跨文化交际视野下的春节与圣诞节的对比研究

论文总字数：32078字

摘 要

作为文化交流的一部分，节日文化已成为中西方交流的重要媒介。中国的春节和西方的圣诞节分别是中西方的两个重要节日，具有中西方文化的代表性，是探讨中西方节日文化差异的典型。本文将先从受重视程度、节日气氛和节日功能分析两大节日的相似之处。接着通过对比，发现两大节日在节日元素、节日习俗和文化内涵等方面存在的差异，而且不同的宗教信仰与价值观是导致该差异的主要原因。最后，提出如何继承与发展中西方节日文化以促进中西文化交流，从而加强跨文化交际的能力。

关键词：春节；圣诞节；差异；跨文化交际

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Similarities between the Spring Festival and the Christmas 2

3.1 Degree of attention . 2

3.2 Festival atmosphere 3

3.3 Festival function 3

4. Differences between the Spring Festival and the Christmas. 5

4.1 The origin and development. 5

4.2 Festival elements. 5

4.3 Cultural Conntation. 7

5. Causes of differences and the Inheritance and Development . 9

5.1 Different religious beliefs 9

5.2 Different values 10

5.3 The inheritance and development 11

6. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

“Festivals refer to special days that are endowed with special social meanings and arranged into ordinary days. They are concentrated reflection of a rich life, summary and extension of politics, economy, culture and religions in different areas, nations and countries (Sun 4).” At present, with the integration of the global economy, the communication between Chinese and western culture has become an indispensable part in people"s life. As western festivals are introduced to China and become increasingly popular, especially among the young, many traditional Chinese festivals have been shocked by the western festivals. Based on this tendency, how to inherit and develop the characteristics of Chinese traditional festivals becomes a very important subject. Under these circumstances, this paper makes a comparative study of the Spring Festival and Christmas with the aim of analyzing the similarities and differences of them, exploring the reasons, and putting forward how to inherit and develop Chinese and western festival culture, so as to strengthen our ability of intercultural communication.

Literature Review

The study of festival culture has become increasingly important among scholars at home and abroad in recent years. At present, domestic and foreign scholars mainly focus on introducing specific festival ceremonies and contents of Chinese and Western festival culture. There are few studies on the combination of Chinese and western festival cultures. In foreign countries, there are a great number of research results on the traditional Chinese and western festivals, mainly in: Study the world’s culture from the perspective of globalization. A study of the clash of civilizations notes that the conflict for the future world won’t be the military conflict or ideological conflict, but the conflict between different civilizations. In particular, it is the conflicts among Christianity based western civilization and Confucianism based eastern civilization as well as the Islamism based civilization of Arab world (Samuel P. 248).

A comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western traditional culture claims that both Chinese and Western culture have their own charm and we should give a specific comparative study on the Chinese and Western culture traditional festivals to dig out the cultural connotation and spread the national characteristic of the festival. Besides, we should learn to develop and inherit our own traditional national festival from the traditional western festival (Li 243-245)

A comparative study of Chinese Spring festival and western Christmas confirms that there is a significant difference in many aspects such as the generation, festival ceremony and customs, as well as the cultural connotation and the social function of the festival, etc ( Zhang amp; Wan 4 ).

A study of difference in Chinese and Western festival and the significance of intercultural communication shows that festival is the cultural heritage of all countries in the world and it reflects the different culture background, especially in the process of intercultural communication. It is beneficial to improve the efficiency of intercultural communication by having a good understanding of the festival culture, the value and and values reflected by the customs ( Dong amp; Bai 28).

From the above study, we can put the Chinese and western culture together for a comparative study to find the similarities and differences between them and their reasons. On this basis, we can further improve our ability to intercultural communication.

Similarities between the Spring Festival and the Christmas

3.1 Degree of attention .

The Spring Festival and Christmas are the most important and grand festivals of traditional Chinese and Western festivals. People celebrate them in various ways to express their love and attention to the festival. Whether in China or in the West, Spring Festival and Christmas are the most important festivals in a year, which represents the time of family reunion. Spring Festival is the most celebrated festival for Chinese people that Chinese people most expect in the year. It can be said that it is the driving force that motivates people to study and work hard. Spring Festival is a traditional and important festival of the Chinese nation, all Chinese in the world including overseas Chinese, no matter how far is the distance, have to rush home to celebrate this important traditional festival with family members during the few days of the lunar new year. People attach great importance to the Spring Festival in action and in spirit, such as preparing new year"s goods in advance, buying new clothes, and doing thorough cleaning. During the Spring Festival, family members gather together to have reunion dinner and congratulate with each other.

Christmas is also the most important festival in the West. It evolved from a religious festival to a national holiday. There are about 140 countries in the world celebrating Christmas, like the Spring Festival, Christmas has an important position in the hearts of people. People have prepared for Christmas decorations ahead of time, and the streets were filled with a strong festive atmosphere. Christmas is the day of the annual family to get together, no matter whether the department store or bus system, they will be on vacation; no matter how far away from home, people have to go back to their hometown or get together with their friends. During the Christmas, people sit under the Christmas tree for a good meal, sending blessings and gifts to each other. Their common desire is to hope that families and friends are safe and healthy, and the future will be better.

3.2 Festival atmosphere

Chinese Spring Festival and Western Christmas are equally important for the East and the West and their festive atmosphere is especially similar. The Spring Festival is on the Lunar January 1st. It’s at the end of the last year and the beginning of the new year. The Spring Festival is the most important and popular festival in China. When it is coming, people are actively busy with the arrival of the festival and their faces are decorated with festive celebrations. Everywhere presents a joyous situation, people are immersed in the sea of the festival. Chinese people are prepared beforehand to create a joyous atmosphere and satisfy their children with new clothes and shoes, lovely presents and delicious food. Besides,people decorate their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. All the door panels will be pasted with couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper.

The Christmas is also the most important and popular festival in the West and the festival atmosphere is even stronger. The Christmas is on the Gregorian December 25th. When it is coming, people are actively prepared to purchase goods for the festival, such as Christmas socks for the children, Christmas Santa hat and all kinds of delicious food. What the children most expect is the the Santa Claus because he will come out and send presents for children. Christmas cards and decorated trees are all over the place. The carolling of Christmas songs echo through the air. All the streets and alleys are very busy and crowded with many people. So, Christmas is the busiest time in the West to a certain extent that has an important place in people"s hearts.

3.3 Festival function

Both Spring Festival and Christmas have the function of maintaining social stability. The Spring Festival is a good opportunity for people to release the mood by gathering together and getting entertainment. It conveys people’s desire for a bumper harvest in the coming year by setting fireworks and pasting couplets. Christmas plays a more significant role in maintaining social stability in the West, because the emergence of religion is often an expression of people"s dissatisfaction with the real society; what’s more, Christianity is the spiritual pillar of the Westerners. Christmas is a religious festival during which people go to church to sing Christmas songs and pray to God all the best. Therefore, the Spring Festival and Christmas all maintain social stability to some extent.

Both Spring Festival and Christmas have the function of checking and balancing psychology. The spring festival provides people with a chance to return to the heart. People who stay away home stop their work and hurry home from all sides for their festival. People gather together and enjoy the warmth of their family and friends. At this time, people"s pressure, anger, grievances and complaints all have been dropped to a certain extent. The relationship among them is manifested by gift and sharing. The Westerners also share love and bless with family and friends at Christmas. Moreover, the westerners have a sense of atonement by praying to the priest.

Both Spring Festival and Christmas have the function of inheriting culture. The Spring Festival is the inheritance and accumulation of Chinese culture, at the same time, it is the crystallization of the labor and wisdom of the Chinese people, which expresses people’s desire for the good things. Meanwhile, it also carries and inherits traditional culture in its own way. Chinese people inherit ethics and morality by these festival customs. In addition, Spring Festival also inherits the function of traditional art, such as couplets, year painting. We pass this precious cultural heritage to our descendants through these activities. At Christmas, people who have been busy for the whole year stop their work to return to the warmth of their families. They go to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus, which is a fixed activity. Of course, it is also the inheritance of religious culture. The Christmas tree was decorated elegantly, the story of Santa Claus was told over and over, and the greeting cards were sent to friends and relatives, in addition, they have become a habit which all carry a profound cultural connotation and are passed down by people.

Both Spring Festival and Christmas have the function of promoting economic development. With the development of the economy and the improvement of people"s living standards, the economic function of the Spring Festival is becoming more and more obvious. Whether in rural or city, people prepare to buy goods for Spring Festival early. In addition, the Spring Festival is also a unique landscape which promotes the growth of Chinese consumption. Like the Spring Festival, the economic function of Christmas is also unquestionable. As early as the end of November, people begin to prepare for Christmas things and all kinds of promotions stimulate people"s desire to purchase.

Differences between the Spring Festival and the Christmas

4.1The origin and development

Spring Festival, commonly known as the Chinese New Year, is one of the most solemn and busiest ancient traditional festivals in China. It originated from the sacred activity of the ancient labouring people to celebrate the harvest of the crops. One of the statements about the origin of the Spring Festival is that New Year is the symbol of the harvest of the fruits, because the maturity of the grain is one year. Therefore, people will hold celebration to express their wishes for the coming year, such as hoping for good weather and bumper harvest during the period of the harvest. The second statement is that there is a monster called Nien. It’s a fierce beast which is afraid of firecrackers and red things and eats people on New Year’s Eve, so every household will set off fireworks and paste couplets to scare it away. Then there was the custom of the new year.

Christmas is a pagan festival that originally derived from the celebration of the return of the sun. It was the birthday of the Persian Sun God ( the God of Light) Mithra who was one of the Gods of Rome on the December 25th. In addition, this day was the Winter Solstice of the Rome almanac what the Christians regarded as the hope of spring and the beginning of the revival of all things, because people feel the transition from cold to warmth during the the transition of winter and spring. Then they held certain ceremonies to celebrate the arrival of warmth. Christmas was celebrated from December 24th to January 6th of the following year before thirteenth Century. Nowadays, it is generally believed that Christmas is used to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th.

4.2 The festival elements

The New year"s Eve, the last day of the lunar year, is often on the 29th or 30th of the December of the lunar year. The reunion dinner is the most important part of the new year"s Eve, and it is the most important meal of the year. It has been a custom to stay up late, which is called “Shousui”on New Year"s Eve. After finishing the reunion dinner, the family gather together to watch the annual Spring Festival Gala. When it’s at 0:00, the new year is coming, at this time, people will set fireworks to resign from the world and welcome to the new. The ancestor worship is a Chinese tradition and an embodiment of the concept of "filial piety" in China. Christmas Eve is the night of December 24th, that is to say, the eve of Christmas. People usually hold parties all night or sit together to enjoy a Christmas meal. At Christmas dinner, turkeys and apples are essential, just like Chinese dumplings and Tang yuan, and they all indicate peace and hope for the coming year. Different from the Chinese staying up late all night on New Year"s Eve, the westerners will hold a masquerade to celebrate Christmas all the night. Christians all over the world will come to the church on Christmas Eve. They eulogize Jesus and pray for redemption and blessing, and the whole ceremony was solemn and peaceful.

Gifts are different in Spring Festival and Christmas. Lucky money, which puts down the evil and removes ill fortune, is a custom of Han people during the Spring Festival. Furthermore, it blesses the children. The custom of lucky money has a long history. It represents the good wishes of the elders to their children and is still in vogue in modern times. The Christmas gift is a custom in Western and the earliest legend of Christmas gifts was to commemorate Jesus"s birthday. It’s very popular to send gifts to relatives and friends at Christmas. Parents will also prepare gifts for their children in the stockings, meaning the expectation of a good future for the child during Christmas.

Decorations are different in Spring Festival and Christmas. The Christmas tree is a necessity for Christmas eve and the custom of decorating the Christmas tree with pine trees originated from Germany. People often hang all kinds of toys, lanterns, gifts, small round balls, and big stars on the top of the tree. In China, people decorate their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper. The content varies from house owners" wishes for a bright future to good luck for the new year. Also, pictures of the God of doors and wealth will be posted on front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance. The Chinese character "fu" (meaning blessing or happiness) is a must. The character puts on paper can be pasted normally or upside down, for in Chinese the "reversed fu" is homophonic with "fu comes", both being pronounced as "fudaole." What"s more, two big red lanterns can be raised on both sides of the front door. Red paper-cuttings can be seen on window glass and brightly colored Spring Festival paintings with auspicious meanings may be put on the wall.

4.3 Cultural connotation 

China is the land civilization and the West is the marine civilization. The path of social development in the East and the West is different, and the resulting ideology and ethical culture are quite different. The Spring Festival culture dominated by the Confucian culture and the Christmas culture dominated by Christianity have differences in ethnic and social interactions, which shows the different psychology of the Chinese and Westerners. Chinese culture is deeply influenced by the Confucian culture and has the group characteristics of the national culture. “ The ‘difficult order pattern’ established in blood relations is the internal dimensions of people’s interactions, so as to distinguish the intimacy and relationship, and establish the rules of mutual interaction, such as the gift delivery, worship of Gods and so on (Anthony D. 24).” The words “God of Wealth, Dumplings, Family Reunion Dinner, Lion Dance, and Dragon Dance” constitute the festival’s contents and activities and they embody the Chinese people"s desire for reunion and love of lively atmosphere. The Spring Festival not only reflects the friendly spirit of the Chinese nation, but also values the harmony of the community, the ethnic emotions of the neighboring country, for example, during the Spring Festival, people have reunion dinners and visit their friends and relatives. In addition, the Spring Festival has effectively promoted world peace. The happy reunion of every family has contributed to the stability of the entire country. Besides, it is the unique festival that Chinese people all over the world, including the mainland spread their happiness, which effectively promotes world peace. What"s more, the Spring Festival has protected our valuable intangible cultural heritage, such as cutting paper and writing couplets. On the basis of protecting intangible culture, the Spring Festival cultural activities are not simple return to the traditional but are more innovative. Furthermore, it has made the cultural activities more splendid and colorful and it has become the carrier of non-material cultural protection.

Western culture which has a strong Christian color, has the characteristics of extroversion, and pays attention to communication and exchange among groups. The words such as Santa Claus, Christmas gifts, Christmas socks, pay more attention to communication in the West. Santa who symbols a happy messenger is the messenger of the Western cultural spirit. Christmas is dominated by social activities. The large-scale Christmas parades and celebrations have played down the family’s atmosphere, which shows that the Westerners regard individuals as the unit and value the group activities. The westerners always yearn for the cultural connotation of truth, goodness, and beauty, and Christmas also expresses people"s strong desire. Christianity advocates forgiveness, fraternity, and selfless dedication, which are people’s ideal qualities. In addition, people hope that these virtues can be promoted and they are willing to promote them with Christmas. Cherishing peace and goodwill and being charitable are the real Christmas spirit. In fact, it is precisely because Christmas meets people"s expectation of reunion and happiness, besides, it is in line with the desire for equality, love, forgiveness, and selfless devotion, so it has become popular today. Now Christmas has spread from the West to the East and added a strong commercial atmosphere, even becomes an indispensable part of economic development and social life. Thus, Christmas is not only a product of religion but also promotes the development of religion. What’s more, it spreads Christian thoughts to the whole world.

Causes of difference and the inheritance and development

5.1 Different religious beliefs

“Mostly, western traditional festival culture is concerned with religious belief, with more prominent humanity. The origins of western traditional festivals manifest strong religious trait due to the long-term influence of Christianity (Ruth 28). ” Religion is not only the product of the development of human society to a certain period, but also the product of the development of human thinking to a certain period. It is a manifestation of ideology that has permeated all aspects of social cultural life and affected the ways of celebrating festivals. The religious nature is very obvious in the West. People believe that the Christian God is the creator of all things on earth; in the view of Christians, the earthly existence of mankind is short and sinful, furthermore, all men are created equal. It is impossible for people to redeem themselves and seek liberation by their own efforts. What they can do is to send their hope to the God and pray to the Almighty for forgiveness, such as listening to the preacher"s sermons, going to church to purify their souls. So, many festivals in the West are marked by the religion, for example, Christmas is a festival to celebrate of the birth of Jesus, Easter is a festival to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, the origin of these festivals is religious. Many activities on Christmas are also bound up with religion, for instance, people go to church to worship and sing Christmas songs; the church will also organize the choir to carol. Besides, many festival elements are religious on Christmas, for instance, the ornamental stars on the top of the Christmas tree symbolize that the light illuminates the way in which Magi worshiped Jesus.

“Chinese traditional festivals show strong secular and universal divinity, as a matter of fact, it is non-religious (Li amp; Sheng 80).” Chinese people are heathen and the Chinese religious culture is also different. Chinese people rarely think about the afterlife, but they pay more attention to real life and pursuit of a happy life. The Chinese Spring Festival also has a religious mark, for example, people worship the ancestors on the Eve with the aim of getting bless and praying for good weather and harvest in the coming year by worshiping ancestor. In short, it has a color of superstition. However, these religious behaviors are not so common and formal as those in the West. Chinese religious culture is diversified and inclusive, with no unified belief, such as Buddhism and Taoism. In summary, the two festivals all reflect different cultural features whether in the object of worship or the way and purpose.

5.2 Different values

In intercultural communication, value is an extremely important issue. Since in ancient times, China has paid great attention to harmony. In terms of interpersonal relations, harmony is more important. Therefore, China is a typical family society, advocating collectivism. Due to the rule of Confucianism that supports the order and harmony of the society for thousands of years, Chinese people advocate the importance of individual loyalty and responsibility. Moreover, they believe that the value of life is reflected in their dedication to society. Therefore, what they pay more attention to is their own social values, not self-worth. To summarize, the value orientation of collectivism is also emphasized in traditional Chinese festivals. Collectivism is embodied in all the activities and customs during the Spring Festival, for example, people return home to have a family reunion dinner; friends and relatives celebrate the year and congratulate with each other. So, the interpersonal relationship is enhanced by them.

Western culture emphasizes individualism and liberalism. In addition, all men are equal. What western people pursue is the personal value, because they hold the view that personal interests are higher than all. So, the westerners personality’s are individualism. People maintain individual interests and emphasize individual rights, for example, people dress themselves up in the Christmas queue, laughing loudly and indulging in the joy of the festival at ease.

5.3 The inheritance and development of Chinese and western festival culture

Chinese and western traditional festivals not only show a picture of national cultural life, but also express people’s desire to pray for happiness and yearn for a better future. However, the differences in cultural background between China and the West have led to very different ways of celebrating the festival. With the acceleration of the pace of life, the continuous impact of Western culture is more obvious. Western festivals which are rapidly becoming popular in Chinese society are regarded as fashion culture and some media also take advantage of this opportunity to promote their products, which promotes the influence of western festivals. Therefore, as to the fact that the status quo and influence of western festival becomes larger, we should treat them rationally and find out the glittering points of their culture from the differences. In addition, we should find some hidden factors that can be used for reference.

What’s more, we can make it possible to carry forward and make it useful for the development of Chinese festival culture. Only in this way can we better protect our festival culture and promote the exchange and development of Chinese and western festival cultures. Besides, we must actively promote the influence of Spring Festival and strengthen the propaganda of it so as to make it become a brand culture and promote its influence by the network and media. Finally, we should push the Spring Festival to the world and let people all over the world understand the meaning and significance of the spring festival culture

Conclusion

It is not hard to find the distinct differences that the two festivals imply between Chinese and Western cultures by the comparison and analysis of the Spring Festival and Christmas. Global economic integration has led to the exchange of Chinese and western cultures, but these unavoidable collisions are not conflicts, because they promote the integration and development of the Chinese and western countries. The inheritance of Chinese traditional festivals not only requires the connotation and spirit inheritance of the nation, but also requires the hidden factors that can be learned from western festivals. In the exchange and development of China and the West, we should find out the essence of western culture from the difference and make it useful for the development of Chinese festival culture.

Multiple cultures communicate and infiltrate each other in the information age, and western festivals are increasingly accepted by the Chinese people. Some people think that the cultural shock will affect the status of traditional festivals. In fact, there is no advantage or disadvantage between different cultures. Different cultures interact, permeate and merge with each other, making it more adaptable to the rhythm of modern people. Therefore, we should use the perspective of development to view the influence of Western festivals on our country’s culture. Besides, we must reform our country’s festival culture with the times, and actively use and integrate the positive forces in Western festivals. At the same time, we should actively promote our festival culture and show the unique charm of Chinese festivals to the world as well. Only in this way can we continuously enhance the competitiveness of cultural dissemination. In addition, it is of great benefit to treat the exchange and integration of Chinese and Western cultures correctly, so as to improve the ability of intercultural communication.

Works Cited

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Huntington Samuel P. The Clash of Civilization and Remarking of World Order. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 2002.

Ruth Benedict. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1990.

董天，白灵: 《中美节日差异对跨文化交流的意义》.《金田》，07（2012）：28.

[Dongtian and Bailing. “Difference in Chinese and western Festivals and the Significance of Intercultural Communication.” Jin Tian 07 (2012):28.]

辜正坤:《中西文化比较导论》，北京：北京大学出版社，2007.

[Gu Zhengkun. An Introduction to the Comparison of Chinese and Western Cultures. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2007.]

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