Chinese Festivals

China is listed among the four ancient civilization nations in the world. Over 5000 years history has witnessed the creation of many Chinese traditional festivals. Chinese new year, Chinese mid-autumn festivals, dragon boat festival, many of them has a long history in China. According to their origins, China's festivals mainly fall into three categories, agricultural, religious and social festivals. According to their contents, Chinese festivals can be divided into five kinds, including agricultural, sacrificial, commemorative, recreational and celebratory festivals.

Of all the traditional festivals in China, Chinese spring festival and mid-autumn festival are the most important to modern Chinese people nowadays. Spring festival is also called Chinese New Year, it is like the Christmas in the west, and mid-autumn festival is a bit like the thanks giving day in America. Double ninth festival is for elderly citizens, and double seventh festival is for valentines.

Though the lifestyles of Chinese people have kept changing over the years, the importance of those traditional festivals in Chinese lives has not faded. Some festivals have even been added to modern style elements which give the festival a more vivid life. Each unique festival has a different way of celebration activities, and even with the same traditional festival, people celebrated it in a slightly different way according to the different customs of various dynasties   in Chinese history.

Along with these major festivals, many other traditional festivals are observed in modern China that demonstrate the important place that tradition and longing for times past occupy in the life of the people. For instance, there are quite a lot charming ethnic group festivals with unique colors celebrated in China as well, like the double-third festival for Zhuang people in Guangxi autonomous region, and the Sho Dun festival in Tibet. Apart from the ethnic, geographic, historic, and linguistic ties that unite all the minority people groups in China, traditional festivals are one of the strongest bonds reinforcing the cultural identity of the Chinese nation.