Global Times: Observing China's He Culture through the lens of Spring Festival

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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SOURCE Global Times