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外语08.1 文晗力 20080541124 Cultural differences between Spring Festival and ChristmasIntroduction: In China, the most important festival is Spring Festival, also known as New Year Day while Christmas is the chief festival in western countries. Spring Festival and Christmas are both popular festivals around the world. People celebrate them in various ways. They are festivals full of laughter and happiness. There are many comments on Spring Festival and Christmas. However, many of them are about the similarities between the two festivals, such as Yan Bins Traditional festivals in China and Ren Zhongfas The origin of Christmas tree. They mainly talk about that both Spring Festival and Christmas are celebrated for new year, both are well-prepared before celebration, to create a joyous atmosphere, both offer a family reunion with a big feast, both satisfy the children with new clothes, beautiful presents and delicious food. Actually, despite these similarities, there are still some differences between them. In Su Yans paper Comparison of Spring Festival and Christmas, we can get some of the differences, such as different date, different ways of celebration and so on. Besides, I think they have different origins and cultural connotations. I think a good understanding of the differences is necessary. Because festival can represent culture, knowing the differences will help us understand why they are different and what are the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. Discussing the differences is not the only purpose in this essay; the real purpose is that since Spring Festival and Christmas are so different, what attitude should be towards Spring Festival and how we should treat our traditional culture? We know that Christmas is more and more popular in China; people tend to celebrate foreign festival instead of our traditional festival. They think it is uninteresting to celebrate these traditional festivals. Spring Festival is not an option, it must be done. 1 We can not forget our traditional festivals on which our culture is based. Whats more, it is our duty to have a correct attitude toward s traditional culture and foreign culture. We should spare no efforts to protect our traditional culture and make it last long. That is quite important.I The origin of two festivalsA The origin of Spring FestivalChinese New Year, usually called Chinese Lunar New Year is now popularly known as Spring Festival because it starts from the beginning of Spring(the first of the twenty-four terms in coordination with the changes of nature).Moreover, Spring Festival is the literal translation of the Chinese name “Chun Jie”. The date of this annual festival is determined by the lunar calendar, it falls on the first day of a lunar year, so the date of the holiday varies from late January to early February. Spring Festival starts with the eve of the lunar New Years Day and ends on the full moon 15days later. The 15th day of the New Year is called the lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade. The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to “catch up” with the solar calendar, the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven days out of a 19-year-cycle).This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. And this is why Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year according to the solar calendar. Chinese New Years Eve is a day for family reunion which is also called Chu Xi or “Eve of the passing year”. The origin of Spring Festival is too ancient to be traced. Opinions on this matter vary from person to persons.However, most people agree that the Nian, which means “year” in modern Chinese, was originally the name of a man-eating beast, which came out every 12 months somewhere close to winter to prey on humans the might before the beginning of a new year. Having found the Nian was sensitive to loud noises and the color red, people scared it away with explosions with fireworks and the liberal use of the color red. All these had led to the first New Year celebrations. “Traditional Chinese”, which means to celebrate the New Year, literally means the Passover of the Nian.There is a legend going that the beast Nian had big power to swallow a great many people with one big bite. It was so terrible that people were seriously scared. One day, an old man came up and offered to their rescue. He overcame Nian by saying, “I know that you are capable of swallowing people, but can you swallow all the other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents?” As a result, Nian accepted this challenge and did swallow many of the beasts of prey on earth that also bullied people and their domestic animals from time to time. St the end of the legend, the old man disappeared. He turned out to be an immoral god. Consequently, Nian is gone and other beasts of prey on earth are scared into hiding in the forests. It is great that people began to enjoy their happy and peaceful life again. Before living, the old man had told people to put up red-papered decorations on their doors and windows at each years end to scare away Nian in case it would come back, because what Nian feared the most is the color of red.From then on, the traditional of avoiding Nians coming back has been carried on from generation to generation. The term “Guo Nian” which also means “Survive the Nian” has become “celebrate the New Year”. Today because the word “guo” has the meaning of both “pass-over” and “observe” in Chinese. The custom of putting up red paper on windows and doors and the custom of firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian is still around. However, most people today have long forgotten why they are doing all this; they only know that the red color and the sound of fire-crackers can add a lot of excitements to the festival. Whats more, red is a very lucky color in China and firing fire-crackers means something good to happen.B The origin of ChristmasChristmas also called Navidad in Spanish and Weihnachten in Germany, is the time when professing Christians are supposed to focus on Jesus Christ. Unlike Spring Festival, Christmas Day has a fixed date. It is widely known that December 25 is Christmas Day and December 24 is known as Christmas Eve. The origin of Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ as recorded in Bible. According to it, Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, under the help of her husband Joseph it the city of Beth Lethem. The infant Jesus was laid in a manager, and Shepherds from the fields surrounding Bethlehem were told of the birth by an angel, and were the first to see the child. Many Christians believe that the birth of Jesus fulfilled many predictions made hundreds of years before his birth. And for today Christian, the origin of Christmas is still the birth of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more and nothing less. However, most of what we do and what we see on December 25th each year have nothing to do with that bless day, which many occur in late summer or early autumn about 2000 year ago. Actually, most of the customs and traditions of Christmas set the birth of Jesus ahead of time.The date of December 25th may originate with the ancient “birthday” of the Sun-god, Mithra, who had widespread influence in the Roman Empire during the first few centuries AD. Mithra had something to do with the Sun-god, Shamash, and his respect spread throughout Asia to Europe. As we know, Rome was famous for taking in the pagan religious and rituals of its widespread empire. Under this condition, Rome concerted this pagan legacy to a celebration of the god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god during the winter period. The winter holiday began a week prior to December 25th. Variations of this pagan holiday flourished throughout the first few centuries after Jesus Christ but it wasnt until 336 AD that Emperor Constantine officially converted this pagan tradition into the “Christian” holiday of Christmas.In fact, the true origin of Christmas is full of controversy and compromise. A further study will reveal various puzzling roots. In a word, the Christmas today is an indicator of Christianitys willingness to absorb the worlds customs and traditions, and forget its simple roots in the historical reality of Jesus Christ. The festival today is filled with gift-giving, singing Christmas songs, feasting and decorations. Christmas should be nothing more than a simple reminder of Jesus Christ but a time for showing love, respect and excitement. We should grasp every minute to release our passion and excitement for the festival.II The celebrations of the two festivalsA Necessary items of the two festivals1. Spring Festival Couplet and the characteristic “ fu”The Spring Festival Couplet which is generally written in red paper consists of two vertical lines and one horizontal line. And all the lines convey the idea of good luck, constituting a unique form in the Chinese literature. It originated in the peach wood charms against evil (hung on the gate on New Years Eve) in ancient China. A legend has it that long long ago, two brothers named Shen Tu and Yu Lei lived in a stone house. They were two celestial being who were conquerors of-demons and goblins are written down on pieces of peach wood to be hung on the gate to protect a family from evil and disaster. Whats more, it is good to greet the coming of an auspicious year. Later on, people simply drew the images of the two beings on their doors by themselves. With ferocious eyes and sharp weapons, they were able enough to scare away all the evils and monsters. Even today, some pictures of the two gods can still be seen on the doors in old buildings. Moreover, people write couplets on the peach wood to give expression to their best wishes.At beginning time, it was a privilege to put Spring Festival Couplets on the doors for aristocratic families by which to sing praise of their ancestors deeds and show off their wealth. Later Spring Festival Couplets became popular among common people. It had become part of local life since the Song Dynasty.It is by no means easy job to compose a good couplet because it requires strict symmetry in every field: sentence for sentence, noun for noun, verb for verb. Whats more, its would sound poetic and reflect the actual situation of a family. Whatever contents, are marked by auspiciousness, and instructiveness. For example, we can often see this couplet on the doors of a peasants house, “Joyful to see one thousand bushes of Spring flowers, Beaming to drink one cup of wine of a good year”, which well describes the countrysides prosperity and the peasants joy. In short, Spring Festival couplet is filled with good luck and great hope for better life. Today, it has a new meaning: It has become a folk form to prase Social development and peoples better life.Besides Spring Festival, “fu” is another necessary item. It can be put up either in a normal way or upside down. Because in Chinese “reserved fu” means fu comes”, it can bring about luck and happiness.2 Christmas tree and Santa ClausThe modern Christmas tree originated in Germany in the early 19th century, but the tradition of decorating a tree to mark winter celebrations can date back hundreds of years to Roman times, when Romans decorated every green tree with small pieces of metal to celebrate saturnalia. The following demonstrates is what the baby lolouians believe about the origin of the Christmas tree: “An old baby lonish fable told of an every green tree which Spring out of a dead tree stump. The old stump symbolized the dead Nirnrod, the new every green tree symbolized that Nimrod had come to life again in Tanumuz! Among the Druids the oak was sacred, among the Egyptians it was the palm, and in Rome it was the fir, which was decorated with red berries during the saturnalia!” 2 In medieval times, the “Paradise Play” was performed each year on 24 December, which described the creation of Man and the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and always included an every green hung with apples, which represented the apple tree of temptation.It was said that Martin Luther was the first to decorate an indoor tree with candles in the late 16th century. The first mention of decorating trees came in Germany which has a long Christmas tree history. At first the trees were decorated with fruits and sweets. Then later, German Christmas Markets began to sell ornaments, so people can took them home and hang them on the trees. In the 1880s, artificial trees came into being, because people wanted to stop the damages that brought on the real trees. In order to own Christmas trees, a large number of trees had to be cut down, it got so bad in Germany that laws had to be carried out to prevent people having more than one tree. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria made great contributions to introducing the custom of Christmas tree to the British Public in 1841. During the first half of the 20th century, the Christmas tree became popular in Britain. As a result, Christmas trees became bigger and decorated with bells, stars and ribbons.However, there was in ban on cutting down trees because of the Second World War. The large trees were erected in many public places, among which the tree in Trafalgar square is the most famous. It is an annual gift from the Norwegian government to give thanks for the help they received from Britain during the war.Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, is said in western countries to deliver gifts to good children during the time in Christmas Eve. It is generally described as a joyful, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar, red trousers, black leather belt and boots. The image of Santa Claus is very popular in United States. When talking about Christmas, we cannot ignore Santa Claus. B Food of the two festivals1. Traditional Chinese New Year foods As New Year is supposed to be the most important festival among all others, it is always well-prepared before celebration. New Years Eve and New Years Day are considered as a time for family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. So people value it very much and always present on their best and most abundant foods. Before dinner, the celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the house hold and the family ancestors. The departed relatives are remembered with great respect because they are responsible for laying the foundations for the fortune and glory of the family.At New Year Eve, almost every member of the family will sit together around the table to enjoy the big feast. It is not so usual for the whole family to eat together for most people. For many people have to leave home for work. The traditional Chinese New Year food is always including fish, chicken, duck, meat and various vegetables, among which fish is the necessity for it symbolizes a better life. On New Years Day, the people in North China will eat dumplings for breakfast while the people in the south will eat another snack called “Tang Yuan”, which symbolizes family reunion and happy life. Once, people only ate theses on New Years Day, but now they can eat at any time of the ear as long as they want to. Other New Year foods include a whole fish, which represent togetherness and abundance and a chicken for prosperity. And the chicken must be presented with a head, tail and feet to symbolize completeness. Moreover, noodles should be uncut to represent long life. Although all these are a little superstive, Chinese people prefer to believe it. In South China, the most typical and favorite dish is Nian Gao, because it also has good and lucky meanings. While in the north, people prefer to the steamed wheat bread called Man Tou and dumplings.Actually, difference places may have different foods for New Year dinner, no matter what the food is, it can bring people. With happiness and togetherness. The various foods prepared at this time are meant to symbolize abundance and wealth for the house hold.2. Christmas dinner around the world Christmas is always considered to be foreigners New Year. As Christmas is widely celebrated in the world, the Christmas dinner may differ from country to country. But turkey is served as a meal almost in every country.In Australia, Christmas dinner is filled with ham, turkey, chicken, side salads and sometime sea foods. On Christmas Eve, the tree is decorated and lit with real candles, people begin to enjoy their Christmas feast.In Brazil, Christmas meal is really a feast (served on Christmas Eve) including large quantities of food, such as wide variety of dishes which include fresh vegetables and Brazil nuts. Besides, bowls of colorful rice and platters filled with ham and salad are always together with. Other Christmas items include various desserts such as Nuts pie, chocolate cake, and lemon tart and so on.In Denmark, Christmas dinner is also served on Christmas Eve consisting of roast pork, with duck and goose. And the meat is served along with potatoes. Then it is a dessert following which rice pudding is served with cherry sauce or strawberry sauce. It is quite delicious.In the United States, the usual Christmas dinner includes roast turkey, beef, ham, pork, roasted root vegetables and mashed potatoes. Which pumpkin pie, Christmas pudding, fruit cake and apple pie are the common desserts. All these dishes are well-prepared and delicious. It is sure that the meal varies on the tastes of the host but can still be ham, roast beef, and turkey is the main course probably since the American holiday of Thanksgiving in November, around one month earlier.In Germany, Christmas dishes are always roast goose or roast