Therefore, this paper is going to talk about five parts on the comparative study. The first part is a brief introduction about this study; the second part talks about the origins of Spring Festival and Christmas; then the customs of Spring Festival and Christmas will be discussed from three detailed points respectively; the fourth part will explore the cultural differences between Spring Festival and Christmas, mainly from religion, beliefs and cultural connotations; in the end is a conclusion about the paper.

II. The Origins of Spring Festival and Christmas

2.1 The Origin of Spring Festival

The Spring Festival (or the Chunjie Festival, the Chinese New Year) is the most important festival in China and a prominent cultural phenomenon in the Chinese civilization. It is traditional called “the Grand New Year’s Day” in the folklore as it falls on the first day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar.

The Spring Festival used to be called “Sui Shou” (“the beginning of the year”), “Zheng Dan”, “Yuan Ri” and “Yuan Dan” (the last three names mean “the first day of the new year”) in ancient times. It is since the founding of the republic China in 1911 that the first day of the first lunar month has been called the Spring Festival, namely “Chunjie” in Chinese(feng 10).

With a history of at least 2000 years, Spring Festival originates in the conception of the ancient yearly calendar. The ancient people began to be aware of the passage of time and paid great attention to how astronomy and phenology might affect human activities well before the three dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou (beginning from the 22nd century BC). According to “Interpretations of Heaven” in Literary Expositor (complied in the 1st century), the year is called “Sui” in the Xia Dynasty, “Si” in the Shang Dynasty, “Nian” in the Zhou Dynasty and “Zai” in the days of King Yao and King Shun. The days of King Yao and King Shun are probably in the late Neolithic Age while “Zai” means carrying, referring to the movement and change of time. “Sui”, which refers to the year in the Xia Dynasty and is closely related to harvest, sacrifices and astronomy, originally meant an axe for gathering the yearly corps. When people would slaughter cattle and offer them as sacrifices to the gods, “Sui” was used as the term for the sacrifices. The annual celebrations for the harvests naturally pided the endless passage of time into year-long sections. In the cause of time, “Sui” for the harvest or for the sacrifices gradually became a marker of the year. “Si” refers to the year in the Shang Dynasty and emphasizes the sacrificial periods characteristic of the time. Following the tradition of the Xia Dynasty to mark the year by annual harvests, the Zhou Dynasty officially adopted “Nian” as the term for the year (feng 18).