China News Agency, Beijing, January 28. Question: Why do overseas Chinese become the "self-media" for the overseas inheritance of the Spring Festival culture?
——Interview with Chen Mei, Chairman of the United States Federation of Chinese Associations in New York
China News Agency reporter Luo Haibing
Writing Spring Festival couplets, cutting window grilles, hanging lanterns, setting off fireworks... No matter how long or far they are away from home, overseas Chinese living all over the world still retain traditional Chinese customs.
The Harper's Monthly, which reflects American history, has published since 1880 the lively scenes of Chinese Americans setting off firecrackers, buying new year's goods, and hanging lanterns to celebrate the Spring Festival.
While inheriting the tradition of the Spring Festival, overseas Chinese also make the Spring Festival overseas a unique carrier of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.
Chen Mei, chairman of the New York Chinese Association Federation, who has held the New Year's Folk Culture Festival five times, recently said in an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Dongxi Wen" that overseas Chinese are naturally the "self-media" that inherits Chinese Spring Festival culture overseas. It not only promotes and demonstrates China's long history and profound Chinese culture to overseas, but also allows the descendants of Chinese descent to understand, understand and fall in love with Chinese culture in joy.
Reporter from China News Service: The United States New York Chinese Association will hold the Chinese New Year Folk Culture Festival for Overseas Chinese in New York on January 15, 2023. What are the contents? This day is a small year in southern China, why did you choose to hold the event on this day?
Chen Mei:
Since its inception in 2015, the New York Chinese New Year Folk Culture Festival has been deeply loved by the vast number of Chinese and overseas Chinese and other ethnic groups in the community, and has been held for five consecutive years.
It was closed for two years due to the pandemic.
This year, we once again held the offline Spring Festival Folk Culture Festival.
The content of this year's activities is very rich and colorful. There are not only classic content such as writing Spring Festival couplets, painting New Year pictures, and paper-cutting, but also children's favorite activities such as pinching balloons, face painting, making sugar figures, and guessing lantern riddles to help children learn Chinese characters.
During the event, there will also be a wonderful cultural performance, including Peking Opera, Tai Chi, Wushu, folk dance, as well as a beautiful children's Hanfu show, professional singing by famous singers from the US-China Musicians Association, etc.
The age of the actors ranges from 9 to 85 years old, in order to achieve the original intention of "all the people celebrate the Spring Festival and the whole family enjoys the joy" that the joint meeting has always advocated.
January 15th of this year is a day commonly known as "Xiao Nian" among Chinese (Southern) folks.
Chinese people in the United States are often busy with work and it is not a public holiday, so most families cannot get together to celebrate the Spring Festival.
We chose to hold the New Year’s Folk Culture Festival on the day of Xiaonian. In a sense, it is to introduce the origin and meaning of the traditional Chinese custom of "Xiaonian" to overseas Chinese and the next generation. The form of the cultural festival brought everyone together from their busy schedules.
New York Overseas Chinese 2023 The 6th Spring Festival Folk Culture Festival.
Photo provided by the interviewee
China News Agency reporter: What is the original intention of holding the Spring Festival Folk Culture Festival? How is the participation of the Chinese community? Why are they keen to participate in the Spring Festival activities?
Chen Mei:
The Spring Festival Folk Culture Festival provides an important platform to showcase Chinese culture. It aims to celebrate the Chinese New Year with the theme of Chinese folk art, local customs and Chinese cuisine, and present it to the United States and New York. The city's mainstream society, people from all walks of life, and the general public promote and display the long-standing and profound Chinese folk culture.
This is the purpose and motivation of the joint association to hold the Spring Festival Folk Culture Festival year after year. We want children to learn knowledge and inherit Chinese culture in joy.
Since the event was launched in 2015, it has grown from only 10 booths in the first session to 50 booths in the fifth session in 2020, and there will be a wonderful free cultural performance.
Every Chinese New Year Folk Culture Festival held by the joint meeting in the past is crowded with people. Participants can not only experience Chinese folk art, taste Chinese food, watch traditional Chinese art performances, but also take away a variety of free folk art. The work is used as a decoration for the Spring Festival to feel the Chinese "New Year flavor".
Even though overseas Chinese are in a foreign country, their feelings for cultural roots are deeply rooted in their hearts, and their feelings for traditional Chinese festivals are common.
Participating in cultural activities during the Spring Festival can not only create a new year atmosphere, but also comfort homesickness, and let the descendants of Chinese descendants experience Chinese traditional culture.
The Spring Festival pays attention to reunion, and participating in the Spring Festival cultural activities is also one of the scenes where overseas Chinese celebrate the New Year together.
People write calligraphy at the New Year Chinese New Year Folk Culture Festival in New York.
Photo provided by the interviewee
China News Agency reporter: What Chinese Spring Festival traditions have been preserved by overseas Chinese? What localized innovations are there?
Chen Mei: Going
back to history, the tradition of Chinese celebrating the Spring Festival overseas is accompanied by the footsteps of Chinese immigrants.
In the United States, after the gold rush in the 1850s and 1960s and the completion of the Trans-America Railroad, early Chinese laborers migrated eastward from the western United States to the East Coast.
Historical materials record in detail that on February 18, 1871, these Chinese workers and their families held the first Chinese New Year celebration in the Eastern United States.
The Spring Festival is often translated as Spring Festival. In fact, it is more customary to call the Spring Festival as the Chinese New Year overseas, that is, "Chinese New Year", which is what we call the Lunar New Year, which generally refers to the first day of the first month.
However, Chinese celebrating the Spring Festival overseas is the same as in China. It is a larger category, including three important time nodes: New Year's Eve, the first day of the new year and the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
The Chinese have completely preserved the Chinese Spring Festival traditions, pasting Spring Festival couplets, hanging lanterns, and setting off fireworks; dumplings or rice cakes must be served on New Year’s Eve dinner, and Lantern Festival must also be eaten on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
During the Spring Festival, we visit relatives and friends to visit each other, give out lucky money to children, and there are dragon and lion dance performances in Chinese community activities.
Of course, the Spring Festival overseas also has many innovations tailored to local conditions. For example, in the Chinatowns of some big cities in the United States, there will be different forms of celebrations such as Chinese New Year parades; in some European countries, Chinese New Year concerts will be celebrated; Chinese families in some countries in Southeast Asia also make "New Year cakes" that incorporate Nanyang flavors as a new "New Year taste"...During these innovative processes tailored to local conditions, different cultures and civilizations can learn from each other.
A lion dance event was held in Bryant Park in New York, USA. Many children had close contact with lion dance during the event.
Photo by Liao Pan
China News Agency reporter: Is there any local mainstream society involved in the traditional Chinese festivals held overseas, including the Spring Festival? How engaged?
Chen Mei:
In fact, overseas Chinese New Year celebrations in different forms have gradually gone out of Chinatown, and more and more people from the local mainstream society are participating.
For example, the very famous Lunar New Year Parade in San Francisco, from the early tradition of a small number of Chinese laborers in Chinatown to celebrate the Spring Festival, has evolved into a multi-ethnic, Chinese and American group close cooperation to showcase traditional Chinese culture. One of the big famous grand parades.
Another example is the Empire State Building in New York, the London Eye in the United Kingdom, the Sydney Opera House in Australia and other multinational landmarks, which also light up red lights every year for the Chinese New Year to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
In some countries and regions, the Chinese Spring Festival has been listed as a national or local legal holiday.
Political leaders from many countries will also deliver New Year greetings during the Chinese New Year.
The streets of Chinatown in Manhattan, New York, USA are decorated with lights and festoons.
Photo by Liao Pan
China News Agency reporter: How can the traditional Chinese festival cultural activities that overseas Chinese continue to inherit become the carrier of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries?
Mei Chen:
There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants, students and workers from China in New York.
During the festive season, I miss my relatives a lot.
Traditional festivals with Chinese characteristics such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival have gradually integrated into the lives of local Americans.
Since New York State passed the law that all school students can stay at home and spend the Spring Festival with their families on the first day of the Chinese New Year without being absent, the Spring Festival has become a well-known traditional Chinese festival.
Various universities, middle schools, and primary schools will hold activities to celebrate the Chinese New Year, such as teaching students how to make dumplings, writing Spring Festival couplets, dancing Chinese folk dances, and holding concerts featuring Chinese folk musical instruments.
Over time, these celebrations have naturally become the carrier of cultural exchanges between China and the United States.
With the development of multiculturalism in the world, these rich and colorful Chinese festival traditions have also refreshed the local people. They are attracted by the hustle and bustle of the Chinese New Year and the "new year", and then become interested in Chinese culture.
Through these lively scenes, they felt the spiritual core of Chinese Spring Festival culture even more, and understood the family concept and worldview contained in Chinese culture, that is, the pursuit of reunion and harmony.
People are dining at a Shanghainese restaurant during the Spring Festival in Chinatown, Manhattan, New York, USA.
Photo by Liao Pan
China News Agency reporter: While preserving the Spring Festival tradition, what role do overseas Chinese play in inheriting and disseminating the Spring Festival culture?
Chen Mei:
Overseas Chinese are themselves "self-media" for inheriting Chinese culture and spreading Spring Festival culture overseas.
By continuously introducing and interpreting traditional Chinese culture to our next generation and other ethnic groups and mainstream society, we let people remember that the Chinese nation with a history of 5,000 years of civilization is a peaceful nation.
No matter where they are, Chinese people from generation to generation are willing to pave the way for the friendship between the Chinese and American people, and for world peace and national prosperity.
(Finish)
Respondent profile:
Chen Mei, President of the United States Federation of Chinese Associations in New York.
The New York Council of Chinese American Associations was established in 2003. It is a non-profit organization registered by the New York State Government and recognized by the US Federal Government. It is composed of Chinese associations from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. civil society groups.
The purpose of the joint meeting is to strengthen the connection and cooperation between Chinese associations, strive for the due rights and interests of overseas Chinese in the United States, and use the joint meeting as a platform to promote the cultural, educational, economic, trade and other aspects of the people of China and the United States. exchanges and development, thereby promoting mutual understanding and cooperation between overseas Chinese and other ethnic groups, as well as the friendship between the people of China and the United States.