中西方节日文化之比较——

Acknowledgement

First of all ,I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Zhang shasha ,for her patient guidance and useful

suggestions on my thesis .She taught me the steps and way to write a qualified article and I have a clear logical for my thesis.Without her consistent and illuminating instructions ,this thesis could not have reached its present form .

Second, I also thanks to my friends who help me during writing this thesis .They help me find out the date and modify the format of thesis .

At last, my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years and their supporting without a word of complaint. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who have given me their help and their time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis. Abstract

With the economic globalization, the international exchanges become more and more frequent. Culture plays a critical role in

international communications. It can be seen that festival has become a part of people’s life. Thus it's necessary to know about the country’s culture.

Festival is the enrichment and essence of human being life .It reflects the most delicate and representative aspect of national culture. The Chinese New Year and Thanksgiving Days in west is respectively most important festival in their ethnic groups .It is the representative of Chinese and western culture differences.

Understanding the different culture contributes to promote each other’s communications. What’s more, it can avoid misunderstanding and we would respect each other’s culture in cross-cultural communications, making the communications more and more smoothly. If we know about the cultural difference, it can help avoid the misunderstanding and enhance the international exchange and corporation. Thus, studying the difference of the two festivals is conducive to better rationally learn and absorb foreign cultural values. Meanwhile we can protect and carry forward the cultural essence of the Chinese nation. This paper is mainly studies through the methods of documentary

analysis and qualitative analysis .The article gives comparison study

of Chinese and Thanksgiving Days, based on the aspects of the origin of festival ,custom ，function ,cultural connotation and so on .We can clearly conclude the differences between Chinese and western cultural in this paper. Thus it reflect the core of this article：paying attention to the culture and respecting the culture difference .

Key Words: The difference of Chinese and western; Culture custom; Spring Festival; Thanksgiving Day 摘 要

随着经济全球化以.国与国之间的交流更加频繁了.文化在文化交流中起着重要的作用.不难看出节日是人们生活中的不可或缺的一部分.因此对于我们而言了解不同国家的节日文化是非常必要的.

节日是人类日常生活的浓缩和精华。它反映了民族文化最精致，最具有代表性的一面，中国的春节，西方的感恩节分布是中西方最重要的节日，并具有中西方文化的代表性是探讨中西方文化的典型。

本文主要应用了文献分析法和定性分析法。主要探究了春节与感恩节差异基于春节与感恩节的起源，习俗，功能，文化内涵，等方面。通过对比，我们清楚地得出了两者的差异。从而体现本文的核心：注重文化，尊重差异. 关键词：中西文化差异 文化习俗；春节；感恩节 Contents

TOC \\o \

2. The Origin of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day 1 2.1 The Origin of Spring Festival 1 2.2 The Origin of Thanksgiving Day 3

3. The Contrast of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day 5 3.1 The Custom of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day 5 3.1.1 The Ways of Celebration 5

3.1.2 The Symbol of Traditional Food 6 3.1.3 The Activities of Celebration 7

3.2 The Functions of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day 8 3.2.1 Communicational Function 8 3.2.2 Educational function 8 3.2.3 Condensed Function 9 3.2.4 Economic Function 10

3.2.5 Entertainment Function 10

4. The Combination of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day 11 4.1 Spring Festival in Western Countries and Thanksgiving Day in China 11

4.2 The culture Meaning of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day 12 5. Conclusion 12 Bibliography 13

The Culture Comparison of Chinese and Western Festival –with Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day as an example 1. Introduction

The Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day is the most grand and lively festival in China and western respectively .Different festival have different social activities，nevertheless festival is only one aspect of difference in culture. Festival is endowed with special social and cultural significance in a year，meanwhile it penetrates between in daily life ，embodying people colorful life regional and national politics. Traditional festival is most significant part of national history and culture. In addition ，festival is the summary of the economic and cultural religion and extension. China and Western have their own traditional festivals .These festival have some in common, but even more their respectively characteristics.

People keep the most delicate and most representative national culture in the festival .They reflect a nation’s traditional

habits ,morality and religion .It represent the vision of the whole nation and is a happy event in thousands of year. It is pretty good way as a whole cut to understanding the Chinese and Western

culture .Today society has set up a communication platform for the festival customs exchanging and provides the cozy culture learning environment as well.

The author mainly talks about the customs and functions of these two festivals and explore the difference between Chinese and Western culture. It produces profound impact in culture communication . At the end of this paper ,it express we should learn rationally learn and absorb foreign cultural values .Meanwhile ,we can protect and carry forward the cultural essence of Chinese nation .With

understanding the cultural difference ,it will be conducive to their traditional culture inheritance and development basing of seeking common ground .

2. The Origin of Spring Festival and Thanksgiving Day

This chapter will talk about the origin of these two festival .The origin has a deep relationship with the living life and social activities .

2.1 The Origin of Spring Festival

The Spring Festival, a family reunion holiday, is the most

significant elaborate, colorful, and important feast in China, just like the Christmas in the west and has more than 4,000 years of history. Chinese New year is now popularly known as the Spring

Festival because it starts from spring. The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of 1 lunar. It is usually later one month than the Gregorian calendar. Strictly speaking , the Spring Festival start from every year in the early days of 12th lunar month .The Spring Festival originated in Shang Dynasty (C.1600BC-C.1100BC) and people sacrifice to the gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of new one. (Zhao 101)

The Spring Festival usually last about 15days .In the fact ,it

initiates the eve of the lunar New Years Day, and the prime month of the lunar calendar is the official ending of the Spring Festival for most of Chinese people. It is quiet universal amid Chinese that the term” Guo Nian” meaning \” which frequently is used during celebrating the new year. People usually shoot off the firework welcoming the advent of new year. In an instant the whole world at this moment will immerse the shocking sound of the

firecracker. There are two typical convincing origin of the Spring Festival．

Initially, in ancient time people provide the sacrifice to the god and the ancestors in the last month of Chinese lunar calendar . This is what we said the beginning ．

In order to do well the sacrifice, people usually clean the house thoroughly and take the shower etc. After finishing above the

activitie, on that day people set off sacrifice the god and ancestors. Most of people have finished the farm work and have the spare time to do activities in this nothing better time. However there is no certain worshipping date because of the farm activities. Later the time of sacrificing the deities and the ancestor is fixed until Han Dynasty .The convention of sacrificing the god and ancestors

maintain ,but the influence and the scale are not magnificent than before . Besides, It is the season that the flower is blooming and the grass is sprouting ．At spring, the weather is not cold any more and people can go out to held a variety of activities to welcome the advent of new year.

Secondly, the most famous legend about Spring Festival which is overwhelming spread is the year monster ,a kind of animal that have a ferocious appearance appearing at the eve night .People call the beast “ Nian”. Nian is fierce animal with a quite mouth and it is that it can eat a number of people and other living animal in just one bite. What is more, people also call the beast “guonian” which means the previous year is pass .In the ancient time ,most of person hold that the monster will come out to eat people in the New Year’s eve .It is natural that mankind are afraid of the beast for eating them . The old man provide rescue to the people .The old man have the conversation with the beast with his wisdom.” I heard that you have unparalleled ability and the human being is not enough to be your opponent. Dare you challenge other beasts by yourself ” the elderly man . The monster did the way what the old man said .The monster is not only finishing the other beasts but also some other primary animals which are frequently harassing people.

Then the elderly man riding the monster disappeared in the clouds and the old man to mankind surprise is a fairy .Finally the monster left and other animal were so frightened that they hidden in the forest .The human being start to enjoy a harmonious and happy

life .When the old men left, he told the people the monster is very scared of the red color ,so sticking the red decorations like paper cutting firing, stickers on the window and door can scare away the beast and prevent the beast from here again .The traditional custom which is handed down and remain the present and from the

generation .In the folk ,people call the Spring Festival “guo nian”.The term of guo means celebrating the new year advent in nowadays and in the Chinese there are two meanings of the word of “guo”.One meaning is \

“observe”.(Deng , Wang 13):That is to say there is two meanings of the term of “guo nian”. The custom of putting up to the red paper and set off firecracker increases the atmosphere of celebration. (Deng , Wang 29)

By knowing these two origins , Spring was a time for the Chinese to congratulate each other and themselves on having passed through

another year, a time to finish out the old, and to welcome in the new year. The legend show the industrious and brave Chinese people’s