Conceptions of the Spring Festival and Christmas of Shanghai’s Young and Middle-aged People: A Qualitative Study of Similarities and Differences

The recent years have witnessed the decreasing traditional flavor in the way Chinese people celebrated the traditional Chinese festivals, including the Spring Festival the most influential traditional festival in China. In contrast, Christmas seemed to be more welcome than the Spring Festival. The change in the positions of the two festivals reflected the change in the young generations’ conceptions. To seek the similarities and differences in the conceptions of two festivals between the 20-yearold generation and middle-aged generation in Shanghai as well as the reasons, two groups of Shanghai natives were personally interviewed about their conceptions of the Spring Festival and Christmas. The paper found that the two generations were similar in their conceptions of home, alienation from their relatives, eating, and the Spring Festival’s position. Family ties, identity, and recognition of tradition and modernity accounted for their similarities. They had different conceptions in family reunion, personal relationships, and over-all feelings on the festival, effect of familial economic condition, and Christmas. The reasons for differences were social development, generation gap, and social responsibility.