This drone photo shows people visiting a local Chinese New Year fair in Lanzhou, northwest China’s Gansu province, on February 5, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
The Lantern Festival, also known as the Yuan Xiao Festival, is a traditional Chinese festival celebrated on January 15 of the lunar calendar, which marks the end of the Spring Festival. During this period, people gather to admire the colorful lanterns, solve riddles, and enjoy sweet sticky rice balls called “Yuan Xiao”. This year’s Lantern Festival will be held on Saturday.
The culture of “harmony and peace” embedded in Spring Festival customs and traditions represents the spiritual core of Chinese culture. This cultural ethos provides valuable guidance in navigating an individual’s relationship with nature, family, and society at large.
The Chinese value a harmonious relationship between humans and nature. This is reflected in the traditional Chinese principle of “Heaven and Man Unity” and is at the core of Chinese New Year celebrations. The ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi said, “Man is modeled on earth, earth on heaven, heaven on Tao, and Tao on nature.” Therefore, traditional Chinese culture views humans as an integral part of nature and emphasizes the harmony between humans and nature.
For thousands of years, the Chinese have observed the Spring Festival to express gratitude for Mother Nature’s bountiful gifts, pray for good weather and fruitfulness in the new year, and look forward to a prosperous and happy year.
Chinese New Year culture also emphasizes the importance of family harmony and reunion. The yearning for family reunions is reflected in the travel rush, with China witnessing the world’s largest internal human migration, with hundreds of millions of Chinese heading home for family reunion dinners across the country. It will be done. Customs such as honoring ancestors, having family meals, and giving red envelopes containing good fortune money reflect Chinese beliefs in family values and the pursuit of harmony, thereby promoting filial piety and youth. Cultivate love for.
Moreover, the inclusiveness of Chinese culture, distilled into the various customs and rituals of the Spring Festival, contributes to social peace and cooperation. Needless to say, the vast river of Chinese culture is primarily fed by tributaries of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
The diverse customs and rituals observed by Chinese people during the Spring Festival reveal the spiritual essence of Chinese culture: harmony without uniformity. This approach plays an important role in maintaining social peace and promoting cooperation, as it allows us to explore commonalities while respecting individual differences.
The culture of “harmony and peace” has a deep influence on China’s foreign policy. Because Chinese culture is formed by the idea of ”harmony without unity,” its foreign policy attaches great importance to multilateralism, cooperation, consultation, and win-win development in world affairs.
The concepts of a “harmonious world” and “a community of shared future for mankind” advocated by China are based on the idea of “harmony in unevenness.” Living together in harmony allows countries to prosper together and manage their differences.
The idea of ”harmony and peace” is incorporated into Chinese New Year celebrations because it helps address many common problems faced by countries around the world. Bertrand Russell praised China’s traditional culture and said he believed China had “the kind of ethical qualities that are the best of China and that the modern world most desperately needs.”
Climate change, environmental crisis and pollution are among the most pressing challenges facing the world today. The concept of green development, inherent in the concept of harmony between humans and nature, offers the international community a promising approach to address these issues and build a healthy and beautiful world.
In addition to the environmental problems mentioned above, humanity also faces regional conflicts, devastating wars, anti-globalization movements, and other challenges. At the root of these problems is a lack of tolerance between different civilizations and nations, which is often fueled by extremism. Therefore, the Chinese philosophy of “harmony in diversity” is needed more than ever.
Countries with different civilizations and systems should put aside their differences, recognize each other’s legitimacy, and seek commonalities while respecting their differences. Only in this way can mutual respect, cooperation and win-win results be achieved to jointly address the range of challenges facing humanity.
UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity states that “Cultural diversity is as necessary to humanity as biological diversity is necessary to nature.” As a supporter of cultural pluralism, China consistently emphasizes the importance of dialogue and exchanges among diverse cultures and civilizations, adhering to the principles of diversity, tolerance and inclusiveness.
With the Spring Festival officially registered as a United Nations floating holiday by the United Nations General Assembly from 2024, the values of “harmony and peace” and the philosophical concept of “harmony in diversity” represented by the Spring Festival culture are gradually being recognized. It will be accepted. This, in turn, will promote world peace and development and benefit humanity as a whole.
The author is a professor and director of the Center for Global Governance and Law at Xiamen University of Technology.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.