The question of whether China should celebrate the Spring Festival has been debated since the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. At that time, why did Sun Yat-sen introduce the Western calendar into China instead of the lunar calendar? The reason was that he wanted to reform and open up and integrate with the international community in the West. Therefore, the abolition of the Spring Festival is also an idea of Sun Yat-sen.
Chinese New Year, Chinese red
Mr. Sun Yat-sen
However, Sun Yat-sen is still steady, although he wants to abolish the Spring Festival in his heart, but he knows that the traditional conservative force in China is too strong, and it is difficult to completely change the thinking of Chinese people at once and no longer celebrate the Spring Festival.
Therefore, when he introduced New Year's Day, he did not immediately abolish the Spring Festival, but let the Chinese slowly become familiar with the Western New Year, hoping to make a transition before abolishing the Spring Festival.
111 years ago, the Chinese had "New Year's Day" - the New Year of the West
Chiang Kai-shek, as a follower of Sun Yat-sen, and the fact that he became a devout Christian after marrying Soong Meiling, was also fully in favor of abolishing the Spring Festival in the old Chinese calendar and replacing it with the New Year's Day in the West.
The first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year passes, starting from the Xia Dynasty. However, the official name of the Spring Festival began with Yuan Shikai of the Beiyang government, and it was often called Yuan Day and New Year's Day before.
In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek felt that the time was ripe to abolish the Lunar New Year, so he issued a ban in the name of the government: abolishing the Lunar New Year, only allowing New Year's Day and New Year's Day, and the ban began on New Year's Day and Spring Festival in 1929.
The decisions issued by the government include a strict ban on any Spring Festival activities, a ban on all celebrations of the Spring Festival, firecrackers, Spring Festival couplets, New Year's money, visits to relatives and friends, playing cards, and eating and drinking...... It was also forbidden for people to say auspicious words such as wishing "Happy New Year" and "Wishing you prosperity", and Chiang Kai-shek immediately labeled the "Spring Festival" as "feudal superstition" and "backwardness".
In order to implement this policy of the government, Chiang Kai-shek set up a special leading group and sent chengguan team members to the streets to strictly inspect the streets and ban activities related to the celebration of the Spring Festival by forceful means.
Chiang Kai-shek
At that time, a public servant was arrested in front of the statue of Sun Yat-sen for a deep review just because he said "Happy New Year".
1930 was the harshest year for the Republic of China government to implement the Gregorian calendar, and during the Spring Festival, police were sent to closed shops, forced them to open for business, and even destroyed the ingots and fruit offerings in the stores. Hawkers selling old calendars in the countryside were taken away and detained. In Hangzhou, the Lantern Festival dragon dance has been a grand event for many years, and it was once banned.
Although Chiang Kai-shek was able to forcefully ban Nanjing, Shanghai, and other large and medium-sized cities, he did not have the strength to effectively manage and ban the vast rural areas and small and medium-sized cities in various localities.
Therefore, the vast majority of Chinese still worship their ancestors, reunite their families, and spend the Spring Festival reunion together, which makes Chiang Kai-shek very distressed and embarrassed.
So after 1933, Chiang Kai-shek no longer strictly forbade the Lunar New Year, and you can continue to live as you like, so that I Jiang someone can worry about it and not please me.
Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek's 1929 Spring Festival abolition movement has become an interesting historical episode.
In fact, the Spring Festival is not a question of whether to abolish it, but a question of how to carry out reform. After all, the Spring Festival carries on one of the most important parts of China's culture.
The Japanese used to celebrate the traditional Chinese New Year.
The Japanese celebrate the Spring Festival, which has been changed to January of the Gregorian calendar
However, after the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese no longer celebrated the traditional Spring Festival, but merged the Spring Festival with New Year's Day, and moved the content of the celebration of the Spring Festival to New Year's Day, the moment of the Western New Year, and integrated the Eastern and Western cultures well.
At present, many local governments in China have forbade people to set off firecrackers and burn paper money for so-called safety and environmental reasons, which is already learning from Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese.
In China, the Spring Festival used to be tossed for a month before it was over
Conclusion: As the wheel of history continues to roll forward, how will the Chinese New Year evolve? However, just from the perspective of the huge pressure on railways and highways caused by the Spring Festival transportation every year, the reform of the Spring Festival must be carried out.