during cold weather is that it is a time between the “autumn harvest and winter storage” and “spring plowing and summer weeding.” In other words, this is the time for rest and relaxation after a year’s toil and for celebration as well.
The festivities reach their climax around the New Year’s Eve and the New Year’s Day, when there are continuous feasting and rejoicing amid the din of gong striking, drum beating and firecracker shooting. While the grown-ups occupy themselves with New Year dinner parties and mutual calls, the children enjoy the New Year entertainment such as fireworks and lantern displays, lion dance and entertainment such as fireworks and lantern displays, lion dance and other folk shows visits to festival fairs, etc. Nothing is spared to make the celebrations joyous and memorable.
It is strange that the traditional New Year should seem to flourish with new vigor when the lunar calendar has been practically superseded by the solar calendar as a system of time reckoning. None of the other public festivals can compare with these two in grandeur. Women’s Day (8 March), Youth Day (4 May), Children’s Day (1 June) and the recently established Aged People’s Day (9 of 9th lunar month) are festivals for particular sections of the population, although they are of course also the concern of all society. The Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (1 July) and Army Day (1 August) are both days of great significance, but they are more of commemoration days than of public festivals.
Of the many lesser traditional festivals, the Mid-Autumn Festival is perhaps the most popular. This holiday has 2,000
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