西方节日对中国文化的影响英文版

1 Introduction

Every country has its own festivals. When a festival comes，all of the countrymen will celebrate it in a traditional way. With the development of the world, many countries not only celebrate its own festivals but also foreign festivals. The phenomenon is especially popular in China.

With the influence of western cultures, more and more Chinese people prefer to celebrate western holidays rather than traditional ones. When Christmas or Valentine Day comes, youngsters flood into bars, restaurants, and department stores to celebrate these festivals which their ancestors know little about. Everything has two points. This phenomenon reflects both advantage and disadvantage. Maybe our traditional holidays are more boring than those western holidays, so more and more people don't like to celebrate them. For an instance, nowadays Spring Festival is quite different from our parents' generation. And say some good points of it，First, obviously it can bring big income of economy to our country, it can make some people become richer, like business men. Second, our lives will become more meaningful, we get more chances to get together with our parents and friends.

In my opinion, the popularity of western festivals includes two aspects. First of all, it reflects that Chinese people's attitude towards countries has changed. We become more open, and we are more willing to accept foreign something different. It also reflects that western culture has more effects on us than ever before. Nowadays, people in China are increasingly interested in celebrating foreign festivals, especially those western festivals. The reason why I choose this topic is that the coming Christmas and the whole holiday phenomenon make me wonder the factors that contributing to this craze.

2 Analyzing the Status of the Western Festivals in China

Some critics are arguing that people are losing their traditional values and the respect of historical heritage. They insist that the popularity of foreign festivals should warn sociologists and educators nationwide. However, I do not completely agree with them. Foreign festivals in China today are celebrated for fun for they give people opportunities to relax. All of us have been familiar with festivals ever since our childhood. There are all kinds of festivals, from conventional ones such as spring festivals, Mid-autumn Day to national holidays like the Labor Day. These days, more and more people are turning into celebrating foreign festivals ------San Valentine‟s Day, Christmas. Although some people wonder whether it is necessary for our traditional festivals to exist. So I think it is essential to find something exclusively reasonable to explain the strange phenomenon at hand. To discuss all the factors relating to this festival bizarre.

I would like to begin this part with a survey conducted recently by sina.com. In it the hosts ask surfers about their attitudes toward Christmas. Among the 18222, 63.9% said celebrating Christmas is just another way of recreation, nothing serious while 17.85% surfers termed the festival as a fashion act, showing they were not “out”. These two parts clearly indicate the general opinion of the young. Only 7.8% of people define Christmas as a kind of festival colonization. The phenomenon of celebrating foreign festivals plays an important role with the advancement of Chinese economy. When a major festival arrives, the business are trying every means to boost the atmosphere, thus finding opportunity to attract every possible customers. The atmosphere rose by the businessmen however, stimulate the public and raise their desire to celebrate the foreign festivals. They give people certain assumption that it is definitely necessary to be part of the celebration. During the middle of the 90‟s, high school and college students in big cities are limited to celebrate Christmas and other foreign festivals. These young people studied English in class, had their own English names and possessed understanding of the western culture. They usually go to McDonald‟s and KFC, drank coke, watched Hollywood films while they knew little about traditions of Mid-autumn Day---they even complained that the moon cake

tasted awful and should be deserted! But they did remember Christmas, San Valentine‟s Day and April fool‟s Day

Then the campus culture spread the so-called “middle class”. Celebrating foreign festivals seems to be a fashion and a trademark of the wealthier class. From this point of view, western festivals begin to show their strong influence on people‟s values and thoughts. The combination of the acceptance of western culture and the desire of western world happened long before the business world enters this field.

3 Analysis of Causes of the Popularity

Why are western festivals so popular in China? I think there are many reasons. The most important reason is that the cultural communication between China and foreign countries is more and more frequent. Since China started the “reform and opening up” in 1978, foreign cultures, certainly including festival culture, have affected many Chinese people. Thus, we Chinese can receive some western culture, such as some important western festivals. One reason is someone may try celebrating these important and meaningful festivals, and then more and more people celebrate them eventually. Another reason may be Chinese people‟s curiosity about western festivals. Besides, I think only meaningful or interesting festivals may be accepted by most Chinese people. The young people like celebrating Valentine‟s Day, because the festival makes couples get together and is in favor of the development of the love between the lovers. In contrast, only a few Chinese people celebrate the Easter. I think that is because the culture of the Easter is a little far from our Chinese culture.

Now people are facing one question: how to celebrate the Chinese New Year in a way that could both maintain an ancient tradition and make it fit the new time and attractive to the new generation. family gathering and visiting miao hui are still dominantly popular, new activities like tourism, text message greetings and partying with friends are also gaining grounds. Meanwhile, other old traditions, such as worshiping ancestors and kneeling down in front of seniors, have almost completely disappeared. However，some new changes are appearing。Firstly，the status of women in the society changes. For example, traditional Chinese people think men and women

are not equal which is influenced by Confusion. Women‟s job is just taking care of babies or doing the housework. However, the Western culture tells us we should give men and women the equal right. More and more talented women use their own ability to improve them—they can do what man can do. So we should thank those people who fight for the women‟s right in the early western counties。Secondly, lots of new science and technologies are introduced into our country, which indirectly improve our living condition and the quality of the society in recent years. We can see the lifestyle becomes different. It means our life become more colorful. At this aspect, it should be extremely necessary to put it into the spotlight, for it is the major achievement the western culture made. We no longer only wear Zhongshan fu, instead; we have more new modern clothes, different color, and different styles. We begin to know how the westerners celebrate their own festivals. So these are all very new and fresh for us, which we are more likely to imitate. The Valentine‟s Day enrich the life of lovers, and it is really so romantic. The Christmas let you experience the different custom. People become open, they want to take those new and interesting and exciting things which they haven‟t tried before. Thirdly, some good elements of Western culture do affect Chinese society. For example, in modern western society, the lives of most old and disabled people are secured by perfect social insurance system. We learned from them to establish the social insurance system, and accomplished it step by step, so more and more disadvantaged of people‟s life are insured in Chinese society.

4 The Attitude to the West Festival

The attitude toward foreign festivals varies a lot from person to person. From what I can see, foreign festivals are popular mainly among the younger generation while the seniors show little interests to them. As I have previously stated, the young people today are growing in the atmosphere of well acceptance of foreign cultures and increasing tolerance toward foreign festivals. They enjoy happily sending greeting cards at Christmas, DIY chocolate to their beloved ones on valentine‟s day, and hug

their parents on Mother‟s day and Father‟s day. To them, foreign festivals enrich their lives, giving them more occasions to have fun and appreciate love.

While, the older generation show quiet indifferent attitudes toward foreign festivals. They still prefer traditional Chinese festivals, during which the gathering of family is still greatly emphasized. They regard the young people‟s craze about Christmas and Valentine‟s Day as deceived by business‟ tricks. The money spent on gifts and flowers are, in their eyes, nothing but waste. As foreign festivals today still go with some economic interests, the people in poor places care little about them, or even do not know them. The wealthier the city is, the more festival atmosphere could be seen there. Foreign festivals in china today are celebrated for fun. They give people occasions to relax and celebrate, to show appreciation and gratefulness. The acceptance of foreign festivals generally depend on the openness of the public, the familiarity with the western culture, and most importantly, on people„s economic status. China are celebrating foreign festivals for merely fun and curiosity; the fear of culture colonization is nonsense.

5 Conclusions

What young people look for is to try a new way of living, a new set of culture in the foreign festivals. Christmas in Shanghai is viewed with Chinese festival. The number of celebrating of Christmas here is over 70%. On other southern cities, to most enterprises, Christmas is not only a big business opportunity, but also a perfect occasion that boss connect with the clients and the staffs. Hotels make full use of the chance to offer luxurious Christmas dinner to make much profit; still, these luxuries are sold out in seconds. Businessmen make use of all measures to make profit; some shopping centers redecorate their little gifts such as doll bear and chocolates to sell at special prices. We have no Christmas Whether a city celebrate Christmas is largely depend on the culture infrastructure of the city, the economic conditions and the extent of openness. In big cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou Christmas has become the matter of every people. But in some inland cities, especially those in the west part of

China, the situation is quite different. No one really care and celebrate it, not to mention value it.

The Valentine‟s day, Though the business welcome a lot this special day as businessmen expect lovers to spend a lot of money buying flowers, chocolates and gifts, usually at a higher price than usual, San Valentine‟s day has not yet received as high a status as Christmas in China. Maybe most Chinese people are reserved; so they do not think it necessary to show their love in so direct a way as to be shared by the public. The younger generation is more open-minded, but their money is limited. So the business cannot really enjoy the big festivals. Still, the atmosphere of Valentine‟s Day is quiet observable. Roses are emerging at any place supposed to gather a lot of love couples, such as shopping centers, squares, metro stations and so on. The advertisement of chocolate and other gifts appear newspapers and fashion magazines giving all kinds of tips from how to send suitable gifts to your loved ones to how to write a special and romantic love letter, even how to arrange a surprise night. But from what I can see, the mature the couples are, the less they take those matters seriously.