According to traditional folk customs, the Dragon Boat Festival not only has the custom of eating zongzi, racing dragon boats and hanging wormwood, but also has the meaning of welcoming summer and preventing diseases. However, under the modern lifestyle, do people understand these traditional cultures and can they continue and respect these traditional customs well?
"The Dragon Boat Festival is the Zongzi Festival."
From this year, the Dragon Boat Festival has become a national statutory holiday. The three-day long holiday delighted many office workers, who said they would visit relatives and friends and "recharge" their books during the holiday. Ma, who works in a middle school in Kunming, is going back to his hometown in Dali for the Dragon Boat Festival. "Every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, my mother will make dumplings for us to eat. The jiaozi she wrapped is really delicious! " This road is red and beautiful.
The reporter found that many people don't know much about the Dragon Boat Festival and their sense of identity is not strong. Mr. Meng, an office worker, said, "Isn't the Dragon Boat Festival the Zongzi Festival?" When the reporter asked him what he was going to do during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, did he know the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival? He admitted that he didn't know.
Jing Yao, a sophomore at Yunnan University, said that the monitor ordered two zongzi for each student with the class fee. Apart from eating zongzi, the Dragon Boat Festival is no different from peace and Sunday. In fact, everyone wants to know something about the folk culture of the Dragon Boat Festival.
Hu Ying, a citizen who is picking zongzi leaves in the vegetable market, told reporters that when it comes to the Dragon Boat Festival, she thinks of making zongzi. Since she got married, a pack has been more than 20 years. On the Dragon Boat Festival, she will eat duck eggs and sugar cakes, but she has not participated in activities related to the Dragon Boat Festival for decades, and she does not know what the significance of the Dragon Boat Festival is.
"Dragon Boat Festival has been neglected and forgotten"
Speaking of the cultural connotation of the Dragon Boat Festival, people will first think of the poet Qu Yuan. On the day of Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese classic reading activities with Qu Yuan Fu as the theme were carried out in many places, national fitness activities with water sports such as dragon boat racing as the main content, and national patriotic health campaigns with the focus on innovation. However, many citizens said that these activities are not really the participation of the whole people, and they feel far away from themselves.
"In my opinion, the poet Qu Yuan is like a symbol. It is too general to take Qu Yuan to educate us about patriotism just on the Dragon Boat Festival. " Zhang Ni, who works in a media company, said: "Compared with the wonderful significance of family reunion in the Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival and the emotional memory of Tomb-Sweeping Day's ancestor worship, the Dragon Boat Festival is much thinner."
"Dragon Boat Festival is a big festival of our nation, but it has been ignored and forgotten!" Xiao Fang, a professor at Beijing Normal University, said: "Festivals have specific folk cultural connotations and are a cultural resource with special significance."
Xiao Fang said that the Dragon Boat Festival has three connotations. First, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month is hot and dry, plague is prevalent, and it is easy to get sick. Therefore, it contains the significance of cleaning the environment and health care, suggesting that people should pay attention to health at this time. Festive customs such as picking herbs, hanging wormwood, washing blue soup and drinking realgar wine have gradually formed, which reflects the concern for life. Second, the Dragon Boat Festival was also a day to worship the "dragon" totem in ancient times. Thirdly, by eating zongzi, dragon boat racing and reading classic festivals and customs to commemorate Qu Yuan's patriotic spirit, the Dragon Boat Festival is of great significance for the people of China to convey patriotic feelings and enhance national cohesion.
The return of folk culture has a long way to go.
From this year, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival are listed as national legal holidays. Folklorists generally believe that making traditional festivals legal holidays is a call for reviving traditional culture.
Ke Yang, an expert in folklore and a professor at Lanzhou University, said that the government and the media should actively encourage China people to love their traditional culture and enhance their cultural awareness. It is far from enough to inherit traditional culture and return to life. It is necessary to let the people feel the civilian atmosphere.
"The cultural heritage of traditional festivals has been interrupted by us for decades, and traditional festivals have also been diluted. Now we want to pick it up again. We need the joint efforts of the government, the media and other parties to help people understand these traditional festivals. " Xiao Fang said that the media should provide people with more comprehensive knowledge about festivals and folk customs, so that folk culture can be deeply rooted in people's hearts. Teachers and intellectuals in schools might as well pass on the knowledge of China folk culture to students in time, and the government should also organize some meaningful activities to adjust everyone's mentality.
Gao Wei, secretary-general of Beijing Folklore Society, believes that many of our traditional festivals have become simple "eating" festivals because of insufficient excavation, but they actually have many cultural connotations. Cultural inheritance should combine cultural connotation with modern lifestyle. Modern people pay attention to life, quality of life, family and friendship, so promoting traditional culture should better integrate cultural creativity into national traditional festivals.