BEIJING, Feb. 5, 2025
/PRNewswire/ -- The Qingcheng Palace complex at the
Xiannongtan Temple, a gem along Beijing Central Axis, is the first
ancient palace complex that was revitalized and unveiled after the
Beijing Central Axis was successfully inscribed on the UNESCO World
Heritage List last year.
During the Spring Festival holidays, both domestic and
international tourists flocked to this site to pray for blessings,
wishing for "family harmony," "bountiful harvests," and "good
things in succession."
Praying for blessings is one of the key themes of the social
practices of Chinese people celebrating the Chinese New Year.
The Spring Festival is rich in soul due to the inheritance of
tradition, and vibrant with life through adaptation to the times.
Over thousands of years, despite its ever-changing forms and
profound content, the core themes of reunion, welcoming the new
year and praying for blessings have remained unchanged, becoming an
enduring cultural bond and spiritual totem for the Chinese people
throughout history.
Reunion means peace and
harmony, joy and auspiciousness.
Welcoming the new year means renewal and vitality, endless
vitality.
Praying for blessings means happiness, health and everything
going smoothly.
At the heart of these basic elements lies the value core of He
culture.
Chinese culture values justice, harmony and solidarity. The
value concept of "He" is deeply embedded in the spirit of the
Chinese people, influencing their thoughts, ideas and behaviors. As
China's most important traditional
holiday, the Spring Festival is a key carrier for He culture.
In his important speech at a high-level reception to ring in the
Chinese New Year, Chinese President Xi Jinping touched upon
reunion, hard work and a better life, these are the key words of
wishes and expectations.
In 2024, the Spring Festival was successfully inscribed to the
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity, and nearly 20 countries have established the Chinese New
Year as an official public holiday. Approximately one-fifth of the
world's population celebrates this festival in different ways. The
global "fandom" of the Spring Festival reflects the widespread
recognition of He culture.
Through the Spring Festival, we can more deeply appreciate that
the concept of "He" has a silent but powerful force that transcends
hearts, surpasses nature, crosses borders and offers us new
insights.
In terms of relationships between people and families, the
Spring Festival emphasizes "harmony brings good fortune"
"A family is the smallest unit of a nation while a nation is a
myriad of families put together." Without national prosperity and
development, there can be no happy and harmonious families; without
the happiness of millions of families, there can be no national
prosperity and development. Chinese modernization is the
modernization of common prosperity for all, which ultimately
concerns every family.
President Xi emphasized that respect for the elderly and caring
for the young, a marriage comprising a virtuous wife and a
hardworking husband, a kind mother with filial children, brotherly
harmony, equal emphasis on work and study, frugality, knowledge and
respect, observing disciplines and obeying laws as well as family
harmony leading to prosperity - these traditional virtues of the
Chinese family are deeply ingrained in the Chinese people's hearts
and blood. They are the important spiritual forces that support the
vitality and continuity of the Chinese nation.
For the Chinese people, family is the place where dreams begin
and also the home of the soul.
Therefore, reunion is the eternal theme of the Spring Festival.
The wish for family reunion reflects the spiritual pursuit of
"Hehe." The fact that "reunion is happiness and unity is strength"
has become a common emotional expression for the Chinese
people.
From Xiamen in Fujian Province to Lanzhou in Gansu
Province, spanning over 2,700 kilometers and taking 29
hours, migrant worker Chai Shunyao returned home. After nearly 21
hours on the road, Wang Chunxi, over 60 years old, and his wife
traveled from their hometown in Changchun, Jilin
Province, to Suzhou in Jiangsu
Province, to reunite with their daughter - a kind of
"reverse reunions"...
No matter the long distances or exhausting travel, the promise
of "coming back for the Spring Festival" and the belief that
whether rich or poor, one must return home for the Spring Festival
have made the Spring Festival travel rush the "largest population
migration in the world," becoming a cultural phenomenon. According
to the US website "Travel and Tour World," "this year's Spring
Festival reflects not just the scale of human movement but also the
resilience and optimism of a nation prioritizing connection and
cultural celebration."
The family is the cell of society. When the family is
harmonious, society is stable; when the family is happy, society is
peaceful; when the family is civilized, society is civilized.
The story of harmony and courtesy in the Liuchixiang, an ancient
alley in Tongcheng, Anhui
Province, between family and neighbors has been passed down
to this day. Following this traditional cultural concept, and
integrating it with harmonious justice ideas, Tongcheng developed
the "Liuchixiang Work Method in New Era," which effectively
mediates conflicts and promotes social governance.
Many local communities and neighborhoods have established
platforms for consultation and mediation, such as "people's corner"
and "neighbor mediation rooms," promoting the approach that small
matters stay within the community, major matters stay within the
street, and conflicts don't get escalated.
The Chinese people practice "filial piety at home and loyalty to
the country." Understanding the "family" of the Chinese people is
key to understanding the Chinese people's view of "nation."
The peaceful and tranquil scenes of countless homes, the
serenity of everyday life, and the quiet passage of time are made
possible because there are always those who diligently stand guard
and bear the weight of responsibility, moving forward despite the
burdens they carry.
Whether during the Spring Festival or other holidays, from taxi
drivers and couriers to doctors and police, countless people
silently persevere in ordinary positions, demonstrating a noble
sense of devotion to both their families and the nation.
Connecting love for the family with love for the country,
blending the dream of family with the Chinese Dream, uniting as
one, harmonizing as a community, the wisdom and passion of 1.4
billion people and more than 400 million families form the immense
strength that advances Chinese modernization.
In terms of the relations between humans and nature, the
Spring Festival emphasizes that when harmony is achieved, all
things can grow and develop
Complying with the laws, respecting nature, holding heaven in
high regard and obeying the times, the culture embedded in the
Spring Festival contains the ecological concept of the unity of
nature and humans, and the coexistence of all things. Respecting
nature, complying with nature, protecting nature, and promoting the
harmonious coexistence between humans and nature are the
distinctive features of Chinese modernization.
The ordinary people have a happy holiday, which heralds a good
start to the year. In this happiness and beginning, people live in
harmony with themselves, with their families and with nature.
People work dedicatedly over and over again, and continue to
innovate while learning the old and incorporating the new.
The Chinese dictionary Shuowen Jiezi explains, "The year is when
the grains are ripe." The Spring Festival is a festival built on
farming civilization and embodies the rhythm of agricultural
production.
February 3 this year is the Start
of Spring. The 24 solar terms, headed by the Start of Spring, are a
knowledge system formed by ancient Chinese people who grasped the
laws of nature. They are the fruit of the wisdom of production and
life in ancient farming societies.
Bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new is a social
practice in which people respect the laws of life on the basis of
grasping the laws of nature. After a year of hard work and busy
struggling, people can relax and exchange emotions during the
Spring Festival, and at the same time accumulate energy for a new
beginning, replenish spirits and become even more motivated.
The folk proverb "A year's plan starts with spring" precisely
guides people to place their expectation of the progression of
seasons and a bumper grain harvest on hard agricultural work and
life struggling after nurturing their energy and resources.
Today, natural time, social time and humanistic time are
integrated into one. Humans and nature are interdependent and live
in harmony. The space for high-quality development continues to
expand through people's struggle and innovation. This year's Spring
Festival has become a vivid display platform and a subject of
story-telling.
New consumption shows that supply-side reforms have given rise
to new demands, from the disfavored over-packaged gift bags and the
popularity of environmentally friendly fireworks, to the
significant year-on-year sales increase of various culturally
creative New Year goods like bracelets and refrigerator magnets.
Additionally, creativity and technology are empowering blockbuster
films for the Spring Festival, winning positive audience reviews.
The acceleration of the deep integration of "culture+creativity"
and "culture+technology" are forming new growth points.
New trends reflect the strong pulse of new quality productive
forces. The human-robot collaborative performances such as Yangge
folk dance, digital twins and "bullet time" on the Spring Festival
gala brought people a feast of culture and technology. When
climbing Mount Tai, people can choose an exoskeleton robot for
assistance. It uses advanced ergonomic design and core technologies
such as power, electronics and artificial intelligence algorithms
to sense every movement trend of the wearer's legs, helping
tourists have an even more enjoyable climbing experience.
The new ecology demonstrates the practical power of new
development concepts. Lanterns are lit up like daylight, fireworks
are bright and people are everywhere - during the Spring Festival
in Nianhua Bay in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu Province, the drones and fireworks
displays are breathtaking, and related videos have become popular
on overseas social platforms. More than 10 years ago, rivers here
were silted up and mines were exposed, bringing pollution to Taihu
Lake. Implementing "treating the Taihu Lake and preserving the
resources" and improving the ecological environment, Nianhua Bay has changed tremendously by
embarking on a path of win-win for the environment and economy and
coexistence of ecological beauty and people's prosperity, becoming
a vivid portrayal of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are as
valuable as gold and silver."
In today's China, the path of
civilized development featuring development of production,
prosperity of life and good ecology is constantly being
consolidated. By accelerating the formation of green production
methods and lifestyles, thousands of miles of rivers and mountains
will become more colorful, and Chinese modernization will embrace
greater potential and stamina.
The Spring Festival emphasizes "harmony and symbiosis" in
terms of the relationship between people and the world
UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres stressed in his new year's message that "the snake
symbolizes wisdom, resilience and renewal" and proposed that "in
these trying times, let us be guided by these qualities and renew
our commitment to peace, equality and justice."
Chinese modernization is a modernization that follows the path
of peaceful development. Chinese civilization inherits the
philosophy of peace and harmony. China has no genes for foreign aggression and
expansion. It is the only major country that has written peaceful
development into the Constitution of the country and the
Constitution of the governing party, thus making peaceful
development a commitment of the nation.
China has put into practice the
concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, provided
new opportunities for world development with new achievements in
Chinese modernization, and worked with all parties to promote
peaceful development, win-win cooperation and common
prosperity.
In a world facing more divisions and turbulence, people are more
eager for the happiness of a festival than ever before in history -
the light of peace, the dream of reunion and the way home. The
Spring Festival fits the universal aspirations of people of all
countries for peace, development and stability, resonating with the
world.
Eric Solheim, former
under-secretary-general of the United Nations, believes that "Hehe
culture is a 'powerful antidote' to conflict and division." The
Spring Festival, a time when everything is renewed, can also become
a "singularity moment" for human beings to bid farewell to the past
and walk side by side.
The article was first published in People's Daily.
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content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-times-observing-chinas-he-culture-through-the-lens-of-spring-festival-302369609.html
SOURCE Global Times
