-"Traditional festivals and China culture"

As the essence of national culture, China traditional festivals contain rich and profound humanistic connotations and are the spiritual wealth of the Chinese nation. However, with the rapid transformation from agricultural society to modern society, people's lifestyle and values have changed, and their sense of identity with traditional culture is no longer strong: the cultural accumulation that lasted for thousands of years has gradually lost, the sense of ritual has faded, and festivals are evolving into simple festivals or gimmicks for merchants to attract money. Today, with many intangible cultural heritages gradually disappearing, how to treat each festival well and let traditional festivals develop in modern society should be our concern.

Festivals are not just holidays.

From June 5438+1 October1in 2008, Qingming, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival were added as national legal holidays, which opened a new chapter in the protection of traditional festivals in China. Although this change has played a positive role in protecting national traditional festivals, it also faces the embarrassing situation of "chicken ribs": the fault of cultural inheritance leads to the failure of the original intention of adding festivals, and the festivals have become "festivals".

Regarding the "holiday" of traditional festivals, Feng Jicai, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, pointed out that festivals and holidays are different concepts: holidays are a kind of welfare to realize citizens' right to rest and do not contain specific cultural connotations. Festivals are quite different, such as the Spring Festival, which symbolizes family reunion and expresses yearning for a better life, so it contains the content of avoiding evil and welcoming happiness. Another example is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which expresses people's desire for reunion. The purpose of increasing traditional festivals as legal holidays is to create conditions for people to spend this festival better, not just to increase rest days.

The Cultural Connotation of "Slimming"

There are various traditional festivals and customs in China, such as offering sacrifices to stoves, sweeping dust, setting off firecrackers, posting Spring Festival couplets, hanging New Year pictures, offering sacrifices to the Dragon Boat Festival, rowing dragon boats, hanging mugwort leaves and calamus, walking in Tomb-Sweeping Day and inserting willows. Through these behaviors, people express their wishes, fear nature, get close to their blood, miss their ancestors and reflect their values, which is also an important support of festival culture. However, under the background of modern civilization, the simplification of festival activities leads to the indifference of ceremonies and greatly reduces the cultural connotation of festivals.

The process of urbanization makes most people live in high-rise buildings like pigeon cages, and the ideal environment for enjoying the moon no longer exists. As for Tanabata, it was distorted as "China Valentine's Day"; The Double Ninth Festival is becoming more and more strange to young people ... No wonder some people exclaim that the traditional festivals in China seem to have only food culture left, and the Mid-Autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival are even dubbed "Moon Cake Festival" and "Zongzi Festival".

For a nation, traditional festivals play an important role in strengthening cohesion, establishing core values and deepening cultural identity, and are collective cultural memories. How to save these cultural memories which have been passed down for thousands of years and are rich in connotation, and make them glow with new vitality in the new era, has been a concern of the whole society including experts, scholars and ordinary people in recent years.

Tao Siyan, a professor at the Art College of Southeast University, said: "The development of festival cultural industry and the inheritance of traditional festival customs can go hand in hand, which does not necessarily constitute the destruction of the former to the latter, but a timely supplement to the festival cultural life. Comparing' products',' industries' and' traditional festivals' not only meets the needs of the times, but also reflects the spirit of cultural innovation. "

It is also worth exploring to broaden people's channels of understanding festival culture. According to the survey report, more than 80% of the respondents learned about the traditional festivals in China mainly through "what the older generation said", and only 40% chose to "know in the media"; At the same time, nearly 70% of the respondents called on the internet, television, newspapers, magazines, books and other media to shoulder cultural responsibilities, increase publicity and breadth, and create a more positive holiday atmosphere.