Traditional festivals

As a kind of collective identity, national identity is the awareness of the connection between oneself and the country. It is an individual's subjective recognition of belonging to a certain country. It mainly refers to the subjective perception of the political structure and spiritual value of the country to which he belongs, as well as the resulting sense of hardship and national pride. The people's sense of national identity is closely related to the fate of the country and the future of the nation.

Traditional festivals are a kind of public culture endowed with special meanings and have important cultural symbolic meanings. Chinese traditional festivals are also a cultural form that reflects the way of life, ethics, cultural traditions and national values formed in the long historical development process of the Chinese nation. They are the epitome of Chinese civilization and also the precious cultural heritage of the country. Among the many traditional festivals in China, most of them have strong human feelings and ethical colors, accumulate rich and long traditions of Chinese culture, present the core values with local attributes such as the unity of nature and man, feelings of family and country, and are the concrete embodiment of the spirit of Chinese traditional culture. Therefore, Chinese traditional festivals have become an important carrier for people to understand traditional culture, identify with traditional culture, and increase cultural confidence. They are also an important spiritual link to maintain family harmony, national unity, and national unity. Therefore, traditional festivals play an important role in building and enhancing the public's sense of national identity.

The symbols of traditional festivals and the content and artistic conception of national identity　

Among the many traditional festivals in China, each festival has its wonderful legend, historical origin and unique taste. It reflects people's traditional habits, morals and religious concepts from different time nodes, different forms and different contents, and embodies the vision of the entire people of all nationalities. Therefore, Chinese traditional festivals are the carrier of the spirit and emotion of the Chinese nation, the direct expression of national characteristics, and the place of national cohesion.

First of all, the "round" plot of the traditional festival outlines the national feelings. For example, during the Spring Festival, no matter where they are, the tourists in other countries must rush home to reunite with their families and eat reunion dinner, which expresses people's desire to pursue perfection and hope for reunion. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, moon cakes are given to relatives and friends and eaten by family members to enjoy the moon. They all mean reunion. Because the moon cakes are like the full moon, they symbolize reunion. People express their expectations for family reunion and happy life through actions related to moon cakes. With the development of society and the changes of the times, people's psychology of looking forward to reunion is no longer limited to family members, but gradually extended to neighbors, communities and even the whole nation. Therefore, from this perspective, praying for reunion is not only an emotional pursuit of people, but also an important ideological element to show the cohesion of the Chinese nation.　　

Secondly, the "benevolence and filial piety" culture of traditional festivals highlights the national concept. In traditional Chinese festivals, the Spring Festival worships ancestors, the Tomb Sweeping Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival worships deceased ancestors, and the Double Ninth Festival worships the old and serves the old, all of which are concrete manifestations of the "filial piety" culture in traditional culture. The concept of kinship in the festival tradition, which emphasizes human relations and filial piety, has evolved into the virtues of keeping the past in mind, being grateful to others, paying attention to human relations and being kind to others. This can not only arouse the consanguinity consciousness of the whole family, but also make all ethnic groups more united. At the same time, the promotion of filial piety culture in traditional festivals helps to promote the feelings between members of all ethnic groups, and also helps to strengthen national cohesion and national identity.

Finally, the spiritual core of traditional festivals renders national sentiment. Among the traditional festivals in China, the Dragon Boat Festival is inherited from generation to generation to commemorate Qu Yuan's spirit of loyalty, patriotism and death. It contains strong feelings of patriotism and concern for the people; The Cold Food Festival was created by the people in order to recall and commemorate the feelings of Jie Zitui's "cutting stocks to serve the king and being faithful", which carried forward the simple patriotic sentiment; The Laba Festival is to commemorate the deeds of "aiding Yue to resist the gold" and to express the praise of the national hero's devotion to the country; Every Spring Festival, the strong flavor of the year in China, the Tang costumes and lion dancing activities seen everywhere in overseas Chinatowns seem to tell the world that they are Chinese, which contains the national emotion that blood is thicker than water. Therefore, the Spring Festival bears the core of patriotism to maintain national unity and enhance the cohesion of the Chinese nation.

The ceremony of traditional festivals and the construction logic of national identity come down in one continuous line

Ritual is accompanied by the development of traditional festivals. It gives different traditional festivals special meaning and value, and is a very important part of traditional festivals. The rich social concepts and social practice symbolic system contained in the ceremony is a symbolic communication system constructed by a specific culture. As the carrier of cultural memory inheritance, ceremony is also an important form of expression of national collective consciousness. This is because, through the ceremony, not only the cultural significance of individual existence is satisfied and recognized, but also the participants of the festival ceremony also gain a strong sense of collective identity.

First of all, traditional festival rituals present cultural symbols and continue cultural inheritance. Almost all rituals have special symbols. Through theme setting, symbol operation and space-time performance, different festival rituals convey specific cultural connotations, enhance the mainstream value orientation of society, and thus build or enhance the cultural identity of the public. The same is true of traditional festival ceremonies, which shape the public's sense of national identity through the presentation of national cultural symbols and historical and cultural symbols. In China, traditional festivals almost all have a series of complete ceremonies, and express specific Chinese cultural symbols. Whether it is the Spring Festival couplets, or the traditional festival ceremonies such as the Dragon Boat Race, the Double Ninth Festival climbing, etc., all have their specific symbolic significance. They are the representation of traditional festival cultural symbols. These symbols are displayed in front of the world through the ceremony, effectively strengthening the cultural identity of the people to the country.

Secondly, the traditional festival ceremony strengthens the family consciousness and condenses the national centripetal force. In China, the sacrificial ceremony of traditional festivals has a powerful function of integrating society and maintaining family emotions. The worship of gods and ancestors at the Spring Festival, the tomb sweeping at the Tomb Sweeping Festival and the dragon ancestor worship at the Dragon Boat Festival are all traditional Chinese festivals. These rituals not only connect the relationship between individuals and families, express the feelings of individuals to families, cultivate the concept of personal ethics of individuals loyal to families and ancestors, but also continue the family social life, maintain the balance of society, finally realize the sense of family social community, and strengthen the sense of national identity of the whole family.　

Finally, the traditional festival ceremony highlights the identity characteristics and strengthens the sense of identity. The generation of identity is an important ideological power and source of strength for individuals to support and love their country as the main body of the country. Therefore, while strengthening identity, it also further deepens the individual's sense of national identity, which is a necessary link to condense the national collective consciousness. In China, traditional festivals such as worship of gods and ancestors during the Spring Festival, tomb sweeping during the Tomb Sweeping Festival, and climbing to the heights during the Double Ninth Festival, annotate the profound collective memory of the Chinese nation, so that the public can clearly realize the sense of belonging and pride of the same Chinese people and the same Chinese nation, which to a large extent provides the original nutrients for the formation of the identity of the Chinese nation.

Traditional festivals play an important role in the life of Chinese people. They are the human ties of Chinese people and the important carrier of national identity. They are of great significance to the construction of public national identity. For this reason, since 2008, the Qingming Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival have been listed as national statutory holidays, which actually established the status of traditional festivals in modern social life from the institutional level. Therefore, in the face of the current social environment, on the one hand, we should activate the cultural connotation of traditional festivals and maintain the authenticity of traditional festivals as cultural heritage. Traditional festivals express the cultural connotation and values of specific festivals through the repetition of concepts such as time or ceremony. However, it should be noted that during the festival, people repeat not only time and ceremony, but also identity. Compared with time and ceremony, identity represents the core value and connotation of traditional festivals, which is the most important. Therefore, in the process of inheriting traditional festivals, while excavating the modern connotation of festivals, we should also respect the authenticity of festivals and not lose the core of traditional festivals. On the other hand, we should also abide by the liveness of traditional festival heritage, put traditional festival culture in the context of modern society, and carry out appropriate modernity transformation. Traditional festivals are produced due to the needs of life and are improved and changed to adapt to the development of social life. When the social context in which traditional festivals are located has changed, their functions should also adapt to the new social needs and public demands, create festival cultural elements that adapt to modern life and the characteristics of the times, and make them more in line with people's aesthetic tastes, psychological characteristics and acceptance level.