Festival Customs -- A Colorful Illustrated Book of Chinese Folk Culture

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. Specific examples include the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and 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 dynamic evolution. They develop while maintaining this continuity. Traditional festivals are categorized into agricultural festivals, sacrificial festivals, commemorative festivals, celebratory festivals, and social/recreational festivals. The origins of traditional festivals can be attributed to several major categories: First, they originate from primitive sacrificial activities, such as the Spring Festival offering to the Kitchen God, Qingming Festival ancestor worship, Dragon Boat Festival dragon and Qu Yuan worship, and so on. Second, they originate from religious activities. Third, they originate from agricultural activities, such as Qingming, the Ten Days of the Year, and the Winter Solstice. Fourth, they originate from communal recreational activities, such as the Dragon Boat Festival dragon boat races, which were already a communal recreational activity as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty. Fifth, they originate from significant historical events. The purpose of this book is to provide readers with a basic understanding of these festivals, enabling the inheritance and promotion of our traditional culture.