Traditional festival life and cultural memory
Dong Deying
Chinese traditional festival culture contains rich cultural connotations, such as respecting natural laws, attaching importance to family and friendship, respecting teachers and teachers, attaching importance to education, advocating good-neighborliness and friendship, knowing gratitude and giving back, emphasizing physical and mental health, and imagining a better life, which are the embodiment of the core values of the Chinese nation.
An important aspect that distinguishes the festival from daily life is that it has solemn ceremonies and colorful festivals. When people look back on their past lives, festivals are often the deepest and most memorable memories. At the same time, the festival is also an important time for people to inherit traditional cultural knowledge, appreciate the beautiful festival poetry, participate in the experience of festival activities, feel the fun of the festival culture, understand the basic knowledge that constitutes the cultural gene of the Chinese nation, and consciously or unconsciously practice the sustainable inheritance of Chinese culture.
The feeling of home and country in traditional festivals
Festivals are the most important and special time nodes of a country and a nation; festival culture is the symbolic and symbolic cultural content of a country and a nation, a vivid witness of the development of social history, and a concentrated embodiment of the wisdom of people's lives, the feelings of home and country, and the maintenance of social traditions. As a collective memory, festivals can best reflect people's identity, national identity, and cultural identity. In particular, the excellent virtues of respecting ancestors, filial piety to parents, gratitude to nature, valuing family affection, and praying for good in traditional Chinese culture are all reflected in the festival culture.
As the memory of the nation and the homeland, and as a cultural heritage that is still alive in contemporary times, traditional festivals have their rich and diverse forms of cultural expression. Wherever we are, festival culture celebrates our identity and cultural identity. Festivals are cultural symbols of Chinese, it can be said that as long as there are Chinese people, there is a Spring Festival, and the Spring Festival is almost a cultural business card of Chinese culture or Chinese recognized by the world. Pasting spring festivals, cutting window flowers, wearing new clothes, hanging lanterns, dancing lions, wrapping dumplings, eating reunion dinners, etc., colorful Spring Festival customs, so that every Chinese person has a common cultural belonging, but also deeply feel the longevity and brilliance of the Chinese national culture.
Traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival reunion vigil, the Dragon Boat Festival to worship Qu Yuan, and the Mid-Autumn Festival reunion moon festival are not only infiltrated with the "family complex", but also pinned on the "feelings of the country" of national unity and national reunification. "Long too breath to cover up the sniffles, mourn the many hardships of the people's livelihood" "Fu Qingbai to die straight, solid before the holy place", Qu Yuan, who was dedicated to the people, sympathetic to the people, loyal to the king and patriotic, for the sake of justice in his heart, angrily threw himself into the river on May 5 to die Mingzhi. "The Dragon Boat Festival is said by whom, and it is rumored throughout the ages that Qu Yuan", the Dragon Boat Festival festival qu Yuan, is people's admiration for his clean and self-righteous character, and feel his original patriotic feelings. It is precisely because generations of Chinese sons and daughters continue to struggle that we can have the stability and peace of the current country and the happiness and warmth of our little family. "The foundation of the world is in the country, the foundation of the country is at home, the foundation of the family is in the body", the home is the smallest country, the country is tens of millions, and the ideological concept and spiritual pursuit of the integration of the family and the country have long become the cultural genes and group consensus of the Chinese nation. Although sometimes because of work and other reasons can not be reunited with the family, but everyone's concern and wishes for the family is eternal, and it is transformed into the adherence to the post, the motherland of the motherland of the deep blessing.
Cultural heritage in the life experience
Many traditional festivals have both deep historical development and rich and colorful festivals. Folk culture is the basic component of national culture, which is closely related to the daily life of ordinary people and reflects the multi-level life outlook of society. When people participate in these festival activities and personally experience the fun of festival life, the festival life and the festival culture it contains will remain in their life memories for a long time, and the spread and re-dissemination of the festival culture will continue to be carried out.
Hands-on experience is an important way to feel the connotation and charm of the festival. Whether it is the production of various festive foods, or the festive beliefs of participating in worship ceremonies, whether it is the festive communication of relatives and friends, or the festive tourism of leisure and entertainment, all of them highlight the importance of participation and experience. For example, if people like to celebrate a lively festival, we can hold festival experience activities in the family or community, so that everyone can understand our long and splendid traditional cultural connotation in the participation, and feel the living traditional culture contained in the holiday life in the experience.
China's long-term agrarian society, eating enough to wear warm is the most basic goal of people's survival, "eating" has become the highlight of traditional festivals, almost every festival has a symbolic festival "food": the Spring Festival of the older "dumplings", the Lantern Festival of the Lantern Festival and Tangyuan, the Dragon Boat Festival of Zongzi, the Qixi Festival of Qiaoguo, the Mid-Autumn Festival moon cake, chongyang Festival pastries, Lapa Ba congee ... In "gourmet" China, "eating" contains rich cultural connotations: there is the wisdom of the ancients, there are beautiful legends, there are expectations for reunion, etc., and it also carries a broad and profound food culture. Participating in the production and tasting of festive food is a good holiday life experience. During the Dragon Boat Festival, a pot of glutinous rice, a few rice dumpling leaves, and the family wrapped zongzi, boiled zongzi, eat zongzi, talking and laughing, the "eating" zongzi and the festive food culture, the atmosphere of the festival reunion was integrated, and the festival "ate" out of taste, "taste" out of family affection.
Holiday memories in literary classics
For many writers, the festival is an important life experience, deeply imprinted in their cultural memory, and has become their most colorful writing content. Reading the classics and following the author's life footprints, you can deeply feel the life scenes in the text and taste the festival culture behind the words. The cultural memory of these festivals will have a strong cultural resonance with contemporary festival life, which is the embodiment of the identity of the Chinese nation.
At present, the primary and secondary schools have compiled many traditional cultural contents in the Chinese textbooks, and also selected a number of famous works related to festivals. For example, in the primary school Chinese textbook, there is Lao She's "Spring Festival in Beijing". The writer used the simple and unpretentious Beijing language to depict a picture of the life style of the old Beijing Spring Festival, wrote about the grandeur and liveliness of the Spring Festival at that time, and contained the author's love for thousands of years of excellent traditional culture, believing that the new society "everyone works for the rest of their lives" and "should celebrate the New Year happily". Although "Spring Festival in Beijing" is written in Beijing, it is actually a microcosm of the lively festivals in various parts of China, reflecting the indelible holiday memories in everyone's heart.
"The flowers are similar from year to year, and the people are different from year to year", what changes is the life experience, and what remains unchanged is people's adherence to traditional festival culture. These festivals do not exist only in past times like fossils or specimens, but are passed on in a living form and with a living vitality.
The food, clothing, rituals, beliefs, etc. of traditional Chinese festivals are the cultural characteristics of the Chinese nation and are closely related to the daily life of the people. As a part of our modern life, festivals are a condensation of daily life at the time of festivals, the practical experience and wisdom of the people, and the people's review and imagination of the past, present and future. Traditional festivals allow people to temporarily break away from the daily life trajectory, slow down the pace of life, adjust to work and rest, enjoy the cultural life of the festival, integrate tradition into modern life in the experience, and enrich people's spiritual world. Carrying forward the excellent Chinese culture, including traditional festivals, is conducive to telling Chinese stories well, making our culture confident and elegant to go out, allowing more people to understand and love our culture, and injecting cultural vitality into the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
(Author: Dong Deying, School of History, Qingdao University)
The original article was published in Guangming Daily2022-02-25