An Investigation Report on the Similarities and Differences between China Spring Festival and Western Christmas.

Comparison between traditional Christmas in the United States and New Year in China and Han nationality Abstract: Christmas is the most important festival in the United States, and Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. Both of them have profound historical and cultural connotations, and colleagues represent people's expectations and hopes. This paper compares the similarities and differences between the Spring Festival and Christmas from two aspects: their origins and celebration methods, and points out their similarities and differences. At the same time, it is worth noting that more and more people celebrate Christmas and ignore the Spring Festival. We should pay attention to this problem to avoid the dilution of traditional festivals. Keywords: comparison of similarities and differences between Christmas and Spring Festival 1. Introduction Christmas and Spring Festival are the products of different nationalities and cultures. They both created a warm atmosphere in that cold season, and placed their gratitude and hope in saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new. This paper compares the origin and celebration methods of these two festivals, and compares the similarities and differences between the two festivals. 2. The origin of Christmas Christmas is a happy religious festival, and it is the day when Christians celebrate the birth of Christian founder Christ. Love, family and belonging are important themes. According to the Bible, the holy book of Christianity, God decided to reincarnate his only son, Jesus Christ, to live on the earth, so that people can better understand God, learn to love God and love each other better. The exact date of Jesus' birth is unknown. In the early Roman calendar (AD 336), Christmas was set as 65438+February 25th, which was the first special day of the birth of Jesus. In the12nd century, Christmas became the most important festival in Christianity, and it began to become a serious religious festival. Later, non-religious decorations and gifts and feasts became popular [1]. 2.2 the origin of the spring festival the spring festival has a history of about 4000 years. The first day of the first lunar month is designated as the beginning of the Spring Festival at 19 13. The Spring Festival is the most lively and grand traditional festival in a year. Spring Festival is also called "Year". Legend has it that there was a monster named Nian in Archaean, with tentacles on its head, which was extremely fierce. Whenever the cold is exhausted, when the Spring Festival is coming, it will come out to hurt people and animals and destroy homes. In order to protect it, people get together and use the characteristics of "Year" and "Park Red" to scare it away by pasting "Fu Tao" (Spring Festival couplets) and "firecrackers". I'm used to it. Moreover, during the Spring Festival, people always place infinite hopes on the New Year. 3. Celebration method One of the similarities between Christmas and Spring Festival is that they both last for a long time. Although Christmas is between February 25th and1October 6th, generally speaking, Christmas begins after Thanksgiving and lasts until June 65438. Broadly speaking, the Spring Festival starts from Laba, enters the schedule on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, and lasts until the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month. In some places, we also celebrate the Grain Filling Festival on the 25th of the first month and the second day of the second month, in order to pray for good weather and good harvest. Although both festivals last for more than a month, due to the differences in cultural customs, the celebrations of the Spring Festival and Christmas have their own characteristics. 3. 1 Christmas celebration method Christmas is a very important festival in the west. Just like the Spring Festival, every place has its own unique celebration method. Generally speaking, at Christmas, people will decorate the Christmas tree, give Christmas cards to each other, have a Christmas dinner and give Christmas presents to children. Christmas trees are usually made of evergreen trees such as cedar and cypress, which symbolizes the longevity of life. The tree is decorated with all kinds of lights and candles, colorful flowers, toys and stars, and hung with all kinds of Christmas presents. On Christmas Eve, people sang and danced around the Christmas tree and had a good time. Christmas cards are greeting cards to celebrate Christmas and New Year. They are printed with pictures about the birth story of Jesus, and wishes such as "Celebrate Christmas" and "Happy New Year". Just like people in China eat New Year's Eve dinner during the Spring Festival, Europeans and Americans attach great importance to having a festive New Year's Eve dinner with the whole family sitting around the Christmas tree. The custom of eating turkey for Christmas dinner began at 1620. This custom prevails in America. English Christmas dinner is roast goose, not turkey. On Christmas Eve, Austria likes to invite relatives and friends of the whole family to a restaurant for a Christmas dinner in droves. Among them, turkey, preserved chicken, roast cowboy meat and pork leg are essential, and everyone enjoys it with famous wine. What children look forward to most is the gift brought by Santa Claus. It is said that Santa Claus was originally the bishop of Mela in Asia Minor, and his name was Saint Nicholas. He was honored as a saint after his death. He is an old man with a white beard and a red hat. Every Christmas, he will drive a sleigh pulled by deer in the north, enter every house from the chimney, put Christmas presents in socks and hang them on the children's bedside or in front of the stove. Therefore, on Christmas Eve, when westerners celebrate Christmas, parents will put Christmas gifts for their children in socks and hang them on the bedside. The next day, the first thing the children woke up was to look for a gift from Santa Claus by the bed. 3.2 Celebrating the Spring Festival The tradition of setting off firecrackers originated from a monster named Nian. This monster has a blue face and fangs, which is very terrible. On the 30 th night of the twelfth lunar month, they will flee to various villages to kill people. I once went to a village on the evening of New Year's Eve, and it happened that two children were setting off firecrackers. Nian didn't know what it was, only heard the crackling sound and dazzling light, so he was afraid and ran away. As a result, people discovered Nian's weakness of being afraid of the light and sound of firecrackers. Every year130 February, firecrackers will be set off, which gradually evolved into a custom [2]. Sticking Spring Festival couplets and changing door gods are important customs in the Spring Festival. Every New Year's Eve, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should post red paper Spring Festival couplets and mighty door gods. Spring Festival couplets and door gods are used to eliminate ominous and protect the safety of a family. They have a long history. The most important meal of the year is the New Year's Eve dinner, also called the reunion dinner. Although the dishes of New Year's Eve dinner vary from place to place, each dish has a certain meaning, such as the homonym "Ji" of chicken, which means good luck; Fish homophonic "Yu", that is, more than a year; Tofu homophones "striving for wealth", that is, abundance; The rice cake symbolizes "getting taller every year"; Almond symbolizes "happy people"; Jiaozi is homophonic "Jiaozi", which means to make friends at a young age. Jiaozi also has various fillings, some of which are added with candy and peanuts. Eating sugar means that life is as sweet as honey, and eating peanuts means immortality [3]. On the first day of the first month, when the New Year comes, people open doors and set off firecrackers, commonly known as "opening firecrackers". He Xinchun said that after breakfast, people should pay New Year greetings and wish each other well. The usual order of New Year greetings is: first, worship the heavens and the earth, then worship the ancestors, then worship the elders of Gaotang, then the whole family pays New Year greetings to each other in the order of generations, and finally goes out to pay New Year greetings. With the popularization of telephone, Internet and mobile phone, people can call relatives and friends and send emails to pay New Year greetings. In recent years, there has been a new situation of using mobile phone text messages to pay New Year greetings. Similarities between Christmas and Spring Festival Spring Festival and Christmas have different origins and celebration methods. As the leaders of their respective festival cultures, there are similarities between the Spring Festival and Christmas. Festival culture is not only a window to show a picture of national cultural life, but also a system of symbols and meanings [4]. It is the expectation of happiness, the yearning for kindness and the blessing for the future. 5. The prevalence of Christmas and the weakening of Spring Festival. The Christmas atmosphere in cities and campuses is getting stronger and stronger. Will the imported "foreign festivals" replace the traditional Spring Festival in China? Spring Festival is the root of traditional festivals in China. No matter how grand Christmas is, China people, as orientals, can't live without it in the final analysis. The behavior of young people and businessmen is just an excuse for Christmas. Most people who celebrate Christmas don't spend it at home, but invite friends to hotels and restaurants, and there are not as many complicated ceremonies as foreigners. They are just looking for a place to eat, drink and have fun. Moreover, many people don't even care about eating, drinking and having fun, but just follow the trend and say "Merry Christmas". Such a wind will definitely not become a climate. From the perspective of intercultural communication, an important aspect of communication is the context in which information is located. Linguists and anthropologists use "high" and "low" contexts to express the amount of information needed for successful communication. High-context communication means that most information is realized in physical context, while a small part of information is actually realized in words. Couple soften communicate with look or oranodoftheheadatmost Low-context communication is just the opposite: most information is used. Economically (high context), compared with the trial period (low context), Twinhovergethercanandoccommeremory economics (high context) corresponds to lawyersinacourtroom. In fact, high-context communication is more common than North America. This may lead to serious misunderstanding. Business people were invited to express their new views on Japan-Japan relations with Japanese friends. He said that to some extent, Americans admit that there is something in Japanese culture. Unless, of course, things change. Now, Asians and Westerners, as well as Europeans, will unconsciously examine the structure, model and limitations. Because they are not familiar with this system, they will go too far. For Japanese culture, one must make hastelslowlyandengethemoskilful, sublenterterofcultureyoucanfind. The greater the cultural distance, the more blurred the interface. A simple example of communication between interfaces would be Germany and Switzerland. Cultural distance in this cases is not very big, because there are two Uresarelowcontextaswells monochronic and monochronic, a concept discussed the following section. A difficult interface communication will be France and Thailand. If you are communicating with managers, remember that they are in a low context and need a lot of information and details. If you communicate with people from France, they are in high context and don't need much information. contextistheinformationthatsurroundsanevent； It is inevitably bound to themaningoftheevent. The two elements, event and background, depend on different cultural backgrounds to varying degrees. Japanese, Arabs and Mediterranean people have extensive information networks among their families, friends, colleagues and customers, and they have close backgrounds with close interpersonal relationships. Therefore, for most normal transactions, family life does not need much background information. This is because they let themselves know all the information about the important people in their lives. People with low backgrounds include Americans, Germans, Swiss, Scandinavians and other Nordic people. They classify their interpersonal relationships, work and all aspects of daily life. Therefore, every time you interact with Others TheynedetailedBackgroundInformation. This difference can actually affect all situations and all relationships, and these situations and relationships are discovered by members themselves. Context performs multiplication. For example, any shift intellofcontextisacommunication. This change may expand the scale, indicating that the relationship is warming, or reduce the scale of communication or release signals, indicating that the relationship has changed. When people with low context don't provide enough information, people with high context will feel uneasy. A huge communication challenge requires finding the right level in every situation. toomuchiinformationleadspeopletofeeltheyarebeingtalkeddownto； Toolittleinformation can confuse mormakethemfeeleftout. Usually, people will make these adjustments automatically in their own countries, but information from other countries usually misses the target. Americans and, to a certain extent, Germans, to a greater extent, rely heavily on unrestrained screening, especially when they want to concentrate. High-context people rejectedtuditoriscreingandhreeonbeingopentonton interruptions and tune with what goes and andronth France and Italy bombard you with noise regularly.