Editor's note:
The Jade Rabbit bids farewell to the old year, and the Golden Dragon welcomes the New Year. Among the twelve Chinese zodiac signs, the dragon is the only fictitious mythical animal; in traditional Chinese culture, the dragon is a symbol with unique meanings.
The Year of the Dragon is approaching. China News Service's "East-West Question" has launched a series of "Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon" planning series since February 6. From the origin of the dragon in Hongshan culture to the evolution of the dragon in the Dunhuang Grottoes, from more than a hundred years Explore the cultural flavor behind the Spring Festival in the Year of the Dragon from how foreigners celebrated the Spring Festival in the past to why Chinese people at home and abroad are called "descendants of the dragon." Please stay tuned.
China News Service, Langzhong, February 10th
: What did the Chinese Spring Festival look like when foreigners witnessed it more than a hundred years ago?
——Exclusive interview with Qiu Yongxu, professor of the School of Liberal Arts of West China Normal University
China News Service reporter He Shaoqing
At the end of the 19th century, when the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen first mentioned the concept of "Silk Road" in the first volume of his scientific masterpiece "China", he may not have imagined that this term would become a topic of conversation in the 21st century. One of the most frequently used words in Eastern and Western cultural exchanges.
As a derivative work of "China", "Richthofen's China Travel Diary" records in detail China's topography, natural resources, agricultural and commercial development, folk customs and other aspects of information in the late Qing Dynasty, including Richthofen's three trips to China. China’s Spring Festival experience.
What did the Chinese Spring Festival look like when foreigners witnessed it more than a hundred years ago? How does the Chinese Spring Festival complete its transformation from a national festival to a global festival? Qiu Yongxu, a professor at the School of Liberal Arts of West China Normal University, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service's "East-West Question" to explain this.
Video: [East-West Question] Qiu Yongxu: How did foreigners celebrate the Spring Festival in China a hundred years ago?
Source: China News Network
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
Reporter from China News Service: As a pioneer and representative figure in the world's modern geology and geography community, what is the indissoluble bond between Richthofen and China?
Qiu Yongxu:
Richthofen was a famous German geologist and traveler. In the five years from 1868 to 1872 (the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty), he conducted 7 geological surveys in China, covering 13 provinces in China at that time.
In terms of geology, Richthofen investigated North China and Northwest China and proposed the "wind theory" of the origin of loess, which promoted in-depth and systematic research on loess. Richthofen was also the first geographer to point out the location of Lop Nur. To this day, China's Qilian Mountains are still named "Richthofen Mountains" in German.
In summer, the scenery of snow-capped mountains and rapeseed flowers in the Qilian Mountains is fascinating. Photo by Sheng Jiapeng
In 138 BC and 119 BC, Zhang Qian made two missions to the Western Regions, opening up the most important trade channel between the East and the West during the Han Dynasty. For thousands of years, this passage has been called "Foreign Road" ("Historical Records"), "Western Region Road" ("Sui Shu"), "Tribute Road" ("Song History"), etc., and Li Xihuo Fen noticed the important role of silk in the early days of exchanges between the East and the West, named it the "Silk Road", and highly affirmed it - "High-level culture has been produced here many times, and art and science have flourished."
After Richthofen's death, his students and family compiled his essays, diaries, and letters from his study tours in China, and named them "Richthofen's China Travel Diary" ("Diary"). The book records in detail the topography, natural resources, agricultural and commercial development, folk customs and other aspects of China in the late Qing Dynasty. It is an important economic and cultural material for China's foreign exchanges in the late Qing Dynasty.
In January 2024, the audience visited "Zhang Qian's Mission to the Western Regions" collected by the Dunhuang Academy in Beijing. Photo by Jia Tianyong
China News Service reporter: In "Diary", how does Richthofen observe the Chinese Spring Festival folk culture from the perspective of a German scholar?
Qiu Yongxu:
The Chinese Spring Festival is a major festival for people to get rid of the old and bring in the new, offer sacrifices and pray for good luck, reunite families, pay respects to relatives and worship ancestors. Related activities often start from the New Year (the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth lunar month). In China, the Spring Festival customs may vary depending on the region or ethnic group, but they all continue the common theme of "saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, and being reunited".
"Diary" records that Richthofen spent three Spring Festivals in three different regions of China, namely in Nanjing in 1869, in Hunan in 1870, and in Sichuan in 1872. Although Richthofen could not accurately write down the name of every custom, he recorded many rituals. These rituals are related to farming and are mixed with folk beliefs. Their research is an important part of restoring the full picture of the Spring Festival in the late Qing Dynasty.
In 1869, Richthofen spent his first Chinese Spring Festival in Nanjing. He wrote in his diary: "It is extremely lively here, and people are preparing for the upcoming New Year's Eve tomorrow. Colorful lanterns are hung on the shore, on the streets and even on the boats, and the sounds of fireworks and firecrackers are deafening. My Some good friends of the Chinese entourage came from Ningbo to visit them. I joined them with great interest and brought out live chickens and shochu."
From Richthofen's diary, we can not only see the universal Chinese Spring Festival celebration rituals such as hanging lanterns, setting off fireworks, and setting off firecrackers, but we can also see that gathering with friends is the Chinese cultural identity of reunion at the end of the year. It is also the Chinese people’s persistent pursuit of group belonging.
In December 2023, in Nanjing, Jiangsu, the dragon lanterns arranged on the old streets in the south of the city attracted tourists to take photos. Photo by Yang Bo
Richthofen continued to write: "The Spring Festival is a festival common to all Chinese people... During the Spring Festival, almost all shops have a three-day holiday, and even checkpoints in various places will be closed. People enjoy themselves and set off various fireworks Fireworks and firecrackers. Wearing good festive clothes, 40 million people rest at the same time... The Spring Festival is also a peaceful day: all disputes and objections are put aside, people cannot quarrel, and people in the entire country are harmonious. .”
In 1870, Richthofen sailed the Yangtze River and spent his second Spring Festival in China in a village called Xiaojiangkou in southern Hunan. He wrote: "Chinese people have been looking forward to this day early, just like children look forward to Christmas. Everyone plans to enjoy a few days of leisure time. It is rare to have such good weather during the Spring Festival this year , but I found that people here almost stay at home all day, and at most they go around the village or the city."
Richthofen continued: "My boatmen were no exception. They bought several kilograms of pork, two chickens, a salted fish, some vegetables and soju, and also prepared some roasted beans and various fruits. and wheat. These things are first placed in front of the statue of Bodhisattva as a sacrifice, and then eaten by the family." "Most of the people on the boat are celebrating the New Year at their own homes, and some of them have not been with their families for a year. We were together, so we were reluctant to leave home again right away. Some people even went to distant villages to visit relatives and spend the night there, which made it impossible for us to leave on time... As many people have described, Chinese families The concept is very strong.”
Richthofen's last trip in China came to Sichuan and other places, and caught up with the Spring Festival. On the New Year's Day, he was crossing Jianmen Pass, and there was only one mention of this in his diary. After arriving in Jianzhou (an administrative division that once existed in northern Sichuan Province), the flavor of the New Year gradually emerged. "Now every house is closed, and business and transportation have been suspended for the New Year. There are also New Year greetings. Men and women wear their best clothes and visit all their acquaintances. New stickers with pious words are posted on the window guards of the house. The Spring Festival couplets also have the business cards of those who come to pay New Year greetings, so you can tell from the outside who receives the most congratulations.”
In February 2021, Spring Festival couplets posted in a shopping mall in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province attracted the attention of citizens. Photo by Yang Bo
China News Service reporter: What kind of exchanges between Eastern and Western civilizations can be seen from Richthofen's records of Chinese Spring Festival customs? How did the Chinese Spring Festival complete its transformation from a national festival to a global festival and move towards a broader international stage?
Qiu Yongxu:
Different regions and ethnic groups in China will create different Spring Festival legends based on their own different beliefs. Behind these mysterious legends, we can see the essence of the Spring Festival as a large-scale carnival.
Carnival originated from sacrificial rituals in the primitive era of mankind and is shared by almost every nation in the world. It is presented in various celebration ceremonies according to different cultures in different eras. It is a way for people to break taboos, relax body and mind, and vent their emotions. In China, this kind of carnival ceremony has been restrained under the constraints of etiquette culture, but it still achieves a brief transcendence of daily life under a complete set of folk regulations.
It is this kind of spiritual and cultural activity shared by all mankind that allows Richthofen, who came from Germany, to still easily understand the Chinese Spring Festival culture in a foreign country.
In January 2019, families at home and abroad from South Korea, Finland, Thailand, Pakistan and other countries and regions participated in New Year activities in the ancient city of Langzhong, Sichuan. Photo by Zhang Lang
In addition, the influence of Chinese civilization on Western civilization is inherited. Richthofen mentioned many times in his diary the influence of "The Travels of Marco Polo" on him, and the book also contains a description of the Chinese Spring Festival.
The Chinese Spring Festival, Western Christmas and Western New Year all share the same primitive cultural heritage. Although Richthofen, as a foreigner, could only travel outside during the holidays most of the time, he would also invite his friend Paul to hunt with him when he was unable to travel during the Spring Festival; he would write letters to his parents around New Year's Day; when he saw When I go to the New Year market, I think of the Christmas market; when I spend Christmas in China, I also express my longing for my hometown in my diary, "How much laughter and how much sadness there should be next to the Christmas tree in my hometown today."
More than a hundred years ago, there were very few foreigners like Richthofen who could experience the folk customs of the Spring Festival in China. More than a hundred years later, the 78th United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution to designate the Spring Festival as a United Nations holiday. About one-fifth of the world's population celebrates the Spring Festival in different forms. The Chinese Spring Festival has completed its transformation from a national festival to a global festival and is moving towards a broader international stage. (over)
Interviewee profile:
Qiu Yongxu, a professor at the School of Liberal Arts of West China Normal University. Photo by Zhang Lang
Qiu Yongxu is a professor at the School of Liberal Arts at West China Normal University and a master's tutor. He mainly studies comparative literature and world literature. He has presided over and completed one planning project each from the Ministry of Education and the Sichuan Provincial Federation of Social Science. He is currently researching a major project of the National Social Science Fund. 1 item and 3 horizontal items.