springfestivel.docVIP

The?Different Customs? There are many differences between Spring Festival and Christmas, which will be analysed from origin, decoration, food and celebration. Different Origin The oldest and most important festival in China is the Chinese New Year，the Spring Festival is an event comparable to Christmas in the West, which marks the first day of the lunar calendar and usually falls somewhere between late January and early February of the solar calendar. Like all Chinese traditional festivals, the date of the New Year is determined by the Chinese lunar calendar, which is divided into 12 months. One year has 24 solar terms with the changes of nature, stipulating the proper time for planting and harvesting. The first day of the first solar term is the Beginning of Spring, which cannot always fall on the first day of the year as in the solar calendar. The Spring Festival falls usually around the Beginning of Spring, heralding the beginning of spring; thus it is also known as the Spring Festival (Zhao, 2002). Christmas day, December 25, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the founder of the Christian religion, is the biggest and best-loved holiday in the western countries. According to the Bible, the holy book of Christians, God decided to allow his only son, Jesus Christ, to be born to a human mother and live on earth so that people could understand God better and learn to love God and each other more. Christmas, meaning celebration of Christ, honors the time when Jesus was born to a young Jewish woman Mary. Although the exact date of the birth of Jesus nearly 2,000 years ago is not known, the calendar on the supposed date divides all time into B.C. (before Christ ) and A.D. ( a Latin phrase, anno Domini, “in the year of our lord”) for the first 300 years, Jesus’ birthday was celebrated on different dates. Finally, in the year 354, church leaders chose December 25 as his birthday (Mao, 2007) 2.2 Different Decoration Doors and windows are often given a fresh co