作为一个过渡礼仪的两个庆典——对元旦与春节关系的表述

Two New Year Celebrations in the Chinese Calendar as One Rite of Passage: A Representation of the Relation of New Year and Spring Festival

中国从步入现代民族国家的时候就引出在一个日历年里有两个新年庆典的问题。新的公历元旦与废弃的夏历元旦(春节)一直处在现代与传统、西方与本土、官方与民间的文化纠葛之中。在学术表述中,元旦和春节总是被看作分开的甚至对立、冲突的两个节日。从过渡礼仪的理论来看,从人们的生活经验来看,不管多少仪式,“过年”应该只是一个过渡礼仪。本文探讨如何把元旦与春节纳入一个关于年的过渡礼仪来认知,并在此基础上讨论这种对文化因素多来源的新年庆典进行再结构化的知识生产的社会意涵。

Ever since China became modern nation-state in 1911, there emerged the phenomenon of two New Year celebrations in one calendric year. The new calendar＇s （the Gregorian calendar） First Dawn （of New Year） and abandoned traditional calendar＇s Spring Festival have been among the conflictive swirls between the modern and the traditional, the western and the native, both in struggling for the influence on citizens＇ life as well as the legitimate status in the official time system. No matter in common sense or academic expressions, the First Dawn and Spring Festival are always treated as separate, even opposite and conflictive holidays. But whether by the theory of Rite of Passage or our life experience, ＂celebrating the New Year＂ should be （or, can only be） a rite of passage no matter how many rituals there are. So I＇d like to discuss the possibility and how to combine the First Dawn and Spring Festival into one rite of passage about annual time cycle and further discuss the social meaning of knowledge production about the reconfiguration of the New Year celebration whose cultural elements can be traced to plural origins. What I＇ll especially emphasize is that despite we live in a compound culture, if some new classification categories can be adopted, there＇s still a chance for us to pull ourselves away from those disputes bundled with oversimplified opposition such as the Chinese and the west, the modern and the traditional.