The differences of traditional festivals between the USA and China宗思雨，陆攀，王雅萌，汪礼文Do you know any differences of traditional festivals between the U.S and China?Today, we will introduce them to you.Festivals in ChinaThe Lantern Festival The Lantern Festival The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance.today, the lantern festival is still held each year around the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the streets, extremely excited. Guessing lantern riddlesis an essential part of the Festival. People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the Yuanxiao Festival.Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan. tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with tuanyuan”, meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.yuanxiao, or rice dumplingsFestivals in ChinaMid-autumn day Zhong Qiu Jie, which is also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. It is a time for family members and loved ones to congregate and enjoy the full moon - an auspicious symbol of abundance, harmony and luck. Adults will usually indulge in fragrant mooncakes of many varieties with a good cup of piping hot Chinese tea, while the little ones run around with their brightly-lit lanterns.Mid-Autumn Day is a traditional festival in China. Almost everyone likes to eat mooncakes on that day. Most families have a dinner together to celebrate the festival. A saying goes, The moon in your hometown is almost always the brightest and roundest. Many people who live far away from homes want to go back to have a family reunion. How happy it is to enjoy the moon cakes while watching the full moon with your family members.MooncakesFestivals in the USAThanksgiving DayThanksgiving DayPresident of the United States proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day every year. On the dinner table, people will find apples, oranges, chestnuts, walnuts and grapes. There will be plum pudding, mince pie, other varieties of food and cranberry juice and squash. The best and most attractive among them are roast turkey and pumpkin pie. They have been the most traditional and favorite food on Thanksgiving Day throughout the years. Thanksgiving today is, in every sense, a national annual holiday on which Americans of all faiths and backgrounds join in to express their thanks for the year s bounty and reverently ask for continued blessings. Halloween Halloween is an autumn holiday that Americans celebrate every year. It means holy evening, and it comes every October 31, the evening before All Saints Day. Jack of the lantern Every autumn, when the vegetables are ready to eat, children pick large orange pumpkins. Then they cut faces in the pumpkins and put a burning candle inside. It looks as if there were a person looking out of the pumpkin! These lights are called jack-o-lanterns, which means Jack of the lantern. happy Halloween Trick or treat The children also put on strange masks and frightening costumes every Halloween. Some children paint their faces to look like monsters. Then they carry boxes or bags from house to house. Every time they come to a new house, they say,Trick or treat! Money or eat! The grown-ups put treat-money or candy in their bags.Not only children, but most grown-ups also love Halloween and Halloween parties because on this day,they can disguise themselves as personages or ghost as their imaginations will lead them. This bring them the satisfaction of being young.Comparison of festivalsThe spring festival and ChristmasQingMing and EasterThe Double Seventh Festival and Valentines Day The spring festivalthe Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Of them, the most important days are Spring Festival Eve and the first three days. ChristmasDecember 25th is Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus. Christmas is both a holiday and a Holy Day. In America it is the biggest event of the year .The different celebrating activities of the two festivalsThe spring festivalAll the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets. ChristmasMany people decorate their houses with Christmas trees and lights .The spring festivalOn Spring Festival Eve,all family members eat dinner together and then watch The Spring Festival celebration.ChristmasOn Christmas Eve, Children hang stockings for Santa Claus to fill with gifts. The spring festivalWaking up on New Year, everybody dresses up. First they extend greetings to their parents. Then each child will get money as a New Year gift, wrapped up in red paper. ChristmasOn Christmas morning, things such as cinnamon rolls or coffee cake are served for breakfast, and for dinner there is typically ham (and occasionally regal plum pudding). Comparison of festivalsThe spring festival and ChristmasQingMing and EasterThe Double Seventh Festival and Valentines Day QingMingQingMing,which is also called Tomb Sweeping Day,is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar.On this day, Chinese people visit the graves or burial grounds of their ancestors and burn paper gifts for the departed .Easter Easter is generally in a section from March 22 to April 25 between,which is a major holiday after Christmas. On Easter Sunday children wake up to find that the Easter Bunny has left them baskets of candy. He has also hidden the eggs that they decorated earlier that week. Children hunt for the eggs all around the house. Comparison of festivalsThe spring festival and ChristmasQingMing and EasterThe Double Seventh Festival and Valentines Day The Double Seventh FestivalThe Double Seventh Festival is also called Qixi Festival. Its origin is about the love story of the cowherd and the weaver girl.On Qi Xi, a festoon is placed in the yard and the single or newly married women in the household make an offering to Niulang and Zhin consisting of fruit, flowers, tea, and facial powder .After finishing the offering, half of the facial powder is thrown on the roof and the other half divided among the young women of the household. It is believed that by doing this, the women are bound in beauty with Zhin.Another tradition is for young girls to throw a sewing needle into a bowl full of water on the night of Qi Xi as a test of embroidery skills. If the needle floats on top of the water instead of sinking, it proves the girl is a skilled embroideress.Valentines Day Valentines Day is now a day for sweethearts. It is the day that you show your friend or loved one that you care. You can send candy to someone you think is special. Or you can send roses, the flower of love. Most people send valentines, a greeting card named after the notes that St. Valentine received in jail. Valentines can be sentimental, romantic and heartfelt. They can be funny and friendly. If the sender is shy, valentines can be anonymous. Americans of all ages love to send and receive valentines. Handmade valentines created by cutting hearts out of colored paper, show that a lot of thought was put into making them personal. Valentines can be heart-shaped, or have hearts, the symbol of love, on them. In elementary schools children make valentines for their classmates and put them in a large decorated box, similar to a mailbox. On February 14, the teacher opens the box and distributes the valentines to each student. After the students read their valentines they have a small party with refreshments. Conclusions1The constitude of Chinese traditional festivals timing reflects Chinas leading position in the agricultural civilization,which records the history track clearly,while the timing of Americas reflects the significant position of religion in their lives ,and the return of human nature after the Renaissance.中国传统节日时序构成规律体现了中国历史发展中农耕文明的主导地位。较清晰地记录了历史轨迹；而美国节日时序反映了西方人的宗教信仰在生活中的地位以及文艺复兴之后对人性的回归。2Chinese traditional festivals are panseistic and have strong link with the reality world ,while Americans have strong cultural characteristics as Monotheism.中国传统节日具有极强的世俗性及泛神性；而美国传统节日具有极强的一元神论宗教文化特征。3The culture of Chinese festivals respect people but it puts the individuals into the group,which emphasizes the collective values;while Americas mines the value of the individual and emphasizes on individual rights and freedoms,which is also called individualism.中国节日文化尊重人，但将个体融入群体强调集体主义价值取向；而美国节日文化挖掘个体的价值，强调个人的权利与自由。即个性主义。4.Chinese traditional festivals carry heavy heritage of ethics ,but in some sense they carry much utilitarian in the mordern day,while the Americas highlights the thansgiving and the persuit of plearsure.中国传统节庆传承厚重的伦理道德但发展演化到现代功利色彩浓厚；而美国节日则凸显感恩情节，追求精神愉悦。Thank you!Bye-bye !