浅谈西方的主要节日对中国传统节日的冲击

论文总字数：29119字

摘 要

随着全球化和中国经济的快速发展，中国与西方国家之间的文化交流日渐广泛。西方节日，主要是圣诞节和情人节，在中国越来越受年轻人的欢迎。中国传统节日受到强烈的冲击，渐渐遭受冷落甚至走向衰落。本课题的目的在于探究西方的主要节日对传统的中国节日造成冲击的原因，如中西方之间的文化交流，中国经济的发展和年轻人的性格特点；外在因素包括当代教育的缺失，媒体的宣传和商家的炒作。最后，希望大家共同努力保护我国的传统节日。

关键词：中国节日；西方节日；冲击；原因

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. The Causes of Major Western Festival’s Shock on Chinese Festivals 3

3.1 The Result of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange under Globalization 3

3.2 Chinese Economic Development 4

3.3 Personalities of Young People 6

3.4 Deficiency of Chinese Contemporary Education 8

3.5 The Publicity of Mass Media 9

3.6 The Speculation of Businessmen 9

4. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

During long history of 5000 years, our intellectual ancestors created lots of festival, including the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Double Seventh Day, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Double Ninth Day. Traditional festival culture is the most universal, significant and richest element in the constitution of national culture. “Festivals are precious culture heritage of different countries.”(Zhu Yan, 2003: 182) Both Chinese and western festivals are a window into their different cultures, including their tradition, belief and value. Chinese festivals consist of three functions: eat, play and union. Since China launched the reform and open-up policy, national economy fast boosts. With more frequent interaction between China and western countries, fresh western culture is introduced into China. Due to the popularization of network, Chinese have greater access to know foreign culture and follow the fashion of celebrating western festivals. According to statistics, the most popular western festivals are Christmas, the Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Easter and April Fool’s Day. Now research shows that Chinese people, especially the college students and young office staffs, are crazy for celebrating these major western festivals. Christmas in western countries is to commemorate the birth of Jesus. It is funny that some people who do not believe in domestic Christ also go to the church to pray. Valentine"s Day marked by Cupid shooting two hearts is also to commemorate a Christian believer. Those who celebrate Christmas or Saint Valentine’s Day actually do not know its origin and cultural connotation. At the advent of big western festivals, businessmen are going crazy. They hype and speculate to compete for market and profits. “Festival, as an important carrier of a national culture, it will inevitably be the main aspect of the Western culture shock.”(Wang Jinyue, 2012: 281) Chinese festivals have been despised and neglected intentionally or unintentionally, though it has a long history and profound cultural connotation. The functions of traditional festivals begin to dilute. The most important is that some Chinese festivals has lost it original meanings and are rarely known to enormous people. It is not realistic to forbid Chinese people to celebrate western festivals in modern society. We cannot leave this situation alone but to solve this urgent problem.

In order to present the causes of major western festivals’ shock on Chinese festivals, I will clarify from following perspectives. It results from the Sino-western cultural exchange under globalization and Chinese economic development. Special attention should be paid to the personalities of young people. Besides, there are several external factors causing western festivals’ popularity in China, such as the deficiency of contemporary, the publicity of mass media and the speculation of businessmen. I hope by studying this topic we can understand the importance of preserving our national festivals. When adoring Western festival, we should have the ability of selecting the superiority and eliminating the inferiority.

2. Literature Review

Many researchers have already showed their opinions on the phenomenon of Western festival’s shock on Chinese festival. They find the popularity of Western festivals relates closely to the economic boost. For instance, Li Junhu wrote Parrot-learned Festivals, setting forth that the preachers who preached in China hundreds years ago brought Western festivals into China. He reckons economic globalization as the efficient amusement of cross-cultural communication. The author further points out that despite the shock of Western festival, we do not have to be panic towards the shock of Western festival culture. Traditional Chinese culture is able to maintain. Western Festivals’ Influence on Chinese Young Students’ Value under the Background of Globalization written by Yan Yumei, asks us to reflect on the Chinese education to the young under the background of globalization. Li Lang in his article A Investigation on the Western Festivals Influence on University Students mainly analyses Western festival’s impact on university students’ consumption value and their concept to traditional Chinese festivals.

Generally speaking, some article just emphasizes one Western culture to analyze; some article only clarifies on one perspective such as the influence on reasons. Therefore, this thesis is aiming at fulfilling such deficiencies and trying to conduct a comprehensive study on this chosen topic. In the end, I introduce several measures to in order to raise people’s awareness of preserving our national festivals.

3. The Causes of Major Western Festival’s Shock on Chinese Festivals

3.1 The Result of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange under Globalization

Strictly speaking, globalization is a process referred to the development and tendency of contemporary global economic globalization. However, the economic globalization is not isolated since it has a strong effect in the field of culture. The integration of global economy is a significant foundation for the rapid spread of public culture. It is also an important factor for the popularity of western festival in our society and in our life. It can be said that the integration of global economy generates all-round influence on global culture.

Chinese festivals and western festivals derived from different natural environment and cultural background. People in the west focus on human culture and nature, and highly interested in exploring the value of individual rights, and pursuing liberalism. People are encouraged to express their inner feelings freely. In the contrast, Chinese advocates humanism. It respects people but do not care about the importance of personal value and individual free development. It emerges individualism into collectivism. These differences reflect differences in characteristics of the east and the west. Chinese are usually introvert and hardly express their emotional problems, while the Western people are bold and care more about the form of simplicity and romance.

There are obvious differences but also a lot of natural similarities. Specifically, the cultural connotation inherited by Chinese and western festivals mainly reflect in two aspects. First of all, it is year and love of beautiful life. In Christmas, people say Merry Christmas to each other; while the Spring Festival approaches in China, people say May You Be Happy and Prosperous. Different words contain the same meaning and wish. The second is respect the elder and love the young, respect the historical figures and civilization of love. In China, we have Double Ninth Day when Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are celebrated in the West; people in the West establish Saint Valentine’s Day for pursuing loyal love while Chinese create the Double Seventh Day for the reunion of Niulang and Zhinv. Because of these natural similarities, cultural exchanges become more and more frequent between China and western countries. That they influence mutually provides a solid foundation and reliable premise.

The effect of cultural globalization has two sides: on one hand, in the process of global economic communication, disparate culture along with the economic exchanges, continuously integrates into the new culture. The cultural exchanges and integration of heterogeneity, representing the acceptance of foreign culture, is essential for any country in the comprehensive innovation of tradition. On the other hand, when cultural exchanges and communication bring about economic globalization, the result is often shows that a stronger economic country reveals its stronger culture. “The Western countries, especially the United States, always think that their political, economic, cultural and any other modes are the most perfect in the world. At the time they compete with Chinese and former Soviet Union in politics and military, they also try their best to promote their own culture. Festivals, as an important manifestation of part of the national culture, will inevitably become the primary goal of the shock of the Western culture.”(Jin Shengxia, 2012: 83) The contemporary main stream is American and British culture, which dominant in the wave of globalization; while China, the representative of the national culture in developing countries, is currently trapped in a subordinate position, passively accepting Western culture and gradually shocked by Western holiday. Chinese traditional festival has a heavy connotation of ethic. Its main functions lie in the ethical heritage instead of giving people a chance to entertain and relax. It is a lack of entertainment color. By contrast, some western festivals, such as Christmas, April Fool’s day, Valentine"s Day and so on, possess much stronger entertainment color, which can offer modern people with sufficient opportunities of expressing individuality and joy. As a result, it attracts more young people to enjoy.

3.2 Chinese Economic Development

In the 10 years of Cultural Revolution, Chinese people suffered a lot. Since living standard was extremely low, people did not have enough to eat and wear. In 1978, the reform and open-up policy is carried out. Thereafter, national economy begins to develop continuously and fast. Social productive forces have been greatly improved. In terms of social economic structure, our nation has gradually shifted from agriculture to industry and service industry. People has bid farewell to the shortage of food.

During the period of late 1980s and early 1990s, western festivals began to appear in few big cities in China. Christmas is a typical case. People are not familiar with it, so it was not popular at that time. The characteristic is small size and has little impact. In the mid 1990s last century, with the rapid development of modern society, new and high science and technology especially the development of network communication technology makes the “global village” become smaller and smaller. In this period, western festivals quickly spread and prevail, permeating gradually from the southeast coastal areas to the inland. Chinese start to know and accept western festivals. “Due to the long closed and detained, China knows little about Western countries. As it opening the door, Western culture is bound to flock to China.”(Wang Jinyue, 2012: 281) After China entered the World Trade Organization, western cultural concepts and eastern traditional morality became inosculating gradually in daily life. With the door open, multinational companies began to further increase investment in Mainland China, which created the rapid rise of cultural industries. Especially the development of information technology and the popularization of Internet, economic globalization and cultural globalization are no longer for the people and scholars to talk about in the paper, but surely make life can be touched everywhere.

“When celebrating the festivals, the Chinese people tend to focus more attention on eating and drinking. Chinese Diet has a long history, so it inevitably became one of the most important factors of festival celebration; when westerners celebrate their festivals, they pay more attention to the seeking of pleasure and entertainments.”(Gao Juan, 2012: 128) As people earn more money, the fun in traditional festival can hardly meet people’s spiritual needs. It is not desirable to underline a single life element--festival food, such as glutinous rice balls, moon cakes, dumplings, congee with nuts and dried Fruits and so on, which can be bought in the market at any time if you want. People gradually lose expect to traditional festivals and food. In some sense, traditional festival inevitably lost its taste in front of real life because modern people no longer want to participant activities limited within family blood relationship. They hope to break through this relationship and take part in a wider range of social contacts. They are tired of tedious customs of Chinese festivals. Those who possess satisfied material life have strong pursuit of new and spiritual life. Western festivals, laying stress on human nature and individual, is absolutely different from collective interest and personal contempt in traditional Chinese festival culture. In western festival, people like expressing their inner feelings and pursue freedom.

In the period of China’s economic transition, mobility increases and professional role has gradually become the main role of social interaction. Whether willing or reluctant to accept, these factors will more or less affect people"s views of life in that they are very practical things and come into being at certain material basis. From the point of society, for example, most young people choose to buy a bar of chocolate or rose for their partner, is more likely to choose a holiday as a spice and embellishment of life. To a certain extent, people’s pursuit of western holidays is a kind of spiritual pursuit based on the rich material because they can afford them.

3.3 Personalities of Young People

When looking into the causes of major western festivals’ popularity in China, the personalities of young people cannot be ignored because western festivals are often celebrated by young people. Most of them are the only child in family and taken good care of by their parents. They are likely to do things according to their personal preferences and want to be independent and different in choosing moral values. However, they have weak consciousness in separating the good from the bad.

Generally speaking, young people worship happiness, advocate equality and pay attention to emotional appeal. That many young people prefer western festivals is not because of its cultural connotation, but to add fun to life or express something to those whom they love or respect. As for cultural connotation, it is not important to them. At Christmas, they can send Christmas cards, hold happy Christmas parties or impersonate Saint Claus. On Saint Valentine’s Day, boys always buy roses or chocolates to their girlfriend with the purpose of expressing love. However, in traditional Chinese festivals, many ways of celebration do not interest the young any more. For example, during the period of Chinese New Year, many students mention that in addition to reunion with family members, it seems like no other activities. Young people spend most time watching TV, sleeping and visiting relatives. There are no new activities and even the ancient original ones are in desalination. In the old days, Chinese enjoy the shows of dragon dance and lion dance but it is rare to see in modern society. This is not in conformity with the personalities of young people who are fond of participating in pleasure activities.

As society has developed and people’s living standard has been improvement, the contemporary young people pay more and more attention to spiritual consumption instead of material consumption. In the western festivals, there are few holidays that have direct relation with “eat”, while many traditional festivals cannot do without “eat”. And our national “eat” custom possesses unique features. For instance, on the Tomb Sweeping Festival, Chinese eat qingtuan; on the Dragon Boat Festival, we eat rice dumplings; on the Mid-Autumn Festival, we eat moon cake; on the Spring Festival, every family must invite relatives for a feast. Something in traditional festivals, which have a connection with people’s emotion, now also slowly disappears. In the past, when it comes to traditional festivals, people pay greetings and get in touch with each other. On the Spring Festival, everyone pay a New Year Call to other people. “Over a history of five thousand years, Chinese pursuit a tradition, “We should respect the elder and love the young, look for solidarity and fraternity, and help with each other.”(Cheng Xiao, 2006: 82) But now things change, the tedious custom seems like a burden on young people who do not like to be bounded. Due to advanced science and technology, the face-to-face meetings are replaced by modern communication tools. Greetings can be reached to your friends and relatives in an instant via phone calls, messages and e-mails. We all sit at home and enjoy the happiness of one family union, or even close the door. In contrast, young people feel that western festivals are more conductive to the expression and exchange of people’s emotion.

Young people, who prefer equality, are more willing to communicate with others at their age. Their self consciousness also continues to strengthen. In the culture of western festivals, it is a good way to associate feelings with friends. Making friends is based on the common interest and hobby. When a small number of people begin to celebrate, others around them will be affected by their pleasure and happy mood. Them everyone join them and keep a similarity with them. When the other students are talking about Christmas and the Valentine’s Day, they want to be a participant rather than spectators. They need to integrate into the culture and experience the joy and warm of holidays. As a college student said: “I come from the countryside. I am not interested in Christmas or the Valentine’s Day. I only heard in high school but I was busy with my study and had no time celebrating these festivals. Classmates around me held the same opinion as me. However, after entering the university, I found that western festivals are quite popular in campus. I do not want to stay at dorm alone, so I follow them. Otherwise, others may think I am unsociable and have limited knowledge. I would like to play with my classmates, which can broaden my horizon

3.4 Deficiency of Chinese Contemporary Education

First, from the point of educational content, there are two defects. On one hand, the prevalence of English language teaching has an impact on the cultural popularity of English-speaking countries. Young people, whether they are college students or office staffs, are quite familiar with major western festivals. Every year when Christmas comes, in order to raise students’ learning interests and create wonderful English-learning atmosphere, all students who are members in the English department of university hold lots of interesting activities. As a result, it practically promotes the popularity of some major western festivals. On the other hand, the education of traditional Chinese festivals is comparatively unusual both in schools and in families, unintentionally misguiding those who are educated. That causes the young group only hear Christmas or Valentine"s day but do not know which day is Tomb Sweeping Day or which day is Double Seventh Day; only know Christmas tree, Christmas party, roses and chocolate, but do not understand the cultural connotative meanings of the Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival.

Second, to some extent contemporary China educational system reduces the influence of traditional Chinese festivals, which objectively gives impetus to the popularity of western festivals. Currently, our country still implements examination-oriented education and the educational mode is too closed. English education is regulated as a compulsory course in China. Students must learn English from primary schools to secondary schools, and even in the university they still have to study it, which largely occupy students’ learning time. Teaching material is the main carrier of the education of traditional culture. In English textbooks, there are too many articles and titles related to western festivals but less about national festivals. The study of history is also for the purpose of examination. From this point, we can see that contemporary college students lack personal experience and cannot understanding what the elder are thinking. Teachers" traditional culture and attitudes towards the western festivals have a profound impact on the young generation. Now from the kindergarten, teachers lead the children to celebrate Christmas, make Thanksgiving card, prepare Mother"s Day gift. Its original intention and the results are good, which let the children learn to be grateful and filial to their parents. But its negative influence can not be ignored. Many children cannot tell from Chinese festival and Western festival, virtually reducing adolescent ethnic pride, desalination juvenile moral concept. Therefore, schools should shoulder the responsibility of guiding students to foster their own correct outlook on world, life and values, educators often ignore the importance of vigorous propaganda and education on how to correctly treat western festivals.

3.5 The Publicity of Mass Media

During western festival, a large number of reports and advertisements are published on many magazines, newspaper, television and Internet while few reports regarding traditional Chinese festivals appear. An investigation is said that there are approximately 272,000 pieces of papers related to the celebration of Christmas and 238,000 pieces of papers concerning the Valentine’s Day. By comparison, there are just 30,000 articles reporting Double Ninth Day and 47,000 articles about the Dragon Boat Festival. In February 14, 2013, it was the Spring Festival but also the Valentine’s Day. Mass media made a fuss over this issue. One headline--The Spring Festival or the Valentine’s Day in the same day, family or lover, this is a question, showed on newspaper and Internet. Young people could be easily trapped in the difficult situation where they should spend time with their family or accompany their lover, and some of them may have a fight. Furthermore, in order to draw public attention, some media outlets even created false news, which are called jokes of April Fools’ Day. Now in April 1st, young people often play tricks with their friends or colleagues. Hence one can see that media lead a fashion for young people. If mass media especially the influential ones can make great efforts to propaganda traditional festivals, modern young people will remember and celebrate them. The media should take the responsibility of conveying correct opinion.

3.6 The Speculation of Businessmen

“Economics is the foundation of a country while festival is the climax of human life. Festivals not only provide the time and gathering place for people but also the markets for the exchanges of commodities.”(Hu Xiaoyue, 2010: 158) Nowadays, national economy is market-oriented. The culture of festival is facing with a big challenge from the festival economy. To a certain extent, the popularity of western festivals has an inseparable relation from commercial speculation. The pursuit of economic interests is the first driving force for the majority of manufacturers and businessmen. When big western festivals come, such as Christmas or Saint Valentine’s Day, businessmen and manufacturers rack their brains to create consumption and increase their investment. In prosperous cities, every single shopping plaza and stores are decorated with domain festival atmosphere, and beautiful holiday goods are sold in every supermarket. The festival commodities often become such hot-sale products. Furthermore, the western-style restaurants are always over crowded because young people like going there to have dinner with their partner. People in Hong Kong accept Western culture earlier than those in Mainland China, now in terms of commercial speculation of Western festival, manufacturers in Mainland China also are not inferior to Hong Kong and even over propaganda. Yet sometimes the measures adapted by businessmen are not rational and reasonable at all. Businessmen purely aspire after commercial profits without taking negative effects into consideration. As a result, it is easier for young people to blindly worship western festivals.

4. Conclusion

Above I have analyzed the causes why major western festivals have a shock on Chinese festivals. We should recognize the fact that our national festivals are suffering a cold and even decline because they are heavily invaded by western festivals. The culture of western festivals has advantages and disadvantages. Although celebrating western festivals become a fashion, we have to treat them rightly. To raise public protection consciousness, we should take action. Both government and society should make contribution for the sake of the construction of festival culture. In schools, teachers should conduct vigorous propaganda about the connotation of traditional festivals and guide students to celebrate western festivals in a correct way. Some commercial reasons are supposed to be integrated into traditional Chinese festivals. Only if we absorb its essence and combine it with our national festival culture, we can promote national development and create a new flavor of Chinese festival culture. In a word, everyone in this whole society must make joint efforts. Thus our traditional festivals can revitalize and coexist harmoniously with festivals coming from the West.

Works Cited

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