Bringing "New Folklore" for the New Year in situ, how can we spend the coming years
Author: Yan Feng Shou
【News Essay】
In the Spring Festival that just passed, many people responded to the "New Year in situ" initiative and did not return to their hometown.
In the news reports, the airport, railway station and bus station were slightly deserted, and the number of passengers could not be compared with the Spring Festival travel in previous years.
Statistics also show that from February 1 to 7, 2021, the scale of migration across the country has dropped significantly compared to the same period in 2020 and the lunar calendar in 2019, and the passenger flow of the Spring Festival travel season has also dropped significantly compared with previous years.
The other side of the deserted Spring Festival is the unusually lively New Year in large and medium cities.
Cities such as Beijing and Shanghai used to be like "empty cities" during Chinese New Year, but during the Spring Festival this year, parks, amusement parks, and restaurants were full of passengers, and the box office of the Spring Festival stalls set a new record.
In-situ New Year celebrations also give birth to some new folk customs, such as "online shopping-style New Year greetings", "holding a group for the New Year", "partners for the New Year", "local in-depth tours" and so on.
The epidemic is a contingent factor, but the decline of the Spring Festival Transport can be regarded as a certain historical necessity.
A contingency factor puts a historical and inevitable prospect before people suddenly: As urbanization accelerates and deepens, more and more people will take root in the city, even if it’s the New Year, maybe they don’t have to worry about it. Far away hometown.
The main force of the Spring Festival Transport is migrant workers and "first-generation immigrants" (the first generation who migrated from rural areas or small and medium-sized cities to work and live in large and medium-sized cities).
They were born and raised in rural areas or small and medium-sized cities, and have deep feelings for the land and the villagers.
At the end of the year, the emotional fetters in my heart become more and more inseparable.
Moreover, their parents or children still stay in their hometowns, and the call to "go home for the New Year" is affectionate and eager. Even if they travel through thousands of mountains and rivers, they must return to their parents and children.
However, such a generation belongs to the historical category after all.
With the gradual liberalization of urban settlement policies, more families of migrant workers will take root in cities, and left-behind children are expected to gradually become history.
With the gradual death of one generation of parents, the emotional bond between "first-generation immigrants" and their rural homes will also fade.
When it comes to the generation of children of the "first-generation immigrants," the hometown has become an "ancestral home", and the enthusiasm of "seeking roots and asking ancestors" is difficult.
Furthermore, in the stage of economic development, more and more people gather to live in large and medium cities, while the proportion of rural population continues to decrease. This is a regular trend on a global scale.
The changes in the urban and rural population structure call for the cultural transformation of traditional customs.
The old customs belong to the category of rural China in the final analysis.
Therefore, the flavor of the New Year in the countryside is stronger than that in the city. The more rustic the region, the stronger the flavor of the New Year.
The traditional Spring Festival is a festival of family. Blood ties and kinship are reaffirmed and strengthened. "Family" transcends the meaning of nouns and becomes a profound life experience.
The traditional Spring Festival is still a festival of time.
In the era of farming civilization, the cold winter of bleakness and icy snow comes to an end, and the spring that nurtures all things returns to the earth. Such a moment is worth celebrating.
The more modern social and civilized forms of large and medium-sized cities are quite different from rural China.
Both home and time have undergone changes in urban life: the decline of large families, the rise of nuclear families, and the alienation of relatives; the time rhythm of urban work and life is rarely affected by natural phenology.
The traditional customs of the year seem to have no more beauty.
How will the year pass after entering the city?
This is probably a problem that needs to be explored, practiced, summarized and refined in the process of full urbanization in the next 20 to 30 years.
People who celebrated the New Year on the spot this year started this exploration ahead of time.
"Online shopping for New Year's Eve" can be regarded as an online version and a remote version of the traditional Chinese New Year custom. "Bao Tuan New Year" and "Partnership New Year" are like an alternative to family reunion in a stranger society and a non-blood non-related society.
They not only possess the genes of traditional customs, but also contain elements of new technologies, new economies, new types of interpersonal relationships and lifestyles.
Of course, this exploration is far from mature and far from finalized.
How to inherit and discard traditional culture in modern society?
This is a holistic question that needs to be answered today.
Nian custom is the master of traditional culture, so the inheritance and sublation of the custom has become the focus of the problem.
Perhaps it is still difficult to give an answer. After all, it is about changing customs and requires long-term exploration and innovation, mass practice, accumulation of experience, summary and refinement, and even theoretical construction.
But one thing can be made clear in this process, that is, cultural self-confidence and cultural consciousness should be maintained.
(Author: Shou Feng Yan, Department of Media commentator)