China's traditional cultural thoughts reflected in the folk customs of the Spring Festival

According to The Times, after the noisy Christmas Eve, the city was cleaned by cleaners and restored to its former cleanliness. However, thinking of the "madness" of Christmas and the "indifference" of the Spring Festival, some scholars have started their worrying actions-even some domestic scholars have issued a declaration to defend the Spring Festival!

"Chinese New Year is a wonderful memory. Is this memory fading away? Will we still celebrate the New Year? " Recently, Professor Gao Youpeng, a folklorist in Henan Province, raised questions in his Declaration on Defending the Spring Festival.

Pessimism and optimism, the contrast of two attitudes

On the evening of June 5438+February 65438+March 2005, Gao Youpeng gave a speech entitled "Declaration on Defending the Spring Festival" at Henan University. He believes that the Spring Festival, as a representative of China's traditional culture and an important "intangible heritage" of national culture, should be protected under the cultural background of globalization.

Professor Gao first expounded that all nationalities in the world are saving their own culture. For example, Koreans took the lead in applying for the World Cultural Heritage of the Dragon Boat Festival this year, which caused a great shock to China and exposed the embarrassment of protecting the traditional cultural heritage of China.

Professor Gao said that "Year" is our nation's commemoration of the bumper harvest and a special symbol of our national emotion and life. As a symbol of hope, the Spring Festival is the best opportunity to rectify the mood for a year, which should lead to a special understanding of 2008 and the Spring Festival for a better future.

"Chinese New Year is a special commemoration of human emotional memory. However,' If you want to destroy the country, destroy its history first', in the face of the prevalence of the west wind and the increasing penetration of western culture, we must establish a sense of national traditional culture, start from now, start from small things, defend the Spring Festival and defend the traditional cultural heritage. " Professor Gao said that to defend the Spring Festival is not to return to the previous special days, but to consciously safeguard the dignity of national culture.

However, this report on "Defending the Declaration of the Spring Festival" doesn't seem to cause much disturbance. According to the Henan media colleagues present, there were only a hundred people in the lecture hall at that time. The photographer of a TV station who heard the news had to signal several students to sit in the empty chairs behind the speaker to fill the lighting background for the sake of shooting effect.

Contrary to Professor Gao's anxiety, in early 2005, the Assistant Minister of Culture of China said in an interview with Looking at the East that the Spring Festival was about to become an international festival.

Ding Wei and his colleagues have been thinking about how to develop the Spring Festival into a festival that transcends national boundaries. Ding Wei believes that there is a certain foundation for the development of the Spring Festival into an international festival.

He believes that economic globalization has promoted cultural diversity and pluralism. The Spring Festival is a festival with strong national color in China, which condenses the rich connotation of thousands of years of civilization in China and attracts foreigners with its unique charm.

In addition, the Spring Festival, as a traditional cultural custom, does not have any political color, which reflects people's expectation for spring, good wishes for life, love for family and cherish friendship. It is the return of human nature, embodies humanistic thought, and is easily accepted and appreciated by people with different cultural backgrounds.

The prosperity of traditional festivals is related to national self-confidence

It's too late to get excited about Ding Wei's grand vision, because after witnessing the madness of "Chinese Silent Night", everything in front of us seems to make us more inclined to Gao Youpeng's pessimism. The Spring Festival, the most important festival of the Chinese nation, is indeed increasingly marginalized.

The most criticized is the lack of "flavor of the year", followed by "festival economy theory". For example, Feng Jicai once expressed his own views on this: holidays are different from festivals. Holidays are a kind of civic welfare, which has no cultural connotation. You can live as you like. But festivals are meaningful and have cultural connotations. So when it comes to the economy, we can't treat the Spring Festival with the most "China characteristics" as a slave to the economy. We should "celebrate" the New Year from the perspective of cultural connotation and national spirit, and preserve the cultural flavor.

Also, "Our holiday props are too few, and the symbols are too abstract"-although there may be many cultural connotations, because there are no props symbols, it gradually loses the memory of the public.

The above views are naturally reasonable. However, the main reason may not be here. For example, aren't the "props" and "symbols" of the Dragon Boat Festival obvious enough? The "flavor of the year" is more "the venting of a string of firecrackers"; As for the economy, it seems that it cannot be the reason for the decline of the Spring Festival.

Professor Bian Zhaoming from the History Department of Southwest University was unwilling to judge this easily when interviewed by this reporter. But he believes that this is related to the national mentality and economic status.

At the same time, he also cautiously believes that the Spring Festival will not fall to the point where it needs protection; However, it is unlikely that the Spring Festival will become an international festival and form a "strong cultural festival" that attracts worldwide attention.

Professor Bian said that the protection of traditional festivals should be divided into two types: one is passive protection; Extremely closed, completely exclusive. The second is active protection, which is Professor Gao's view.

However, Professor Bian believes that Professor Gao need not be so pessimistic. He believes that "this is a process that we must bear and experience" for the situation of traditional festivals in China in today's globalization context.

"The real big countries are those countries that can radiate to the whole world with their own institutional models and cultural models." This is the view of Xu Jilin, a professor of history at Shanghai Normal University.

Protection or innovation is a question.

In any big city in China, the architecture has been completely westernized. We seldom see buildings with their own national and regional characteristics; Since "The Promise", the film has also been "internationalized"; Now, the traditional "Chinese New Year" and "festivals"-important cultural symbols, traditional customs and etiquette of our nation-have gradually been forgotten or abandoned by Chinese people, and gradually lost its cultural connotation and "spiritual catharsis" function.

"After several collisions between Chinese and Western civilizations and countless choices of self-doubt and abandonment, we suddenly found that a belief, morality, ethics and cultural identity that has been worked hard for thousands of years almost collapsed, and traditional values have been difficult to interfere with our cultural life and even withdraw from our cultural life." Professor Bian said. "Of course, all this can't be the norm. It is a necessary experience that every country in transition cannot circumvent. "

Due to the relatively backward economic development, the traditional folk culture is relatively marginal and easy to dissipate, so it is precious. In a sense, the Spring Festival is the historical memory of the Chinese nation. But for many young people who advocate freedom, relaxation and fashion, this kind of memory is too far away, "unrealistic" and too many manners make the Spring Festival sacred, heavy and unpopular. When China's Spring Festival culture is in such an embarrassing situation, it must mean that many beautiful things are gradually losing.

However, Professor Bian also said that the Spring Festival is not so weak in his view. "Look at the people who go home for the Spring Festival by plane, train and car. It is simply the most powerful scenery in the world. " . So let's just let nature take its course.

In fact, even in the United States, which regards itself as the leader of modern western culture, its people have to admit the special cultural significance of the Spring Festival to the people of China. In his New Year greeting to Chinese Americans, President Bush said: "The Lunar New Year is a special time for gratitude and celebration. Since ancient times, the Lunar New Year has always been a time for family members to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. On the occasion of celebrating the Spring Festival, you are also carrying forward and inheriting your rich cultural traditions to ensure that your family values, beliefs and cherished traditions are passed down from generation to generation. "

When the mayor of Gangneung, South Korea declared the Dragon Boat Festival as a world cultural heritage, he also said: "Just as people have their hometown, culture comes from folk customs; Just as there is affection in hometown, the root of folk diversity must be respected. "

Korea is a good teacher in some ways. They know that "the most regional is the most global". Hopefully, we won't wait until the economy is strong enough to know how to go back and look for the "best things" of those nations, which is what Confucius said. (Time News)