China Popular Itineraries |
|
|
|
|
The Development of Festivals and Festival Customs in the 20th Century |
The 20th century has witnessed unprecedented revolutions in China and abroad. Within one hundred years from the 191.1 Revolution to the return of Macao and Hong Kong, China has won great achievements. Having broken away from the tragic destiny of a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, she has now turned into an independent and powerful socialist country with democracy, civilization, burgeoning prosperity and affluence. It is these dra-matic changes that have exerted decisive and unprecedented influence over de-velopment and evolution of Chinese festival and customs in the 20th century.
Affected by political and economic reforms, festival customs that are es-sential components of lifestyles will inevitably vary with changes in people's way of life. Our examination of development and evolution of Chinese festival customs is based on historical progresses; namely, the progress made in the modern civilization at different historical stages, including the 1911 Revolu-tion, the New Culture Movement around the time of the May 4th Movement in 1919, after the victory of China's democratic revolution, and since the social-ist reform and opening-up. Especially, fundamental and extensive changes in Chinese festival customs have taken place in the past 20 years since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee held in 1978.
The changes in Chinese festival customs express themselves firstly in re-forms of form and content of traditional festivals, secondly in replenishment with new festivals and customs, including the spread of Western festival cus-toms among special groups of people. In the first case, the democratic and so-cialist revolutions and their successes, together with the development of con-temporary capitalism and the subsequent socialist economy, have enabled democratic system and modern open way of life characterized by industrial civ-ilizations to have replaced the political system and isolated way of life based on self-sufficient economy of feudalism. Meanwhile, people' s lifestyle, their out-looks and social life have become increasingly civilized.
Consequently, traditional festivals and their old-fashioned customs, which have been handed down through thousands of years as a kind of behav-ior culture, have had to undergo revolutions. Take for example the Spring Festival most valued by the Chinese people. After the 1911 Revolution, the government of the Republic of China reformed the traditional customs. One of the reforms concerned with the Spring Festival was the establishment of dual calendars; that is, the coexistence of lunar calendar and Gregorian calendar. It was stipulated that the days of the week should follow the Gregorian calen-dar, the 24 solar terms should follow the lunar calendar, and all the dates marked for gods or devils should be cancelled. In addition, it was declared that the Gregorian calendar was to be used to number the years. The etiquette kowtowing was publicly abolished and replaced by bowing. Then, Gregori-calendar was regarded as official calendar and lunar calendar as civilian cal-endar. New Year on Gregorian calendar was called the political New Year in order to distinguish it from New Year in the old sense under the rule of the emperor, whereas New Year on lunar calendar was called the social New Year in order to fit into people's social activities and their agricultural operations. Gradually the superstitious elements related to the Spring Festival in the feudal society diminished as bowing with hat off took place of kowtow. This could be seen more obviously in towns and cities where business and industry well de-veloped. In the following years, New Year in lunar and Gregorian calendars1 have been observed respectively, which have kicked off significant changes to festival customs. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the people's government and CPC have endeavored to transform old social tradi-tions. To these efforts the mass of people have positively responded. They have done conscientiously with irrational practices in festival activities. They have no longer offered sacrifices to gods and ancestors, or kowtowed. Many taboos and elaborate rites have been eliminated. Instead, officials at different levels of the government make a point of ensuring a sufficient supply of com-modities for the Spring Festival, and visiting citizens in an attempt to solve their problems with their work and life and to enable them to enjoy themselves on this big occasion. Every year, the Party Central Committee and the State Council hold Spring Festival receptions and symposiums, and take these as good opportunities to exchange ideas between the government and citizens, and to attain solidarity with people, foreign friends and overseas. Since the re-form and opening-up, along with improvement in people's material and cul-tural life, the Spring Festival customs have drastically changed. For example, too big dinners overdone for improving life during the Spring Festival that used to be common are rare today; to protect environment and avoid personal injury, fireworks are forbidden in many cities and towns; travelling (even travelling abroad ) is the main festival entertainment for the wealthy families; the majority of the people in cities and countryside watch gala celebrations on CCTV on the Spring Festival Eve instead of following the traditional way of sitting up through the whole evening.
Nowadays, as the socialist market economy has been primarily formed, there is no longer discontinuation of work in governments and businesses for a long holiday during the Spring Festival. Great changes have also taken place to other festival customs, which have been adjusting themselves to the current trend. For instance, the Ghost Festival is almost unknown. On the other hand, many influential traditional festivals and customs, due to long historical traditions, are instilled with the cultural essence of different nationalities, and with the spirit and values of the Chinese people. They include patriotism, re-spect for the elderly and care for the very young, advocacy for peace, pursuit of happiness, diligence, bravery, and optimism, all of which still fit in with both material and spiritual needs in the 20th century. That is why a majority of traditional festivals and their healthy customs have remained and will steadi-ly develop with social progresses.
There have emerged a number of new festivals and customs in the 20th century. New festivals for commemoration arose after the May 4th Movement. On May 1st, 1920, a commemoration meeting was held in Shanghai and Chang Xindian, organized by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, founders of CPC, to mark the International Labour Day. Then, International Labour Day be-came gradually spread among the workers all over the country. Every year, on May 1st, workers would hold demonstrations and rallies to appeal for unity and emancipation. On March 8th, 1924, the working women in Guangzhou held a grand commemoration meeting to mark International Women's Day, as well as demonstrations after the meeting, shouting slogans for women's liber-ation. After 1925, activities to mark International Women's Day began to spread in China's cities and in the revolutionary bases in the countryside. In these activities, women participants reviewed the history of their fighting for liberation, and expressed demands for further liberation. A commemoration meeting to mark the May 4th Movement was held in Yanan on May 4th, 1939, at which, Mao Zedong delivered his famous speech entitled "On Orientation of Youth Movement. " It was also decided at the meeting that May 4th was Chi-nese Youth Day. All of these festivals became important days legally estab-lished by the government after the founding of the People's Republic of Chi-na. On such big occasions, the government and various societies organize vari-ous colourful commemoration meetings and entertainment. Women are re-leased from work half of the day on Women' s Day, while Labour Day is set by the State Council as a holiday, which usually runs into Sunday, hence two days for holiday, as is the rule for New Year. Youth Day is popular chiefly among colleges and universities and other young intellectuals, whereas the working young people are too busily engaged in their work to take it as a holi-day, except participation in organized activities by the Communist Youth League. Before and after Youth Day, a wide range of activities or theme meetings are organized either by the Youth League or students unions in col-leges and universities: lectures on science, art festivals, exhibitions, athletic contests, which usually last for a week or so, held out of classes. Evening par-ties are often very ceremonious; officials and teachers are invited. As a rule, half day of Youth Day is free, so young people often go to picnic or on excur-sion.
Apart from these traditional festivals, there have cropped up other new festivals on Gregorian calendar; for example, National Day on October 1st, Army Day on August 1st, International Children's Day on June ist, Teachers' Day on September 10th, Tree-planting Day on March 12th, the Elderly's Day, International Nurses' Day, and so on. Since the reform and opening-up, with the help of social groups and led by the government, a rich variety of new festivals have been established in various regions, such as kite festivals, film festivals, TV festivals, ice lantern festivals, peony festivals, pear blos-som festivals, fishing festivals, garment festivals, art festivals, Wushu festi-vals, acrobatics festivals, etc., to name only a few. Influenced by culture of western countries, some alien festivals like Christmas, Valentine's day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, All Fool's Day have become popular among certain groups of people, especially the city young people. They, however, have not given up the traditional Chinese festivals.
Random sample surveys made in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou in recent years revealed that 85.7% of the surveyees considered traditional Chinese festivals as important while 14. 3% of the surveyees thought foreign festivals were as important as traditional Chinese festivals. Christmas, Mother's Day, Valentine's day and Father's Day are on top d the foreign festival list observed in China, respectively occupying in sequence 65 %, 42.5 %, 37.5 %, and 27.5 % of the Chinese surveyees who observed foreign festivals. In response to the question "how do you like foreign festi-vals", 51.4 % of the surveyees felt that the way foreign festivals employed to express feeling was queer. Most of them observed foreign festivals in order to show their affection for their family and friends in steal of following the origi-nal purpose of these festivals. For example, the response that "we usually cel-ebrate Christmas for family reunion " indicated that this western festival tinged with Christianity is connoted with a new sense in China where the ma-jority of people do not believe in Christianity. Other typical western festivals, such as All Saints' Day and Easter, are still not acceptable to the Chinese peo-ple because they do not suit the Chinese mode of thinking, and because they cannot serve as an ideal way to express the feelings of the Chinese people.
It might be said that emergence of new festival customs and development of traditional Chinese festivals in the 20th century not only reflect the historical process of great social changes in China, but also constitute, in a sense, an es-sential part of this process. Therefore, a research into this subject may offer a comprehensive understanding of Chinese contemporary and modern history, of social changes that have taken place since the reform and opening-up, and of China today as it is. While China is heading for modernization and opening up to the world, her traditional festival customs, endowed with the essence of Chinese culture, are being replenished with the beauty of a new era while re-taining the glory of a long history. New festival customs that have sprung up have invigorated traditional festivals, thus steadily enhancing social, political and economic reforms.
|
|
