at the temple fair almost every day. In the past, temple fairs were large gatherings developed on the basis of offering sacrifices to God and praying for blessings. At present, temple fairs mainly focus on entertainment, entertainment and trade, and there are few sacrificial activities. Sacrificial ceremonies in temple fairs such as Ditan and Tiantan are only performances, but there are no sacrificial activities in temple fairs such as Liulichang and Millennium Monument. Of course, due to the social and environmental factors in these years, the Spring Festival has not completed the modern transformation well, and its modernity still needs to be strengthened.

Second, develop and publicize Spring Festival memorials to create a romantic and vivid holiday atmosphere.

Holiday souvenirs, or holiday symbols, refer to things that can represent holiday characteristics, such as jiaozi, firecrackers, lanterns, couplets, Laba porridge, Kitchen God, zodiac animals and so on.

Festival memorial hall has three functions in the construction of traditional festival modernity:

Maintain people's holiday feelings and enrich people's holiday activities. Traditional festivals have been passed down for thousands of years and accumulated relatively stable national feelings in the hearts of ethnic members. This is manifested in the fact that during festivals, if individual members don't abide by some traditional customs, such as not being able to reunite with their families on New Year's Eve, they will feel emotionally lost and feel that their life on New Year's Day is not perfect. However, this kind of festival emotion is not unconditionally passed down from generation to generation, and it needs to be passed down with the help of specific ceremonies and activities in the festival.

In traditional society, people's specific ceremonies or activities in festivals are often driven by related beliefs or maintained by certain cultural needs. However, in modern society, there are few cultural needs that are compatible with agricultural civilization, so many festival ceremonies and festivals are difficult to inherit, which makes festivals show a state of reduced festivals and customs.

In this case, the use of holiday memorials becomes very important for maintaining holiday traditions. In traditional society, these holiday memorials are just tools for holiday activities, but in modern society, they often become the axis and driving force of holiday activities. This is because these festival memorials condense the spirit of national culture and become the sustenance of people's holiday feelings and an important carrier of holiday characteristics; These holiday memorials are also used from generation to generation, and the behavior patterns around these memorials have become the main content of holiday activities.

Create a strong festive atmosphere. Festivals are an unusual moment for people, and people have festive atmosphere and activities. In traditional society or rural areas where many traditional customs are preserved, people's sense of solemnity or sacredness in festivals is generally brought by sacrificial ceremonies. For example, in the countryside of Jingxian County, Hebei Province, before the New Year's Eve dinner, all men will go to the graveyard to invite their ancestors home to eat jiaozi for the New Year. After the ceremony of inviting the gods is completed, the ancestors are invited home. At this time, people realize the existence of God at home, and the atmosphere at home becomes extremely solemn, and they are very cautious in speaking and doing things. For example, when cooking jiaozi, adults will tell children not to say unlucky things like "broken" and "not enough", but to say lucky things like "earned" and "left over".

In modern society, in cities and many rural areas, folk beliefs have faded, and there are no sacrificial ceremonies on major festivals. If other festivals are not used to make up for the lack of ceremonies, festivals will often become deserted. In this case, holiday memorials come in handy. It is an important way to create a festive atmosphere, especially the main way to create an externally visible festive atmosphere. Therefore, in modern society, our "unusual" feeling of holiday time comes from the significance of those specific days in our memory, mainly from the rendering of the environment by these holiday monuments and the custom activities of using them.

The smooth inheritance of traditional festivals in modern society depends on the promotion of holiday commemorative consumer market. In the traditional period, holiday activities were mainly carried out within the family, with few public activities, and holiday supplies were mainly made by themselves. In modern society, family activities are reduced, holiday products are mainly purchased from the market, and the sociality and publicity of holiday methods are enhanced. The public activities and cultural consumption of festivals depend on the operation and promotion of businesses to a great extent, and the related consumption of holiday souvenirs is the main way and goal of business operation. Businessmen play an important role in promoting the inheritance of modern festivals.

In recent years, with the rise of foreign festivals in China, the promotion of merchants has played an important role. Even the hype of merchants can change the theme of the festival and produce a brand-new festival. For example, there is no Santa Claus in Christmas in the west, but later, due to the role of businessmen, Christmas has almost become a holiday around Santa Claus. At present, we do not fully use memorial halls when celebrating traditional festivals, but in terms of quantity, quality and scale of use, it is still insufficient. In the grand Spring Festival, more commemorative items are used, which to a great extent plays a role in creating a lively and festive holiday atmosphere. Its disadvantage is that it is old-fashioned and lacks modern flavor.

Third, strengthen and expand the entertainment and publicity of traditional folk customs.

Most of our traditional festivals had rich and interesting customs and activities before and after the Tang and Song Dynasties, but after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, influenced by Confucian culture and Neo-Confucianism, they paid too much attention to etiquette and enlightenment, and in modern times they became more monotonous, and there were too few outdoor entertainment festivals.

Among the traditional festivals in China, Lantern Festival is the most entertaining and the most public activity. Now the Lantern Festival is regarded as a part of the Spring Festival, the end and climax of the Spring Festival. In ancient times, the core of the cultural connotation of Lantern Festival was to offer sacrifices to Taiyi God (Polaris God) and pray for a bumper harvest and future generations.

In contemporary society, the custom of offering sacrifices to stars, praying for the New Year and praying for children has declined, and the spirit of its custom of saving the world can be summed up as cherishing and loving life and expressing people's wishes for prosperity and reunion. The prosperous Lantern Festival in the old society can be regarded as the carnival in China. All kinds of large-scale celebrations and entertainment activities are full of the carnival spirit of the people, so it is called "Lantern Festival". The festival activities of Lantern Festival focus on almost all large-scale traditional entertainment and celebration methods: decorating lanterns, beating gongs and drums, dancing dragons and lions, yangko, singing operas, guessing games and so on. Lantern Festival Lantern Festival, singing opera, yangko, dragon and lion dances are all mass public activities held in the community. Good and orderly public celebrations can enhance people's public awareness, community identity and collective honor, and help to create a harmonious atmosphere in the community.

Although the evolution and transformation of traditional festivals mainly depend on their own mechanism and vitality, and on people's natural inheritance and independent choice, historical experience at home and abroad shows that the problem is not that simple, and external intervention can also play a great role in the rise and fall of festivals. The weakness of traditional festivals at present is largely the result of external intervention in the past. Now it is necessary to use traditional festivals to promote excellent national culture, which is advocated by government public opinion and give traditional festivals more holidays. This is a powerful policy intervention. Of course, there should be more systematic and complete measures for external intervention. Generally speaking, it is necessary to enhance the position of traditional culture in modern mainstream culture, enhance people's cultural consciousness, and gradually eliminate the complex of worshipping foreign things and obsessing foreign things. Only in this way can we fundamentally create a humanistic environment conducive to the prosperity of traditional festivals, and it is also the basis and motivation for its modernity to breed and grow.