中西方节日文化差异重阳节和母亲节Word文件下载.docx

1、Festivals are a kind of folk-custom culture that is created by the world people to adapt the requirement of production and livelihood. It is one of the important parts of world folk-custom culture. It includes the character, mentality, belief, ideas, thinking, moral character, appreciation of the na

2、tional history, and the value of national culture, and it shows the most prominent and the most characteristic existence form of a nation. The formative process of traditional festivals is a process of condensed accumulation of a nation or countrys historical culture. In the festival customs handed

3、down to us from our ancestors, we can obviously see the marvelous picture of social life of the ancient people. Different countries and nations have rich and colorful festivals, even in the same country and nation, different areas have the different festival customs. So knowing some differences and

4、relation of cultural source have profound meaning to promote the communication of oriental and Western culture and also promote the oriental nation and Western nation get on much better with each other. Festival culture is very profound. The festival customs in dissimilar countries are established b

5、y usage, with the own distinct national features and rich presentation forms, but they infiltrate to each other. This text deal with the perpetual charm of the customs by comparing festival culture between China and the Western countries: the Double Ninth Festival and Mothers Day. Also hoping we can

6、 understand the Chinese culture and the meaning of foreign culture much more objective, so that we can improve our ability of cross-culture communication.2. The differences between Chinese and Western festival culture2.1 Difference of religious beliefWestern festivals have obviously religious featur

7、e. It is a unary monotheistic religion. The people think the God is the creator of all things in the world, and He doesnt allow people to worship other gods, and it is also unnecessary for people to worship other gods. Human life is just a process, peoples good fortune or bad fortune and wealth or p

8、overty is gods innate gift rather than peoples begging. On the contrary, the most important cultural character of Chinese traditional festival is fiercely secular, in other words, it is unreligious because in early China the social structure is established on the combination of natural worship and h

9、umanistic spirit, people stand for the balance and harmony between gods and human beings, this is different from Western ancient god socialist and modern humanism. The Chinese traditional world outlook embodies the admiration for ancestors and advocacy of life, thus it is every Chinese original miss

10、ion to carry forward and further develop the ancestors spirit and material heritage. However, in the view of Christian civilization, everyone is responsible to the God or they are responsible for their own action in order to acquire the Gods forgiveness or favor, and then they can get into heaven af

11、ter they die.2.2 Difference of ethical cultureIn Oriental and Western society, the ways of development are different, as a consequence the ethical culture is certainly different. China is a multinational country that has a history of five thousand years. The leading Chinese traditional culture is Co

12、nfucianism, meanwhile, it includes various schools of thoughts since ancient China. Western culture is mainly about Christian culture. Chinese traditional festival contains rich ethical elements; the main function of festival is inheriting moral principles rather than giving people the opportunity t

13、o provide entertainment and leisure. For example, on the Double Ninth Festival, people in some areas generally have the habit of offering sacrifices to an ancestor. By contrast, the ethical feature of a Western festival is not obvious, it emphasizes entertainment function, and it can offer the enter

14、tainment opportunity to modern people. Western festival pays more attention to individual spirit and displaying the personality. These can easily be accepted by people with any cultural background. For example, equality between male and female and the idea of womans rights are also reflected in West

15、ern festivals, such as Mothers Day, this festival cant exist in Chinese traditional Confucianism culture.3. The originsEverything in the world has its origins, festival is no exception. Festival is also a part of culture which forms in a particular period, and has the relationship with the productiv

16、ity and production relations at that time. Here follows the origin of the Double Ninth Festival and Mothers Day together.3.1 The origin of the Double Ninth FestivalThe Double Ninth Festival is our national traditional festival on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. Why is it called “Chung Yang”?

17、 Because in ancient China people regarded odd numbers as “Yang” and even numbers as “Yin”. According to The Book of Changes, nine is the Yang number, it is called “Ji Yang”. On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, there are double “Yang” the date and month both nine, so this day is named “Chung Y

18、ang” or “Double Ninth”.The origin of the Double Ninth Festival can be dated back to ancient China, it has at least two thousand years history.In Warring States Period, people had the custom of eating the food that is cooked with chrysanthemum.In Han dynasty, the custom of the Double Ninth became inc

19、reasingly popular. It is said that in Han dynasty, Han Gao Zu Liu Bangs imperial concubine Mrs. Qi was killed cruelly by the empress Lv Zhi. Following that, one of Mrs. Qis maid servants whose name is Jia Peilan was dismissed from the palace, then she married a civilian. So she brought the activity

20、of Double Ninth from the Palace to the common people. She told people that every year on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, in the palace the emperor and his attendants would wear Zhu Yu plant on hair, eat rice cakes and drink wine or chrysanthemum tea to dispel bad omens and pray for longevity

21、. In the period of the Three Kingdoms, people gradually had the custom of hiking. In the period of Weijin, on the Double Ninth Festival there were customs of appreciating chrysanthemums and drinking chrysanthemum wine.To the Tang dynasty, the Double Ninth Festival was regarded officially as a folk f

22、estival, the activity of the festival became more and more colorful and rich. People on that day must drink chrysanthemum wine and wear Zhu Yu plant on the head or arms.After the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the Double Ninth Festival was also called the Senior Citizens Day. In 1989, th

23、e holiday was called officially after the Senior Citizens Day. Every year the Double Ninth Festival is also the day to show the respect to the elders. The Chinese nation has the traditional virtue about having the greatest esteem for old people. So, on this day most places organized the old people t

24、o climbing the mountains in order to communication and physical exercising.3.2 The origin of Mothers DayThe festival that shows the respect to mother in Western countries appeared in the Middle Age. In Europe, there were several long standing traditions where a special Sunday was set aside to honor

25、motherhood and mothers such as Mothering Sunday. Mothering Sunday celebrations are part of the liturgical calendar in several Christian denominations, include Anglicans, and in the Catholic calendar is marked as Laetare Sunday, which is the fourth Sunday in Lent （in the Christian church, the period

26、of 40 days from Ash Wednesday to the day before Easter, during which some Christians give up food or activities, that they enjoy in memory of Christs suffering）. Children and young people who were “in service” （servants in richer households） were given a day off on that date so they could visit thei

27、r families. Children would pick wild flowers along the way to place them in the church or to give them to their mother as gifts, and people would eat Simnel cake that is also called Mothering cake.The Mothering Sunday was ignored when the early immigrates came to American continent. Until the end of

28、 the nineteenth century, Julia Ward Howe raked the opinion of the Mothering Sunday up. She felt the inhumanity of the war during the Franco-Prussian War, so she decided to use the way of “mother” to solve the conflict of the war. And in 1870, she wrote Mothers Day Proclamation. In 1834, the U.S. Pre

29、sident Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a stamp commemorating the festival.In the present form, Mothers Day was established by Anna Marie Jarvis, following the death of her mother Ann Jarvis on May 9, 1905, with the help of Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker. A small service was held in May 12, 1907

30、 in the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia where Annas mother had been teaching Sunday school. But the first official service was in May 10, 1908 in the same church, accompanied by a large ceremony in the Wanamaker Auditorium in the Wanamakers store on Philadelphia. She the

31、n campaigned to establish Mothers Day first as a U.S. national holiday and then later as an international holiday.The holiday was declared officially by the state of West Virginia in 1910, and the rest of states followed quickly. On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second

32、Sunday in May as Mothers Day and requesting a proclamation. On May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mothers Day as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.Now, in the United States, Mothers Day remains one of the biggest days for sales of flowers, greeting cards, and the like; it is also the biggest holiday for long-distance telephone calls.4. The historical evolution of two festivalsAlthough the creation of the most festival customs depends on belief, in the process of the