How to make traditional festivals continue to shine with the light of the times
【Hot spot observation】
"It turns out that Qu Yuan is the originator of Chinese-style romance", "Tu Honggang's Dragon Boat Festival Wonderful Tour of Dingjun Mountain", "Henan Satellite TV Dragon Boat Festival Gala is full of flying dragons in the sky"... The Dragon Boat Festival just passed, Henan Satellite TV's "Dragon Boat Festival Wonderful Tour" once again detonated the entire network, Chinese traditional The festival is on fire again.
A few years ago, people were generally worried that traditional Chinese festivals were declining under the impact of "foreign festivals", but now they have become accustomed to their popularity "out of the circle", and their expectations for related innovation expressions have generally increased.
The excellent traditional Chinese culture is the gene of the Chinese nation, rooted in the hearts of the Chinese people, and subtly affects the way of thinking and behavior of the Chinese people.
The traditional Chinese festivals represented by the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival and Dragon Boat Festival are the four traditional Chinese festivals, which carry the ideology, humanistic spirit and moral code of the Chinese nation.
Today, we advocate and carry forward the core socialist values, from which we must draw rich nutrition.
How to deeply understand Chinese traditional festivals, combine the spirit of Chinese aesthetics with contemporary aesthetic pursuits, activate their vitality, and make them continue to shine with the light of the times, is both a test and an opportunity for the literary and art circles.
Classic poetry and prose interpret the connotation of traditional festivals
Regarding Chinese traditional festivals, there are different sayings such as "17 traditional festivals", "12 traditional festivals", "eight traditional festivals" and "four traditional festivals".
However, these are only a small part of traditional Chinese festivals, and there are as many as 2,700 collected in the book "Chinese Festival Names" alone.
Among them, New Year's Eve, Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Qixi Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival, etc. have high popularity and popularity, while Torch Festival and Catch-Autumn Festival have certain regional characteristics.
Traditional festivals have been passed down for thousands of years, creating a large number of classic poems and leaving a batch of catchy sayings and proverbs.
It is precisely these immortal poems and proverbs that are engraved with national memories, branded with national sentiments, and inherited national spirits, making the Chinese nation endlessly prosperous.
Almost every major festival is mentioned, the corresponding poems and proverbs can spring up in the minds of generations of Chinese people, and emotions and memories are instantly activated.
After New Year's Eve: "Thousands of doors and ten thousand households meet each other's days, always replace the new peach with the old one." (Wang Anshi's "Yuan Day") We bid farewell to the old and welcome the new; , where the lights are dim.” (Xin Qiji’s “Qingyu Case: Yuanxi”) We enjoyed the folk fireworks; Qingming Festival: “There is a lot of rain during the Qingming season, and pedestrians on the road want to die.” (Du Mu, “Qingming”) We pay homage to our ancestors; Qixi Festival Festival: "If the two loves last for a long time, how can they be in the morning and evening." (Qin Guan's "Magpie Bridge Immortal: Qixi Festival") We sing praises for great love; Mid-Autumn Festival: "I hope that people will live long and live together in a thousand miles." (Su Shi) "Shui Diao Song Head · When Will the Moon Come?") We look forward to reunion; Double Ninth Festival: "Being a stranger in a foreign land alone, we miss our relatives every time during the festival." (Wang Wei, "September 9th, Remembering Brothers in Shandong") We miss our relatives .
Since ancient times, the use of poetry to write festivals has never stopped.
In the history of modern and contemporary literature, there are also many famous articles related to traditional festivals.
Such as Bing Xin's "Spring Festival in Childhood", Xiao Hong's "Mid-Autumn Festival", Shen Congwen's Dragon Boat Festival in "Border Town", Lao She's Mid-Autumn Festival in "Four Generations Together" and so on.
The inheritance of traditional festivals and the passing of classic poems complement each other.
The festival is not a simple holiday, its meaning is far more than tourism and leisure, party entertainment, and its spiritual connotation is precisely contained in these classic poems.
This also requires us to combine heritage festivals with psalms.
In fact, the reason why we are familiar with some classic poems is due to the contribution of Chinese textbooks in primary and secondary schools.
Topics related to textbooks are more likely to arouse heated discussions, because the educational significance and far-reaching influence of textbooks are irreplaceable.
Regarding the Chinese textbooks for primary and secondary schools, there have been voices to replace the classic poetry, and this view has been widely opposed.
Some negative events also remind us that we must be cautious about teaching materials. Not only can traditional festival-related poems not be edited at will, but also scientifically and reasonably expanded through selected textbooks and elective courses.
Rich activities highlight traditional festival value
The festival is bound to be accompanied by a wealth of custom activities and a variety of taste bud memories.
For thousands of years, various activities, customs and rituals related to traditional festivals have been deeply internalized into Chinese people's moral consciousness and behavior habits.
The ethical, moral and aesthetic connotations contained in traditional festivals still have important social significance and era value today.
Eating dumplings during the Spring Festival, eating Lantern Festival or Tangyuan during the Lantern Festival, eating zongzi during the Dragon Boat Festival, eating moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and drinking Laba porridge during the Laba Festival. The festival is called "Zongzi Festival", and the Mid-Autumn Festival is called "Moon Cake Festival".
Food culture is an important part of festival culture, but it is not enough to just reduce festivals to eating and consumption.
The reverence for nature, family and country feelings, gratitude and filial piety, and cultural identity carried by the festival are more important.
Reverence for nature.
The origin of traditional Chinese festivals is mostly related to the calendar, solar terms and sacrificial culture.
To this day, every Spring Festival, Spring Festival couplets and door gods are posted in various places to pray for blessings, and firecrackers are used to drive away the "Nian Beast". The core of the customs is the unique concept of "Heaven and Man" in Chinese culture, respecting nature, communicating with all things in the world, and harmony with nature. Symbiosis.
The concept of respecting and caring for nature is timeless.
Homeland sentiment.
One view holds that the earliest origin of the Dragon Boat Festival is the summer solstice, one of the twenty-four solar terms.
In the process of spreading, the ancient people linked the Dragon Boat Festival with the stories of historical figures such as Qu Yuan, and endowed the festival with emotional and moral colors.
When the Dragon Boat Festival became a memorial day, people commemorated Qu Yuan by racing dragon boats and making rice dumplings. The spirit of patriotism contained in it was also passed on and carried forward, and it still has important educational significance to this day.
Thank you for your filial piety.
The poem "I miss my relatives every festival" vividly interprets the meaning of the inheritance of traditional Chinese festivals and the Chinese people's culture of gratitude and filial piety.
Whether it is the ancestor worship on the Qingming Festival, the reunion dinner during the Spring Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the various activities carried out on the Double Ninth Festival around respecting the elderly, the culture of filial piety is silent.
This culture also urges us to vigorously promote the traditional virtues of filial piety and respect for the elderly, implement the preferential treatment policy for the elderly, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly, and give full play to the active role of the elderly, so that the elderly can share the fruits of reform and development and enjoy a happy old age.
Cultural Identity.
Chinese traditional festivals condense the national culture, national spirit and national emotion of the Chinese nation, which is conducive to enhancing national identity, strengthening national unity, maintaining national unity, uniting Chinese at home and abroad, and uniting efforts for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
During the Spring Festival every year, we watch the Spring Festival Gala with overseas Chinese and spend the festival together, which is one of the values of the festival today.
Cultural innovation shows the vitality of traditional festivals
Since the 2021 Henan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala program "Tang Palace Night Banquet" was born, "Wonderful Night of Lantern Festival", "Wonderful Tour of Qingming Festival", "Wonderful Tour of Dragon Boat Festival", "Wonderful Tour of Qixi Festival", "Wonderful Tour of Mid-Autumn Festival", "Wonderful Tour of Chongyang" and other "Chinese The "Festival" series of explosions continues to arouse heated discussions. Literary and artistic masterpieces such as "Luoshen Shui Fu" and "Dragon Gate King Kong" fully demonstrate the strong vitality of traditional Chinese festivals, proving the reality of "living" in the moment and fire in the moment. Brings many inspirations.
After "Tang Palace Night Banquet" was "out of the circle", all walks of life had a comprehensive discussion around the program, the most important of which was that Henan Satellite TV found the right direction, which is to dig deep into the excellent traditional Chinese culture.
If "Wonderful Night of Lantern Festival" is still an attempt to "make cultural relics come alive" by leveraging "Night Banquet in Tang Palace" and the Lantern Festival, then "Wonderful Tour of Qingming Festival" reproduces the elegant gathering of literati in Song Dynasty and "The Wonderful Tour of Dragon Boat Festival" The underwater interpretation of "Luo Shen Fu" echoes the wishes of the Dragon Boat Festival, "The Wonderful Tour of Qixi Festival" has both small feelings and greater love, "The Wonderful Mid-Autumn Festival" shows the story of the reunion of father and daughter, and "The Wonderful Tour of the Double Ninth" presents etiquette and filial piety. The cultural connotation has been deeply analyzed and vividly interpreted.
Innovation is the life of literature and art.
How to make Chinese excellent traditional culture an important source of literary innovation, the "Chinese Festival" series gives the answer.
In "Wonderful Night of Lantern Festival", Tang figurines not only "live", but also travel through the museum, leading the audience to have a direct dialogue with cultural relics and history, and the content innovation is amazing; The innovative expression structure breaks through time and space to reproduce the "Xiyuan Elegant Collection Picture", and the form innovation surprises again and again.
New technologies have spawned innovations in literary forms and broadened the space for literature and art.
The correct use of new technologies and new means can not only stimulate creative inspiration, but also provide services for the landing of inspiration.
The success of the "Chinese Festival" series is inseparable from the spiritual core of traditional culture, the innovation of literary and artistic forms and the assistance of science and technology.
Of course, whether it is to deeply cultivate traditional culture, focus on the selection of content for traditional festivals, or create amazing ideas, it is not a day's work.
When we learn the successful experience of the "Chinese Festival" series, we should also avoid copying and cloning cottages.
We must not only study with respect, but also strengthen the courage to break through ourselves, so that we can move towards a broader creative world.
(Author: Liu Jun and Peng Sheng, Lecturer and Professor of Central South University respectively)