ZeYu Chen
English 191
Final Paper
12/18/2012
The
difference between Chinese Spring Festival and Christmas in U.S
There are many differences between the Chinese Spring
Festival and the Christmas in U.S. A festival is specified as a special occasion on which people may
give thanks for a harvest, pay respect to the dead, and celebrate a culture.
Every nation has its own traditional festivals. Those festivals give people a
chance to be happy with family and develop friendships. Particularly, the
Spring Festival and Christmas are important to Chinese and American people.
However, there are many differences between the two festivals which are the
different histories, celebrations and food.
First, let me introduce these two festivals. Christmas is an annual
commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ and a widely observed holiday,
celebrated generally on December 25 by millions of people around the world. A feast
central to the Christian liturgical year, it closes the Advent season and
initiates the twelve days of Christmastide. Christmas is a civil
holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated by an increasing number
of non-Christians, and is an integral part of the Christmas and
holiday season. The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is the time for all family members get together, just like Christmas in U.S. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded by the home returnees.(1)
The most
important difference between Chinese spring festival and American Christmas is
history.
Christmas is on December
25th which is the birthday of Jesus Christ. It is earlier than Spring
Festival which depends on the moon. Also, it has an interesting story from the
Bible. One day, an angel appeared to shepherds and told them a secret that a
Savior had been born to Mary and Joseph in a stable in Bethlehem. Some
intelligent men from the east used a mysterious star to find the baby Jesus and
they sacrificed many treasures for the baby. In the early 17th century, a wave
of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated early American Christmas
- winter holiday in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took
over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of
their effort, cancelled Christmas. By popular demand, Charles II was restored
to the throne and, with him, came the return of the popular holiday. An outlaw
Christmas after the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor,
including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the
first Christmas under America’s new constitution. Christmas wasn’t declared a
federal holiday until June 26, 1870.(2) In comparison, the Spring Festival
falls on the 1st day of the 1st month of the Chinese
lunar calendar. It originated in the Shang dynasty from people who had
scarified for gods that protect the agriculture. Also, the Chinese Spring Festival
has a mythic story. The centuries-old legend on the origins of the New Year
celebration varies from teller to teller, but they all include a story of a
terrible mythical monster that preyed on villagers. The lion-like monster’s
name was Nian which is also the Chinese word for “year."The stories also
all include a wise old man who counsels the villagers to ward off the evil Nian
by making loud noises with drums and firecrackers and hanging red paper cutouts
and scrolls on their doors because for some reason, the Nian is scared of the
color red. The villagers took the old man’s advice and the Nian was conquered.
On the anniversary of the date, the Chinese recognize the “passing of the Nian”
known in Chinese as guo nian , which is also synonymous with celebrating the
new year.
The other
difference between these festivals is celebration. Chinese Spring Festival has
many interesting things which including clean house, decorations, pay a New
Year call, and the gifts. New clothes, cute hair, and Spring Festival couplets
are indispensable for Chinese people to prepare the Spring Festival. People in
China consider it is very important to clean house completely before the Spring
Festival. It means that sweeping the bad luck away and there will be many
people visit their home during the festival. After they clean the house, people
usually like to paint the door to red, it means welcome the lucky.(3) Furthermore,
different cities have different ways of celebrations the Spring Festival. For
instance, in my hometown, which is Nanjing located in Jiangsu province, we have
to burn joss-sticks for own ancestors who made own family, this celebration
will be done within three days with one day at home and two days outside.
However, for American Christmas, most of people will decorate the Christmas
tree and singing the Christmas music that are differences between Spring
Festival which do not have official music. Many gift cards will be sent out to
family and friends, and house will be decorated as Christmas science. On the other
hand, people have to pay a New Year call for every family with good relationships
with them. They would like to make a party in their home to develop the
friendships. This point is the same Chinese Spring Festival. The gifts will be
given to children at the Christmas day by the mythical Santa who has a white
bear, a red suit and rides the sled from the North Pole. Most children believe
that Santa will give different gifts for different children who are excellent
in their study. It is different between the Chinese gifts from for children
when they celebrate the Spring Festive. In China, the gifts will be called
“HongBao” that put some money on the red packet for the children when elders
firstly meet the children during the Spring Festival with blessing them will be
much better than before. Meanwhile, the children respect their elders with
blessing them will be younger. Furthermore, the firework is used everywhere,
and some typical activities such as dragon lantern dancing and lion dancing are
in the different cities depend on the culture of that city.
Finally, perhaps the most
striking difference between spring festival and Christmas are food. Chinese New Year Foods
are very important to Chinese people. All family members come together to eat
at this time. Chinese New Year foods are not only delicious but it is
traditional to eat certain foods over this festival. As I know,
in China there are 57 races which have many different foods to celebrate the
Spring Festival. During the Spring Festival, people always make Chinese dumplings
by themselves every home. With a long history of
more than 1,800 years, dumplings are a traditional food widely popular in China. It generally consists of minced meat and
finely-chopped vegetables wrapped into a thin and elastic piece of dough skin.
Popular fillings are mince pork, diced shrimp, fish, ground chicken, beef, and
vegetables. At the same
time, people also will buy some glutinous rice cake from shops. In Chinese the
this kind of cake named ‘nian gao,’ it means getting higher year by year. In
Chinese people's mind, the higher you are, the more prosperous your business
is. As a result it is very
popular during Spring Festival. Compare with Christmas in America, the food
there are tend to western food. Actually, there is not any traditional food in
Christmas in America without turkey and Christmas cake.(4) For Americans, it cannot
be called Christmas if there is no turkey during Christmas. Turkey plays a
important role of traditional food in U.S. As before, turkey is only symbol the
thanksgiving, but now it extends to Christmas. On the other hand, food
still plays
an important part in the American Christmas. It is often a time of an extended
open house with friends dropping by to bring gifts or just to wish everyone a
happy holiday. At this time it is appropriate to offer these guests food and
beverage, so many homes have a variety of treats prepared in advance for these
occasions. Although many families serve a variety of menus for Christmas
dinner, the standard fare seems to include turkey, dressing, potatoes, gravy,
cranberry sauce, vegetables, a salad and some sort of dessert.
Not only
every festival has different means, but also it is significant. Nowadays,
people have made many culture associations that will promote more people to
communicate the different cultures. As we knew the differences between Spring
Festival and Christmas are histories, celebrations, and foot. Moreover, I hope
more people will get the values from these two historical festivals which are
symbolical.
Reference:
(1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
12/12/2012
(2)
http://www.thehistoryofchristmas.com/ch/in_america.htm
12/12/2012
(3)
Fabian Fairdeal “China
Adventure” 2009,
published by Author House 8/27/2009 12/10/2012
