Why are you unhappy during the Chinese New Year? One blogger believes that the Chinese New Year is a legacy of local culture. After a year of farming, the villagers can finally walk around the village at the end of winter, when they don't have to overwork, and share their daily routines. After separation, the small family will return to the extended family centered on their parents, share the food they have saved on weekdays, and cook a hearty reunion dinner together.
However, modern society is no longer a rural society, but an industrialized and commercialized urban society. After a busy year, people need to make the run to the train station and return to the increasingly unfamiliar countryside. The lack of modern services in rural areas makes people who have been busy all year more tired during the Chinese New Year. During festive seasons, they may feel a reduced quality of life because they have lost the convenience of the city.
In the city, those who don't want to cook can choose from a variety of gourmet restaurants, and those who don't want to wash dishes can choose to have it delivered to their homes. In addition, the city offers an abundance of recreational facilities and easy access to public transportation. In contrast, a meal made by yourself may not be as delicious as a professional chef.
In the local society, relatives are groups that can help each other. However, in modern urban society, these functions have been replaced by the social division of labor and the collaboration of commerce and services. Current relatives may be reluctant to help, and there may even be unfamiliar or unpleasant people among them, who may spoil the good mood.
With the development of urbanization, the smell of the New Year is gradually disappearing.
In the past, even urban workers relied on a smaller urban division of labor, and most of the things had to be done themselves. Now, urban societies face many disruptions and paralysis of daily services during the Chinese New Year. For young people who have migrated to the cities to work, their memories may be more of those of left-behind children in rural areas.
Chinese New Year was a time of relaxation for the ancients, while for the modern people it means running back and forth.
Modern people try to imitate the rituals of the ancients, but often draw tigers instead of anti-dogs, making themselves more tired. Without a strict hukou system, great migrations like the Spring Festival might not have existed.
For some people, the only meaning of the Chinese New Year is to reunite with their parents, leaving colleagues who have to see hundreds of days a year, and reuniting with parents who only see a dozen days a year at most.
However, for those whose in-laws and mothers' families are not in the same place, they are unable to complete the inter-provincial reunion in just a few days.
Now that Chinese New Year tourism has begun to become popular, it seems to be a manifestation of the overall situation of festivity and domestic consumption in the country, but in fact it is a rebellion against old customs. This kind of tourism can be exhausting, and this exhaustion may make the Chinese New Year more like Christmas in the West 100 years later. For families, the Spring Festival in the future may be more spent in a small home in the city. For society, at least not to paralyze the city for a long time.