中西方节日文化内涵对比.doc

Comparison on Chinese and Western Festivals and Their Cultural ConnotationsWang leiClass2, Grade 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Foreign Trade and Business College of Chongqing Normal UniversityAbstract：Chinese and Western festivals are two different cultural forms evolved in independent cultural systems, which possess peculiar characteristics and varied significance. With the aggravating global economy integration, cultural exchanges between China and Western countries become broader. The purpose of study on Chinese and Western festival cultures is to carry forward the tradition and forge ahead into the future, namely to uphold the splendid national culture and make full use of the fine essence of western culture, thus promote the splendid culture of Chinese tradition, and provide reference and guidance for the contemporary cultural undertakings.This thesis mainly adopts the research method of combining history and logic. Based on large amounts of materials, this thesis reveals the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western festival cultures by utilizing the methods of comparing, inducing and deducing. It is hoped more and more scholars will notice this field and make research in this field.Keywords: Chinese and Western Festivals; Cultural Connotation; Comparison1 IntroductionFestival is a group activity for human beings, as well as a kind of cultural phenomenon. As an important section of human culture, it manifests a nations cultural characteristics and brilliance deeply and comprehensively. Therefore, it possesses prominent significance on theory and practice research to study on festival and festival culture.In recent years, study on traditional festival cultures is an emphasis for domestic and foreign scholars. Currently, domestic and foreign scholars mainly concentrated on introducing separately the Chinese or Western festival ceremonies and contents. Such as, Du Li (Chinese and Western Festival Customs and Food), Wu Youfu, Zhang Meifang (Western Festivals and Cultural Background), Gao Zhanxiang (On Festival Culture), Guo Zeming, Xu Gaoyu (Colorful Foreign Festivals), Tim Healey(A History of Holidays),etc.Studies on comparison of Chinese and Western traditional festival cultures are seldom at home and abroad. Such as Li Ziyin ( Viewing Chinese and Western Cultural Differences from Traditional Festivals),Zhang Xianbo (Cultural Connotation of Western Festivals and Exchanges of Chinese and Western Cultures), Kou Fuming (Fusion of Chinese and Western Cultures Viewing from Popularity of Western Festivals)etc.Festival culture is collectively created and enjoyed by a nation. The culture reflects the different history and cultural origins of eastern and Western countries. Although Chinese and Western festival cultures belong to two different cultural patterns, they still have common grounds. 2 Similarities between Chinese and Western Festival Cultures2.1 Common Ground on FunctionsAll the festivals and ceremonies have their own purpose and significance, which determines that they all have clear functions and stabile values. As the carrier of national culture, festivals play a positive role in inheriting cultures. Concretely, the cultural connotations behind Chinese and Western festivals mainly are as follows:122.12.1.1 Pursuit and Desire of a Better LifeFor Chinese people, traditional festival means leisure, joy, warmth and happiness. This feeling is reserved in the heart of every person who has experienced traditional festival culture. Generally, fireworks and yangge dance for Spring Festival, dragon dance and land boat for Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat competition for Dragon Boat Festiva are the effective formations of expressing peoples joy and gladness. In addition, regarding festival food and food customs, people use “backing cakes”, “sesame balls”, “longevity noodles” and “peaceful balls” etc. to demonstrate their felicity.For instance, the biggest festival in China-Spring Festival whose theme is about celebration of good harvest, wishes for prosperous, safety future is composed of a series of successive celebration activities. With the coming of Spring Festival, the harvest for the whole year has been stored and people finally can take a rest after a busy year. Choosing this period as new festival for celebration provides people with a good ending for their optimistic identity with real life. Families get reunion on Spring Festival, which has been the ingrained traditional habit for several thousand years to the whole Chinese nation. People will try to return home before Spring Festival Eve to have reunion dinner which is also named as “Spring Festival Eve dinner”, implies harmonious and auspice. In addition, the entertainment shows, such as dragon dance, land boat, for conveying their optimistic passion creates a busy and hopeful atmosphere. In the auspicious atmosphere, people not only express their optimism, but also sense others confidence around while getting together. In Western countries, traditional festivals also manifest the pursuit and desire of a better life. For example, Christmas Day, as Chinese Spring Festival, is the biggest festival in Western countries in a year. Like Chinese people having reunion dinner in Spring Festival Eve, Western people also tend to get reunion with families with sitting under Christmas tree, having festival delicacy, singing Christmas songs and praying for well-being.Besides, the majority of Western festivals manifest Western peoples love to life. For instance, Fiesta de San Fermin of Spain has enjoyed a high prestige in the world due to The Old Man and Sea created by famous writer, Ernest Hemingway. From July 6th to 15th every year, this festival is held in Pamplona, located in north of Spain. The most exhilarating event of Fiesta de San Fermin is bullfight. Although it is full of breath-taking situations, as well as accidents, the fanaticism to bullfight grows year by year. It might be the exhilaration and joy generated from the competition of intelligence and power of the event.Traditional Virtue of Respecting the Elderly and Taking Good Care of the Young.“Filial piety” has a long history in China. In the traditional festivals, people offer sacrifices to their ancestors, give New Year greetings to the seniors and spread lucky money to children.The best embodiment of the virtue of respecting the elderly is Double Ninth Festival, which is particularly for respecting the elderly. Several hundred years ago, many writers or poets climbed mountains, yearned their homes and families to hope for reunion with relatives. In Western festivals, there exist many festivals for respecting the elderly and taking good care of the young, such as Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Babys Day and so on to express respect to parents or the senior and concern for the kids.There is a Maternal Grand Father and Mother Day on the first Sunday after Labor Day of each September. All the seniors, not only grandfather and grandmother will receive greetings from their children and friends.2.1.2 Everlasting LoveLove is one of the eternal subjects for human beings. In China, the Seventh Evening of the Seventh Month Festival is a national traditional festival for love. In ancient China, the number seven is always connected with girls. The original intention of setting up this festival is to memorize the love story of Weaving-Main and Cowherd in China. It is said that Cowherd from the mundane world and Weaving-Maid from heaven loved each other. They separated by the Milky Way at the order of the Queen Mother of the Western Heaven, and were permitted to meet only once a year. Cowherd and WeavingMaid became the stars Altair and Vega. They would meet on the seventh night the seventh lunar month every year, with the magpies making a bridge to help them cross the Milky Way. The beautiful tale has touched the hearts of so many young lovers in China throughout the ages, thus every year on the seventh evening of the seventh month festival, many girls would prey to the Weaving-Maid for her blessing on their needlework and pray to the two stars for love and happiness. In the West, there are varying opinions as to the origin of Valentines Day.It is side Valentine served as a priest at the temple during the region of Emperor Claudius. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for he secretly married couples, contrary to the laws. For memorizing Saint Valentine, people set February 14 as Valentines Day to express their love to the beloved. 2.1.3 Veneration of Historical HeroesSome festivals in China are held in honor of historical heroes. For instance, the Dragon Boat Festival is held for memorizing the grand poet Qu Yuan for his patriotism. At the end of Zhou Dynasty, China fell into a state of fragmentation and conflict. Qu Yuan served as minister to Zhou Emperor. As a wise and articulate man, he was loved by common people. But some officials detested him. When he urged the Emperor to avoid conflict with the Qin Kingdom, the officials pressured the Emperor to have him removed from service. In exile, he traveled, taught and wrote for several years. Hearing that Zhou had been defeated by Qin, he fell into despair and threw himself into the Miluo River.In Western countries, Christmas Day, World Animals Day, Cameos Day and so on are established in honor of historical heroes. The most significant festival of memorizing heroes is Christmas Day, which is for Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for human beings sins. “Christmas”-meaning” celebration of Christ”-honors the time when Jesus was born to a young Jewish woman Mary. Mary gave birth to a son, and the son is Jesus Christ, to save his people from their sins.2.2 Common Ground on FeaturesBoth of Chinese and Western festivals posses the following features: comprehensiveness and variability.2.2.1 Comprehensiveness In Chinese traditional festivals, bigger festivals such as Dragon Boat Festival and Mid Autumn Festival have the common grounds on comprehensiveness. Spring Festival and Mid Autumn Day originate from natural climate and phenomena of a season. During the long course of development, the folk cultural activities become abundant, with significance of farm work, sacrifices to ancestors and gods, and entertainment. Finally, they gradually turn into comprehensive festivals. Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. During its development, many comprehensive customs are formed and fixed, such as having Laba porridge, spending Little Year, cleaning the house, pasting New Year scrolls, sending greetings to relatives and so on. The comprehensive festivals in West are Christmas, Easter, and Halloween etc. The main customs of Christmas include decorating Christmas tree, singing Christmas songs, buying Christmas gifts and having Christmas dinner and so on. Everything of Easter is connected with spring and rebirth. Therefore, eggs, chicken and flowers are popular as gifts on Easter Day. It is said that eggs could be hatched to chicken, so they are used for celebration of arrival of new life. The customs of Halloween Day are disguising personages or ghost, begging for candies, making pumpkin lanterns and so on.2.2.2 Variability Variability is one of the main characteristics of Chinese festivals. For example, the significance of doing fireworks and pasting scrolls change from getting rid of evils to auspicious celebrations. Before Tang Dynasty, Hanshi Day is different from Tomb-sweeping Day. The former is for mourning the missed people; the latter is for protecting the new life. During the domination of Tang Xuanzong, the royal government had fixed the sweeping tomb custom for Hanshi Day, not Tomb-sweeping Day. However, because the date of two festivals is close to each other, Hanshi Day and Tomb-sweeping Day became one festival gradually. The custom of sweeping tomb is postponed to Tomb-sweeping Day. After Qing and Ming Dynasties Hanshi Day basically disappeared. In America, Halloween Festival is very popular. Before A.D., it was popular in Britain, Ireland and France, of which the purpose is mourning the missed people, but now it is a carnival night of the young and the children. 3 External Differences between Traditional Chinese and Western Festival Cultures Chinese and Western festival cultures, although there are a lot of similarities,many differences exist because of different natural environments.33.1 Different PeriodicityBoth of traditional Chinese and Western festivals have periodical characteristic, but precisely in the periodicity, they formed significant differences.3.1.1 China: Lunar Calendar as Periodical UnitChinese traditional festivals are gradually formed since Xia, Shang and Zhou. They are basically shaped in Han Dynasty. Subsequently they continue to be enriched and developed. Since the ancient time, China has been using lunar calendar (also known as Xia calendar). Lunar calendar is compatible with the Chinese agricultural society. It is built on the basis of long-term astronomical observation. It connects changes of celestial phenomena with farming activities organically. The features of lunar calendar include: focusing on phase changes of moon, as well as summer and wither solar terms. The lengths of one year and one month are created on the basis of celestial phenomena. 3.1.2 West: Solar Calendar as Periodical UnitAlthough the festival culture has began to appear before the Christian culture generated in Western world, its real popularity is with the invincible and thriving Christianity. The Christian calendar has gone through many changes, but its calendar is solar calendar all the time. Solar calendar adopts solar year as unit. Roman person Julius Caesar created the Julian calendar in A.D. 46. Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar in 1582, which is known as the Gregorian calendar. Eastern Orthodoxy applies Julian calendar; Catholicism and Protestantism apply Gregorian calendar. Therefore, the period of Western festival cultures is based on the Solar calendar. 3.2 Different InfluencesAs we all know, Chinese culture is the only remaining culture in the world not be interrupted for several thousand years. Therefore, traditional Chinese festivals and culture has a long history. Except the eternal forms of a few of festivals are disappearing, the vast majority of their essence are reserved. Till today, it still maintains a strong vitality. Whereas, the influential scope of Western festival culture differs from that of Chinese festival culture. In the West, except Christmas Day, New Years Day, Easter Day, Valentines Day have greater influence, the other festival activities are limited into a region or a country. The differences are listed as follows:Occurrence Time and Influential Region of Chinese and Western Traditional FestivalsName of the FestivalsOccurrence Time Influential Region(Chinese) Spring FestivalBegan from Xia, Shang and Zhou, about 3000 years agoChina and Southeast Asia, Japan etc.(Western) Christmas DayBegan in 336 A.D., about 1600 years agoWestern countries(Chinese) Dragon Boat FestivalBegan from Han Dynasty, about 2000 years agoChina, Japan etc.(Western) Boat Festival Began in 1315Venice, Italy(Chinese) Seventh Evening of the Seventh Month FestivalBegan in the end of Warring States Period, about 2000 years agoChina, Japan etc.(Chinese) Double Ninth FestivalBegan from Zhou DynastyChina, Japan etc.(Western)Festival of Climbing City WallBegan in 1602 A.D.Switzerland3.3 Different Types of FestivalViewing from the festival types, Chinese Festivals are more comprehensive than Western festivals.Chinese traditional festival culture has a long history. Therefore, it is affected deeply by the festival cultural variability. Many festivals have evolved into a comprehensive festival from a single festival. For instance, Tomb-sweeping Day has been developed to a comprehensive festival from originally single farming festival after integration with the customs of Hanshi Day, such as offering sacrifice to ancestry, sweeping tomb and outdoor trip etc. The Spring Festival, Mid Autumn Festival and Winter Solstice are also with strong comprehensiveness. Naturally, Chinese festivals like Lantern Festival, and Ghost Festival are festivals with single purpose and nature, but most of them are comprehensive festivals.Western festivals like Christmas Day, Easter Day are significantly comprehensive, but relatively, festivals with single nature are much more. Such as Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Valentines Day, Boat Festival, Music Festival, Onion Festival, Babys Day etc.Types of Chinese and Western Festivals ChinaWestSpring FestivalComprehensiveChristmas DaycomprehensiveLantern FestivalSingleCarnivalsingleMan Creation DaySingleEaster DAYcomprehensiveDragon Boat FestivalComprehensiveBoat FestivalsingleLaba FestivalComprehensiveBeer FestivalsingleLittle Year FestivalComprehensiveBabys Daysingle4 The Connotative Differences between Traditional Chinese and Western FestivalsHoliday is a very complex social and cultural phenomenon, including national character, mentality, belief, thinking pattern, morality and values which are historically accumulated and deeply embedded into the bottom of a nations culture. They are born of a notions spirit for a long period of history and thus become one of its primary carriers. They are the most outstanding and spectacular manifestation of a nations living condition. Therefore, there are profound differences between traditional Western and Chinese festivals.4.1 Different Cultural Backgrounds for Traditional FestivalsOwing to different national circumstances, the origins and development of traditional festivals vary from country to country. Traditional Chinese festivals originate from cli