Festival customs

Author: Hongyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Traditional Chinese festivals are categorized into agricultural festivals, sacrificial festivals, commemorative festivals, celebratory festivals, and social/recreational festivals. They are specifically divided into events such as the Spring Festival, the Lantern Festival, the Qingming Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the Double Ninth Festival, among others. This book introduces only some of the major traditional festivals of the Han ethnic group. China is a multi-ethnic country, and each ethnic group has its own cultural customs. The numerous ethnic festivals represent a cultural treasure trove waiting to be explored. Traditional festivals possess continuity, having both a long historical origin and a direction of development, while also exhibiting variability. During their continuation, they evolve. Traditional festivals are categorized into agricultural festivals, sacrificial festivals, commemorative festivals, celebratory festivals, and social/recreational festivals. The origins of traditional festivals are attributed to several major categories: First, they originate from primitive sacrificial activities, such as the Spring Festival offering to the Kitchen God, the Qingming Festival honoring ancestors, the Dragon Boat Festival commemorating dragons and Qu Yuan, and so on. Second, they originate from religious activities. Third, they originate from agricultural activities, such as the Qingming Festival, the Ten Days Festival, and the Winter Solstice. Fourth, they originate from community-based recreational activities, such as dragon boat racing during the Dragon Boat Festival, which was a community recreational activity as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty.