A Contrastive Study of Culture in Spring Festival and Christmas

中图分类号：H319 文献标识码： A 文章编号：1672-1578（2013)07-0006-03

1 Introduction

If add the festivals of each region into a whole, nearly each day of a year will be a festival. Thus it can be seen that festivals have become a part of people’s life. The oldest and the most important festival in China is the Chinese New Year--Spring Festival. It is an even comparable to Christmas in the west.

2 The Contrastive between These Two Festivals

2.1 Origin

2.1.1 Spring Festival

For the Chinese, Spring Festival is the first traditional festival during the year. It was called "New Year" in the past because according to the lunar calendar long used in Chinese history it is the first day of the first lunar month, marking the beginning of a year.

The celebration of the Spring Festival has a history of more than 4,000 years, which is originated from Emperor Yao. One day around 2000 B.C., Yao took the throne and led members of his court to worship the heaven and the earth. Since then, people began to take that day as beginning of the year and marked it the first day of the first lunar month. After the 1911 revolution, China adopted the Gregorian calendar, and changed the lunar New Year into "Spring Festival", which, according to the Gregorian calendar, falls between late January and mid February.

All the traditional festivals in China are based on the Chinese lunar calendar. The Spring Festival marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year. In Chinese, we also say Guo Nian, meaning keeping off the monster of Nian. Legend has it that there once lived in ancient China a ferocious horned beast called "Nian" (literally means "year" in Chinese). The beast stayed in deep sea throughout the year but surfaced on the New Year's Eve to eat cattle and people. So, at every New Year's Eve, all people, bringing along the old and the young, fled into deep mountains.

Another New Year's Eve, an old man, who looked radiant with health, entered the Peach Village. After asking some food from an old lady living at the eastern end of the village, he insisted on staying overnight at her house despite warning of danger.

At midnight, the "Nian" beast broke into the village, but smelled a different atmosphere: the old lady's house was brilliantly lit, with red paper pasted on the door panels. The beast pounced forward with a roar, but stopped short and shivered, as the sound of crackling and spluttering suddenly came from the courtyard. In fact, the beast feared most the red color, fire and sound of explosion. Just at that time the door opened and out came the old man in a bright red cloak, laughing heartily. The beast was so scared that it ran away in panic.

This gives rise to the habits of pasting red-paper couplets and letting off firecrackers at every household, as well as the lighting up of candles and staying up all night.

2.1.2 Christmas

Christmas Day- December 25 is a joyful religious holiday which Christians celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the founder of the Christian religion. Love, family, and togetherness are important themes.

According to the Bible, the holy book of Christians, God decided to allow his only son, Jesus Christ, to be born to a human mother and live on earth so that people could understand God better and learn to love God and each other more. “Christmas” meaning “celebration of Christ” honors the time when Jesus was born to a young Jewish woman named Mary.

According to the Bible, In Nazareth, a city of Galilee. The virgin's name was Mary who was betrothed to Joseph. Before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband wanted to put her away secretly. While he thought about these things, Gabriel, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him not to be afraid to take Mary as wife. And Mary would bring forth a Son, and he shall call his name, Jesus, for he would save his people from their sins.

The exact date of Christ’s birth is unknown. Historians believe Christmas was set on December 25th by religious leaders who were influenced by the Pagan celebrations of Winter Solstice around that time of year. Winter Solstice include the theme of rebirth, so church officials incorporated the idea of Christ’s birth into the existing celebrations.

2.2 Ways of Celebration

2.2.1 Spring Festival

To welcome the Chinese New Year, people do a lot of preparations for the coming New Year. On the eve of the New Year, everyone was busy either in preparing food for the next two days, or in going to the barbers and getting tidied up for the New Year’s Day. Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Materials not only include edible oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What's more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.

Before the New Year comes, the people completely clean the indoors and outdoors of their homes as well as their clothes, bedclothes and all their utensils.

Then people begin decorating 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 put 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 New Year paintings with auspicious meanings may be put on the wall.

People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members eat dinner together. The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively "ji", "yu" and "doufu," mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. After the dinner, the whole family will sit together, chatting and watching TV. In recent years, the Spring Festival party broadcast on China Central Television Station (CCTV) is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad. According to custom, each family will stay up to see the New Year in.

Waking up on New Year, everybody dresses up. First they extend greetings to their families. Then each child will get money as a New Year gift, wrapped up in red paper. Burning fireworks was once the most typical custom on the Spring Festival. People thought the spluttering sound could help drive away evil spirits. However, such an activity was completely or partially forbidden in big cities once the government took security, noise and pollution factors into consideration. As a replacement, some buy tapes with firecracker sounds to listen to, some break little balloons to get the sound too, while others buy firecracker handicrafts to hang in the living room.

The lively atmosphere not only fills every household, but permeates to streets and lanes. A series of activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern dancing, lantern festivals and temple fairs will be held for days. The Spring Festival then comes to an end when the Lantern Festival is finished

2.2.2 Christmas

In the run up to Christmas most houses and streets are decorated with Christmas trees and lots of colored lights. The sound of carols and Christmas songs can be heard everywhere especially in shops. In many parts of the regions, carolers will go from house to house sing Christmas songs.

Children write letters to Santa Claus, telling him what presents they would like to receive for Christmas, and many stores have their own “ Santa” for children to meet.

Christmas cards are sent to friends and relatives, and most homes will have a tree which is decorated with lights, tinsel and lots of colourful ornaments many of them handmade over the years. Presents are placed under the tree ready to be opened on Christmas Day.

Many people attend church services on Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning. The churches are decorated with evergreens, poinsettias and scenes of the Nativity.

After the evening service on Christmas Eve, the family will gather together for a time of celebration.“The Night Before Christmas” is read to children before they go to bed to await the arrival of Santa Claus, who arrives in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Stockings are hung up so that Santa can fill them with candy, fruit and other small gifts.

2.3 Traditional Foods.

2.3.1 Spring Festival

Probably more food is consumed during the New Year celebrations than any other time of the year. Vast amounts of traditional food is prepared for family and friends, as well as those close to us who have died.

Since the Spring Festival marks the first day of a brand new year, the first meal is rather important. People from north to south have different saying about the food they eat on this special day. In Northern China, people usually eat Jiaozi or dumplings shaped like a crescent moon. It is said that dumplings were first known in China some 1,600 years ago. Its Chinese pronunciation Jiaozi means midnight or the end and the beginning of time. Also the shape of the dumpling is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat then and wish for money and treasure. In past years, senior members of the family put candies, peanuts, or even a coin inside the jiao zi stuffing, as a game and to see who will be the lucky one in the new year.

Southern Chinese eat niangao (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) on this occasion, because as a homophone, niangao means "higher and higher, one year after another." The first five days after the Spring Festival are a good time for relatives, friends, and classmates as well as colleagues to exchange greetings, gifts and chat leisurely.

Chinese people want everything to be auspicious,especially during the Spring Festival. Therefore even ordinary food such as chicken and fish are given good propitious names. Due to similarity in pronunciation, in some parts of China, people start to eat chicken(ji), which means auspicious(ji li) from the beginning of the year. Fish(yu) is considered a must, because a family should be nian nian you yu (be very abundant every year). In south China, the favorite and most typical dishes were sweet steamed glutinous rice（糯米）pudding and zong zi (glutinous rice wrapped up in reed（芦苇）leaves), another popular delicacy. In the north, steamed-wheat bread (man tou) and small meat dumplings were the preferred food. The tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance and wealth for the household.

An old rhyme tracks the food preparations according to the days of the last lunar month "25, fry bean curd; 26, cut meat; 27, kill rooster; 28, ferment flour; 29, make steamed bread." As time changes, the traditional foods of the Spring Festival change a bit as well. But, what does not change is the good food and merry festival spirit.

2.3.2 Christmas

The day for Christian monumentalizing Jesus is Christmas day On every December 25th. It is not only prevail to Hesperian, but also has much force for people on he world. It likes Chinese New Year in China, good day for people to celebrate. During this time, people would like to come off big ritual in church, and a wonderful celebration at home.

For this celebration, people have already bought food and things for Christmas at the beginning of December. Turkey, absolutely necessarily, indictable food on December 24th. People have it with cole, such as cabbage, Murphy, paste, and some traditional food, also there are some seasoning, such as sherry juice and Lamei juice. It is very difficult to imagine how amazing. In occidental opinion, it is not Christmas day without turkey. Sometimes, a seat for "emissary of god" is necessary. To most people, going to church is very important after dinner on Christmas, most of them make some candy and mug-up for choir of church.

As we have seen in the movie, people in England and America often make a grilled porker for Christmas, and they put a apple in the porkers’ mouth sometimes. This tradition is only for big family, because a whole porker can not be moped up buy 3 or 4 people. So some people who want ostentation and extravagance would like to do that when they stand treat on Christmas. After dinner, there are some snack, such as plum, pudding, meat pie and so on. they believe that some lucky things will happened in the following year after taking those food.

Different countries have different celebration and habitude for Christmas. Australian loves to wine and dine, most family would like to go to restaurant, sometime with their friends, because every restaurant arranged special food for Christmas. In Denmark, when Christmas dinner starts, people must have a almond pudding before eat other food. On December 24th, Romantic French love to do festively singing and dancing at night , with aquavit and champagne, to be pissed. Englishman and German love beer so much. Not only deeply drink, Englishman like to go to other countries for trip, but some family still like to stay at home during this time.

What is the story about why people in occident must have Turkey on Christmas? To celebrate Christmas, People in Asian probably have Turkey. In occident, especially America, turkey is normal one, people also have it on Thanksgiving Day. So far, this history has persisted for 300 years. As the story goes, the Christmas day in 1620, numbers of emigration from England got to America North Hill Park Lane, then, that place is devoid of food, but there are large numbers of turkeys that they can cover the mountain, people catch turkeys for food. So for Christmas dinner, besides ham, sweet potato, vegetable, plum duff, fruit pie, cocktail, we can not miss turkey.

3 Culture in Festivals

Festivals and culture are inseparable. Actually, every nationality, culture and religion have their own feast day.

3.1 Cultural differences

In different culture, festival is a tincture of specifically culture, with its own trait. For example, there are many differences between Christmas and Chinese New Year. Christmas is closely related to religious traditions. Spring Festival is civilization of cultivation and familial creed; Christmas is a religious anniversary, reflected mass revelry in public places; Spring Festival started after gaining for the happiness and meeting for family. Christmas is a get-together for people to adore the God, and Chinese New Year is for people thank to ancestor and God of farming, and so on. So that this is important and good way for different phyle to give voice to their civilization.

3.2 Chinese traditional festivals with their own cultural relations

Even though China is not a religionary country, China has many feast days. They also have different and special meaning. Peace of family and respect are traditional spirit of China, this spirit form etiquette and custom, and the custom of festival is much important part. Maybe there are some difference about consuetude in different place, but the connotation of the civilization should be same, so that, feast day indicates the spirit of national culture, also it is a important part for agglomerating ethnologic solidarity. Overseas Chinese still keep the Chinese culture, because they never cast off the date for their traditional date and habitude.

Chinese New Year, a traditional feast day of China, people summarize gain and loss in past year, and pray for the next year. Spring festival scrolls and New Year call have been shown the Chinese consuetude. So far, there is nothing changed, except modality and content. Comparing the Spring Festival scrolls of these years, we can see the different ideality of human being. It totally shows how the evolution of epoch changes, and we also have these wishes when we pay a New Year call. During Chinese New Year, It has positive signification when people summarize and prospect for this year and following year.

4 Conclusion

Festival is a cultural phenomenon. It has become a part of many people’s life. Its origin, evolvement, customs, rituals as well as its presents, decorations, foods are all the undivided compositions of its luxuriant, centuries-old and unique culture. There are many different cultural festival in China and the Western countries. Whatever how different the form is, the beautiful dreams what most people want are all the same in real life.

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