2024年1月19日发(作者：)

Dose the Prosperity of Foreign Festivals Indicate Collective Cultural

Unconsciousness?

Recently, some researchers released a joint report. Their paper says

that in China, Christmas and other western holidays are becoming more

and more popular. For instance, New Year seems to be more important

than

Spring Festival and more young people choose to celebrate

Valentine’s Day than QIXI. July 7th by the lunar calendar（Chinese

Valentine’s Day） . All these phenomena indicate the rapid prosperity of

foreign festivals in China and researchers claim that they worry that it

will lead to collective cultural unconsciousness among Chinese people.

Does the prosperity of foreign festival indicate that we have lost our own

cultural origin and shall we drive foreign festival out of our lives? My

answer is negative if we can treat those foreign festivals properly.

Every festival has its historical and cultural origin. During its

evolution, it is certain to bring its cultural mark with it. If people like it, it

means this festival can satisfy people’s needs and is worth celebrating.

Our traditional festival Dragon Boat Festival can be taken as a good

example. It was not a national festival at first. The Chu celebrated it in

memory of Qu Yuan, the great patriot and has such a festival to remind

us of patriotism. In other words, the importance of a certain festival

comes from its historical and cultural origin. And the festival can meet

people’s needs. If foreign festivals, such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day

are beneficial, people have every reason to celebrate them.

We live in an era when communication is developing the most

quickly it ever has. The world is described as a global town. International

communication will naturally lead to cultural mixture. We learn the

advantages of western world; meanwhile the western countries also try

to learn the essence of our culture. In this cross-culture process, cultural

mixture is inevitable. We celebrate Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and

other foreign festivals; likewise, westerners also celebrate our traditional

festivals. In 2006，people in London celebrated Spring Festival

ceremoniously and the mayor of London even put a slogan “Happy

Chinese New Year” before the city hall. Celebrating foreign festivals is a

kind of cross-cultural communication. If foreigners can accept our

traditional festivals they can’t we accept theirs?

Nowadays, people are under great pressure from many different

areas. Foreign festivals offer an opportunity for people to relax. Life in

modern society is becoming faster and faster. Under great pressure,

people are eager to find opportunities to gather together, to party or to

entertain themselves in other forms. The prosperity of foreign festivals

gives people an excuse to do so. Even though we are not religious and

we lack related knowledge about the festivals, we can still enjoy foreign

festivals. After all, apart from the deep significance of cross-culture

communication, foreign festivals mean happy and relaxing hours for

modern people. Furthermore, some foreign festivals also help to fill the

gap left by our traditional festivals. For instance, in China we only have

Chong yang to show our respect to older people. But we do not have

mother’s day or father’s day. Borrowing from the western world, we

have a chance to appreciate our mothers and fathers.

Though foreign festivals are indeed becoming more and more

popular in China, personally, I do not think foreign festivals can replace

the importance of our traditional ones in our hearts. Spring Festival is

still the longest holiday we enjoy in China; the Mid-autumn Festival is still

the biggest day for family reunions. People will never forget to celebrate

Dragon Boat Festival on May 5th by lunar calendar.

The prosperity of foreign festivals does not mean we will throw

ours away. Nor does it mean we admire foreign cultures blindly and

forget the essence of ours. Foreign festivals are complementary to our

life but they will never replace our traditional ones. Keeping this

principle in mind, foreign festival will add interest to our life.

Source 《英语口语技能实训》

丁雪莹