During the Chinese New Year, the legacy of this traditional local culture presents a complex appearance in today's society. For the farmers in the village, this is a rare time of year to relax. At the end of winter, the farming work gradually stopped, and the villagers were able to visit each other in the village and exchange with each other about their daily life. Those small families who have been separated will also return to the big family with their parents as the core at this moment, sharing the food saved on weekdays and making a hearty reunion dinner together.
February** Dynamic Incentive Plan However, when we are in an urban society with industrialization, commercialization, and refined division of labor, the meaning of the Chinese New Year seems to have changed. People who have been busy for a year have to squeeze on the train during the Spring Festival to return to the gradually unfamiliar countryside. There, modern service facilities are almost impossible, as if a year's work is only for the festive occasion, when in essence, such a return could mean a regression in the quality of life. To make matters worse, without the city's collaboration, people may feel more exhausted than usual.
Life in the city is very different. There are a wide variety of gourmet restaurants, convenient and fast delivery services, as well as a wide variety of entertainment facilities and excellent public transportation. In such an environment, people can enjoy a more convenient and comfortable life than in rural areas. Even the food prepared by professional chefs in the city is often more delicious than that prepared by rural families. So, what exactly do you want to go back to the countryside for the New Year?
Perhaps, some people do it for rest and relaxation, but the hustle and bustle of the countryside, visiting relatives and friends, and dealing with false words among relatives can also become a burden. On such occasions, people may meet some unfamiliar or even unfamiliar people, who may inadvertently ruin your good mood.
In the vernacular society, kinship is like a clan bond, and they fight side by side in the struggle for water and food, and form a deep sense of comradeship in the struggle with other docks and villages. Even in the days when repairmen could not be quickly found through apps or small advertisements for broken windows, relatives were a helping person in each other's lives. However, in today's developed cities, where the division of labor and cooperation in society has become highly dependent on commerce and services, such mutual assistance between relatives has become less necessary, and sometimes even less reluctant.
We often lament the disappearance of the flavor of the New Year, in fact, it is not that the flavor of the New Year itself has changed, but that the social form in which we live has changed. If we are still in the local society, the flavor of the year will always be the same, rich and mellow. However, when we enter the urban society, if we still try to celebrate the New Year in the way of the local society, no matter how hard we try, it will be difficult to find the familiar flavor of the New Year.
I still vividly remember China in the 90s, when there were more than 300 million people in urban areas and more than 800 million people in rural areas. At that time, the flavor of the New Year was intoxicating, because even the townspeople did not rely entirely on the elaborate division of labor in the city. Most of the time, meals still have to be prepared by hand, and there are regular power outages to save electricity. During the Spring Festival, the factory gate is transformed into a lively bazaar, with a variety of delicacies and gadgets that are rarely seen on weekdays.
Today, however, the urban population has soared to more than 900 million, while the rural population has dwindled to more than 400 million. The Chinese New Year seems to have become a time of disruption of social services and diminished urban functions, with people relying on pre-stockpiled supplies. If you choose to return to the countryside, there are few modern conveniences left, only a few childhood memories remain. But for the new generation of young people who have gone to the city to work, their memories of the countryside may not be so good, and as former left-behind children, how much nostalgia can they have for the past?
Without a strict hukou system, the grand migration of people for the Spring Festival may no longer exist. For the ancients, the Chinese New Year meant relaxation and reunion in the same place. However, for modern people, the Chinese New Year has become a ritual that must be tossed back and forth, trying to imitate the way of the ancients, but it is often difficult to capture the essence of the ancients' New Year's flavor - true relaxation. Sometimes, this kind of imitation can even backfire, making people lose the true meaning of the New Year in the midst of busyness and exhaustion.
The fast-paced life of modern society has gradually diluted people's expectations for the New Year, and many people only participate in it out of the pressure of the collective unconscious or social conventions. Although on the surface everyone is preaching the joy and reunion of the New Year, in fact, many people's antipathy for the New Year is indescribable. They prefer to choose to find everyday pleasure in the city, rather than being limited to the traditional rituals of the New Year.
For some, the only meaning of the New Year is to be reunited with their parents. However, in the modern world, where couples are often separated by work, the reunion with their parents becomes especially precious. This kind of reunion that spans thousands of miles makes people cherish the time they spend with each other even more. But in vernacular societies, close family ties and geographical proximity make reunions easier and more frequent. In today's China, due to the acceleration of urbanization and the restrictions of the hukou system, many people have to face the reality of being separated from their parents.
Although modern people try to imitate the way of celebrating the New Year of the ancients, it is often difficult to reach its essence. This kind of imitation is not only exhausting and annoying, but it may also lose the true meaning of the New Year. With the passage of time, the younger generation's attachment to local memories and family habits has gradually weakened, and the way of celebrating the Chinese New Year in the future may be closer to that of Western countries that have been industrialized for hundreds of years. The relationship between parents may be more like that of relatives, and those traditional kinship relationships may also fade away. All this reflects the impact and impact of social changes on traditional customs.
Every old culture has its life cycle, and socio-cultural and psychological transformation often requires the joint efforts of several generations. Today, the way we celebrate the New Year is undergoing such a transformation. Although the Chinese New Year tourism boom seems to conform to the festive atmosphere and domestic consumption, in essence, it also reflects people's dissatisfaction and rebellion against outdated customs. However, the exhaustion of this tourist boom seems to be a substitute for the old fatigue.
In the future, the Spring Festival may be closer to Christmas in the West, becoming a moment for small families in the city to reunite, rather than the current state of half-paralysis of the whole society. Although Christmas in the West only has a short two-day break, they enjoy a paid annual leave of ten to twenty days that is truly implemented throughout the year. Under such a system, people do not have to make mass migrations during the Christmas season, but can choose to return home at any time to reunite with their loved ones.
For those who think that they must go back to their hometown for the New Year, and to compete with relatives who have little to no contact with each other, we can't help but ask: can this way of celebrating the New Year really make us relaxed? Do we really need 1.4 billion people crammed together to celebrate the New Year in a low-quality, high-loss way? Do you have to focus on these days to "relax" in the form of rushing and migrating?
Perhaps, we should re-examine the meaning of the Chinese New Year and return it to the essence of family reunion, rather than being bound by all kinds of cumbersome customs and social pressures. Only in this way can we truly enjoy the joy and relaxation of the New Year.
It seems that people need a large ritual called "Nian" to seek a moment of relaxation, but the reality is that once you leave your small family, it is difficult to truly relax. They have traveled to and from place to place, but they firmly believe that only during the New Year can they truly rest. In some societies, people work together to earn more than 20 days of paid annual leave, while in others people are obsessed with whether Chinese New Year's Eve should be compensated, believing that this is the only day to see their parents back home and that this day is meaningful. This kind of attachment is actually a manifestation of the collective unconscious left over from the traditions of the past.
One might ask, shouldn't the Chinese New Year be relaxing? Why would anyone object to the Chinese New Year or the New Year's holiday? This is not really a question of reading comprehension, but a reflection of different family conditions and living conditions. For those from well-off families, the Chinese New Year may mean that others revolve around them and enjoy the treatment of pilgrimage. And for those who rely on the human contacts and gray income during the New Year, they naturally like the New Year. However, there are still many people who are bound by the cultural habit of "rest can only be taken during the New Year, and rest must be busy for the New Year", they may not know it, but blindly follow this habit, and regard the "New Year" as the supreme traditional culture and social ritual.
In the midst of such a collective unconscious, it seems difficult for recent generations to get out of this unsatisfactory year. The individual struggles, but the collective struggles to turn. It will take a long historical time to change gradually. For this reason, the Chinese New Year is sometimes referred to as "the end of the year", implying that it is not only a year to celebrate, but also a challenge and a juncture to face.