A teacher teaches children how to make Chinese-style lanterns at a kindergarten in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, on Dec. 5, to celebrate the inclusion of the Spring Festival on the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Photo: IC PHOTO

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In early December, the Spring Festival—social practices observed by the Chinese people to celebrate the traditional lunar new year—was officially inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity during the 19th session of the UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. With this inclusion, China now leads the world with 44 cultural elements or practices recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. 

Unique tradition

According to traditional Chinese calendar, the Spring Festival begins on the first day of the first lunar month, marking the onset of a new year. However, preparations begin as early as the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month, when people start to get ready for the new year by cleaning their homes, shopping, putting up Spring Festival couplets (blessing banners posted on door frames), and worshipping ancestors. Festivities reach their peak on new year’s eve, when people have a reunion dinner, stay up late, and set off firecrackers, followed by paying new year calls and going to temple fairs, culminating on the 15th day of the first lunar month. This continuous process of celebration is known as guonian, meaning “crossing the year.”

Centered on festive themes including ringing out the old and ringing in the new, wishing for good fortune, family reunions, and harmony, a series of social practices associated with the Spring Festival showcase the values, sense of life, ethics, mentality, behavioral codes, and aesthetic taste of the Chinese nation. 

A national extravaganza, the Spring Festival is the celebration with the most profound meaning and most diverse customs, engaging the largest number of participants and exerting the most extensive influence among Chinese festivals. Liu Kuili, a research fellow from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), noted that the Spring Festival, marking the transition of the annual cycle, symbolizes the abandonment of the bad in favor of the good, the harmony between humanity and nature, and the building of relationships with others, family, the country, and the nation. A festival with special significance, it encapsulates the shared values of the Chinese nation. 

Valuing family and emphasizing respect for history, awe for nature, and expectations for the future, cultural customs associated with the Spring Festival reflect its social, historical, and natural ethics, said Xiao Fang, a professor of anthropology and folklore at Beijing Normal University. These values align with the shared values of humanity, making the traditional Spring Festival culture a gift that the Chinese people offer to the contemporary world. 

Global celebration 

Outside China, the Spring Festival has become a prominent cultural icon widely embraced and celebrated worldwide. Data indicates that nearly 20 countries have designated the first day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar as a public holiday, with about one-fifth of the world’s population participating in various forms of celebration. In 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution designating the Spring Festival as an official UN holiday, signaling its gradual recognition as a global celebration.

UNESCO’s recognition of the Spring Festival, the grandest traditional festival of the Chinese nation, represents the high international esteem for this cultural tradition. According to Ji Zhongyang, a professor from the School of Humanities at Southeast University, the Spring Festival not only carries the warmth of family reunions, but also humanity’s universal hope for renewal and prosperity—sentiments that coincide with common expectations for the new year around the globe. 

With the growing influence of Chinese civilization, the Spring Festival has generated far-reaching impact on China’s neighboring countries, remarked An Deming, deputy director of the Institute of Ethnic Literature at CASS. The Spring Festival culture emphasizes harmony between humanity and nature, organic relations among individual, family, and group histories, and solidarity of society, reflecting Chinese civilization’s value pursuits of peace and harmony. Passed down and refined over generations, the festival crystallizes the wisdom of the Chinese nation in adapting and thriving. 

Scholars also held that the inclusion of the Spring Festival on the UNESCO list is of great significance to enhancing overseas Chinese people’s cultural identity, implementing the Global Civilization Initiative, and advancing the building of a human community with a shared future. 

In recent years, as the Spring Festival approaches, the world has been illuminated with “Chinese red,” with various celebrations held across the globe to share the joy and festive spirit of this traditional holiday. As China continues to develop, the Spring Festival, a carrier of Chinese civilization, has grown into a global cultural event. Huang Yonglin, a professor from the National Research Center of Cultural Industries at Central China Normal University, anticipates that with its inscription in the UNESCO list as a new starting point, the Spring Festival will engage more and more international participation with its unique charm, fostering cultural exchanges and mutual learning among diverse global civilizations through intangible cultural heritage and contributing greater cultural strength to building a human community with a shared future.

Edited by CHEN MIRONG