The Cultural Comparison between Spring Festival and Christmas英语专业毕业论文.docx

The Cultural Comparison between Spring Festival and ChristmasIntroductionWith entering WTO and the acceleration of economical globalization, Chinas international contact is developingrapidly. The international contact is a kind of inter-cultural human relations, in which both sides want to reach a successful communication. But in fact, setbacks or failures of the communication usually occur. Consequently, the relationships between nations sometimes even get worse. People often blame the situation on language itself and neglect the misunderstanding caused by lacking the knowledge of culture and custom. Therefore, it is essential to acquire the knowledge of different customs for enhancing the efficiency in the inter-cultural communication.1 Customs and international contactCustoms can be defined as habit and habitude which are the result of constant cultural accumulation and established usage (Han Yangmin, 1998:150). It originates from specific geographical and civil environment and is developed by a certain society or a nation. Besides whats mentioned above, it is a typical phenomenon of history and culture. Many writers have defined customs, among whom, Wu Xiaoning (2005) said:“customs refer to the fixed way of thinking”. When people follow “custom”, they put emphasis on conventional behavior, the rules of daily life and the characteristics of the culture reflected by their repaeated behavior, as well as the distinguished point among the whole culture. For exampel, when Chinese people meet each other, the most common greeting is“Have you got eaten?”The Americans often say “How are things setting on?”While the British often use the counterpart“It has been very cold these days?” The custom is the basic content of ethnologists research, and is similar to “folk custom”. The two frequently replace each other. The custom manifests each nationalitys traditional cultural values, and has the nature of historical inheritance and aberrance. Another definition on custom (Han Yangmin, 1990:150) is : The custom which is gradually formed and observed in the community is a kind of social standards of behavior in the human society. Different nations locate in different geographical positions and have different experiences. Of course, these nations tend to have different social customs which have the formidable binding force to their members way of behavior and life style. According to this definition, cultural custom has many types, such as religious custom, marital custom, life custom and festival custom and so on. For example, a festival is defined as a special occasion on which people may show their thanks to someone, honor a person or an event, show their respect to the dead, or celebrate a war. A festival, as a cultural phenomenon, comes into being during the course of human development and histoical evolution. As is known to all, different peoples enjoy different festivals. Although different nations have different regions and the ways of celebrations vary from one place to another，most people bear common feelings for the festivals，that is，to pray for happiness and health，to realize a good will，and to show the love of life. Festival celebrations also express peoples preference for traditions and convey their will to pursue the dreams. A festival is regarded as“a carrier of culture”, or a display of the way of behavior and thinking. Afestival is a unique and specific cultural phenomenon and this unique cultural phenomenon embodies human cognition and attention to the natural environments and peripheral surroundings (Han Yangmin,1998:151). The two definitions are the best among the above mentioned. According to the two definitions, it is reasonable for researchers to find the nature of human culture by studying festvals. Moreover, festival custome provide us a way to reveal the difference and similarity between different cultures. It is impossible to pay equal attention to every festival custom, and therefore, Spring Festival and Christmas (the two most representative and well-known festivals in the east and the west) are chosen to make a comparison in detail2. Literature Review Many writers have writen various articles about Spring Festuval and Christmas. For example, Wang qiming narrated Christmas as the grandest holiday which is held on December 25th every year to commemorate the birthday of Christ and then described origins of each celebrating activitise. He simply narrated the origin and the custom of Christmas introduced the origin and fables of Spring Festival, telling the story of 年(year), of the gate god and the fireworks etc. Yu shiqian and Yu juan elaborated customs in Spring Festival in detail and new years celebration scenes of each ethnic minority and simply introduced customs in Christmas. LiLulu narrated all kinds of festivals celebrated in China. In those works, origins and customs in Spring Festival and Christmas have been discussed, but putting the two together to make a comparison in detail is excluded. Therefore, in this thesis, a thorough comparison between Spring Festival in the east and Christmas in the west will be presented. The reasons for the differences will make people profoundly understand the cultural differences between the cast and the west, so that people can adapt to the intense international competition.2.1 Outline of the Thesis This paper aims to help people deepen the understanding of different cultures and improve the ability of inter-cultural communication. Since festival customs are the important outlets which enable people to understand cultures of different countries, with the development of society and an enlargement of reform and opening up, there are more and more chance of communicating with westerners, and it is important to understand customs in different countries. Setbacks or failures of the communication usually occur in inter-cultural communication mostly resulting from lacking the knowledge of culture and customs of different countries. Therefore, it is essential to acquire the knowledge of different customs for enhancing the efficiency in inter-cultural communcation. This thesis is based on a detailed analysis of Spring Festival and Christmas. Firstly, there goes an introdution. Secondly, similarities between Spring Festival and Christmas and the causes for differences. Last but not least, a conclusion is not excluded.3.0 Similarities between Spring Festival and Christmas In China, Spring Festival is the biggest and grandest holiday that has the longest time to celebrate, lasting about 15 days. Its counterpart in the west is Christmas, which lasts about 12 days. Generally speaking, Chinese and Western people all regard these two festivals as a happy, visiting holiday and a holiday for family members reunion. Customs in Spring Festival and Christmas reflect the variety of cultures. For some people, Spring Festival is a day related to agriculture, while Christmas is a holy festival marked by religious services, because of its root in Christianity. However, for most people, gift giving, feasting, and good times are far more prominent than their origins. During the holidays, people have family unions on New Years Eve and Christmas Eve, and people enjoy the same harmounious and lively atmosphere of the family reunion. There is one common purpose for people activities, that is, to express their pleasure in heart and pray for good luck or good fortunes, etc. Therefore, there are similar between Spring Festival and Christamas. In general, they share the following three points.3.1 Religious worship and farming seasonal understanding The religion and totem are contained in deep reasons for the notion of custom in Spring Festival and Christmas, respectively stressing ghosts and gods. People regard Spring Festival as “the ghosts festival”. Good fortune of the last year is the blessing of gods, and happiness of the coming year must depend on gods. Lu Xuns novel Blessing has such a “scene: send the firecracker of cooking stove”,“extend greeting to every one, welcome the luck gods and pray for good fortune of the next year”and “invite the lucky gods to enjoy well-prepared food”. World saints and audiences enjoy the fine food and the cigarette, all walk drunkenly in airborne. The preparation will give the people of Lu town infinite happiness. Christmas is a religious holiday as the name suggests, commemorating Jesus Christs birth. Christmas trees symbolize trees in the Garden of Eden. The candle symbolizes Jesus Chritmas. All the above mentioned obviously contains the meaning of religions worship. As is known to all, Christmas is one month earlier than Spring Festival. However, both of them overlap with the solar term (farmer season, farm crops season) of the mid-winter. All activities concerning death, returning, preserving seed, the harvest, praying, blessing, etc, have ties with the understanding of the winter farming season.3.2 Returning consciousness In China, the period, about half a month before Spring Festival, is becoming the busiest time for transpotation systems. Airpots, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees. Some people live away from home and they all take the parents family as the center family, and do everything possible to go back to the family before the lunar New Years Eve, in order to have“the reunion year”and “the reunion” New Year supper. Western people, going home before Christmas, also have the same enthusiasm and fervor as Chinese people. They are also eager to have a reunion in the holiday by any possoble means, and have a Christmas meal. So this reunion is the reunion of whole family, after which, visiting friends is carried on. What kind of idea and consciousness makes people perform as whats mentioned above in the east and the west? From many researches about Spring Festival and Christmas, some people proposed the returning idea, and borrowed the words of Wax Refined language to explain: All things in the natural environment tend to their origins. This is an important idea as the same as“the reunion”returning consciousness which is the behavior performance and the simulation of natural circulation rule and parental substance attraction of life characteristic. Because the idea of returning consciousness is more popular, it is good to use this view to explain and understand Spring Festival and Christmas.4.0 Differences between Spring Festival and Christmas4.1 Time Strictly speaking, the period of Spring Festival falls every year in the early days of the 12th lunnar month and will last until the mid 1st lunar month of the next year with the Lantern Festival as the end (Yu Shiqian&Yu Juan,2004:156-158). Among these days, the most important time is Spring Festival Eve. The government now stipulates people have seven days off for the Chinese lunar New Year. Christmas is on December 25th. People usually have two weeks for this holiday. Christmas Eve starts on the evening of December 24th till the morning of December 25th. The highlight of Christmas falls on the evening before and after Christmas Eve.4.2 Origin Spring Festival originated in the Shang Dynasty from the people's sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.Although no one knows exactly when Jesus was born, Christians throughout the world celebrate His birthday on December 25. This date was selected in the fourth century so that Christmas would replace the pagan celebration of the winter solstice .Ancient peoples believed that daylight hours began to lengthen when the sun god started his journey back to earth. They celebrated the beginning of his journey on December 25.4.3 Preparation for the HolidaysPreparations for the New Year festival start during the last few days of the last moon. Houses are thoroughly cleaned, debts repaid, hair cut and new clothes bought. Doors are decorated with vertical scrolls of characters on red paper whose texts seek good luck and praise nature, this practice stemming from the hanging of peach-wood charms to keep away ghosts and evil spirits. In many homes incense is burned, and also in the temples as a mark of respect to ancestors. In addition, symbolic flowers and fruits were used to decorate the house, and colorful New Year pictures were placed on the walls.Preparation for Christmas starts in early December when decorations are put up, including door wreaths, artificial trees and nativity scenes. A common tradition is that of decorating and blessing their Christmas tree. Often the Sunday before Christmas is set aside for this task. Decorations include colored lights, balls, tinsel, chrismons, and on top, a star. The roots of the use of trees and decorations are definitely in Europe's pre-Christian religions, but the symbols were transformed by the early missionaries in order to express some aspect of Christ's life. Sometimes, the meaning was much the same as the pagans treasured, but drawn through Christ. In other cases, the old meaning was deliberately turned inside-out to bring further honor to God and more cause for the people to celebrate. Christmas cards are sent out to family and friends.4.4 Festival FoodChristmas: Most families who celebrate Christmas will make Christmas cookies before Christmas Day. These are sugar cookies decorated with colored sugar and candy sprinkles. Gingerbread cookies are also popular; these are sweet ginger cookies decorated with sugar frosting to resemble little men. On Christmas Eve, many families will have a light supper of oyster soup or snacks, and on Christmas Day, the family will gather for a large meal of roast turkey, vegetables, and pies.Spring Festival: Most families will eat dumplings on Spring Festival Eve. Many families make the dumplings together first. They may eat other things with the dumplings, such as cold dishes and soup from the dumpling's water. At midnight, some families will eat the dumplings again, and in the morning, they will eat the dumplings for breakfast. On New Year's Day, they will eat a large feast with 3 sets of 8 dishes: 8 cold dishes, 8 hot dishes, and 8 soups or "after dinner" dishes, like sweet rice with fruit. Fish is often served on New Year's Day to symbolize prosperity in the New Year.4.5 Festival GiftTo symbolize God's gift of Jesus at Christmas, almost everyone who celebrates Christmas will give gifts to the people they love. In the old days, people made their Christmas gifts, and the gifts were simple, like loaves of bread, wooden toys, and little dolls made of cloth. Now, however, families often spend lots of money on each other to give extravagant gifts. People who celebrate Spring Festival give red envelopes with money in them. Often the envelopes are given to children, but some grandparents will give red envelopes to everyone