Two “Bans” on the Spring Festival
By Jiang Li — Minsheng Weekly (issue unknown)
As the most important traditional festival of the Chinese nation, the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) was twice subjected to “bans”: once in 1929, when the old lunar calendar was abolished, and once amid the sweeping Cultural Revolution of the 1960s–70s. These extraordinary decisions made under extraordinary political circumstances ultimately could not prevail over ordinary people’s adherence to traditional customs, and were eventually abandoned.
In the prosperous Tang and Song dynasties, the Spring Festival once held a record-long seven-day holiday. In modern times, however, it suffered two crackdowns: not only was there no holiday, but even the festive atmosphere gradually faded.
Yet in the end, these seemingly cold and harsh decrees still could not stop the public’s persistence in keeping Spring Festival traditions.
By Jiang Li — Minsheng Weekly (issue unknown)
As the most important traditional festival of the Chinese nation, the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) was twice subjected to “bans”: once in 1929, when the old lunar calendar was abolished, and once amid the sweeping Cultural Revolution of the 1960s–70s. These extraordinary decisions made under extraordinary political circumstances ultimately could not prevail over ordinary people’s adherence to traditional customs, and were eventually abandoned.
In the prosperous Tang and Song dynasties, the Spring Festival once held a record-long seven-day holiday. In modern times, however, it suffered two crackdowns: not only was there no holiday, but even the festive atmosphere gradually faded.
Yet in the end, these seemingly cold and harsh decrees still could not stop the public’s persistence in keeping Spring Festival traditions.
1929: “No Leave Whatsoever in Accordance with Custom”
In July 1928, the Ministry of the Interior submitted a memorandum to the Nanjing National Government, deciding to “implement the abolition of the old calendar and universally adopt the national calendar,” and that “for traditional festivals of the old calendar, leave in accordance with custom shall be uniformly prohibited.” In other words, starting January 1, 1929, the Gregorian calendar would be used nationwide, while the old lunar calendar would be abolished and celebrating the old New Year banned.
The National Government introduced this order in part to echo Sun Yat-sen’s practice of “adopting the solar calendar from the first year of the Republic of China.” As early as January 1, 1912, when Sun Yat-sen assumed office in Nanjing as provisional president, he formally telegraphed the provinces: “The Republic of China adopts the solar calendar, taking the 13th day of the 11th month of the 4,609th year of the Yellow Emperor era as the New Year’s Day of Year One of the Republic of China.” On January 13 of the same year, Sun also issued the “Order of the Provisional President on the Promulgation of the Calendar,” instructing the Ministry of the Interior to compile and print the new calendar.
The “solar calendar” referred to the internationally used calendar system at the time, which took the birth of Jesus as its epoch. Having overthrown the imperial system and founded a republic, Sun Yat-sen was culturally influenced by the wave of “Western learning spreading eastward,” advocating alignment with world civilization to facilitate exchange. In Sun’s view, reforming the calendar “was the first and most significant reform after the revolution’s success.”
However, this measure—intended to sever the democratic government from the feudal dynasties—could not sever ordinary people’s feelings for the old calendar. To thoroughly end the coexistence of two calendars at the time, the Nanjing National Government formally ordered government offices, schools, and shops not to take unauthorized leave during the Spring Festival; otherwise, responsible persons would face severe sanctions and penalties.
As a result, not only did government officials have to report to work on time on the first day of the lunar New Year, but students and teachers also had to rush to classrooms to attend lessons on that very day. This was, of course, deeply dispiriting. Officials, fearing for their jobs, dared not complain; young students, less cautious, groaned bitterly. Some middle-school students once published a short poem like this:
“Today is the abolished-calendar ‘The New Years day,’
Playing at home is so Happy!
But the ‘boss’ still calls us to Study at school—
Thinking of it, it’s really so Sorry.”
Ji Xianlin, then a student, also wrote in his 1934 diary:
“Tomorrow is the first day of the old-calendar year; tonight is New Year’s Eve. I feel I still have a head full of feudal notions. As for celebrating the New Year, I have always supported it—especially the old-calendar New Year—because it brings back to me the beautiful, poetic New Year’s life of my childhood.”
For ordinary people, an order was an order—but the New Year customs could not be dispensed with. An article at the time wrote:
“In big cities, on ‘national-calendar’ January 1, the public, though needing to go through the motions, hangs the blue-sky-white-sun national flag on the front gate, and pastes a couplet on the door that has turned into a kind of slogan; but inside the gate, it is as if nothing has happened, and life continues as usual. Once the ‘lunar’ twelfth month arrives, moderately well-off households begin bustling from the 23rd day, when the Kitchen God is sent off, and do not finally, until after the Lantern Festival on the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, end this ‘mutated’ New Year life in a state of exhaustion. Set side by side, the contrast in warmth and cold is immediately apparent.”
Even though some local governments aggressively adopted violence to forcibly interfere with all celebrations and amusements during the Spring Festival, ordinary people still went their own way: you celebrate your “new new year,” and I celebrate my old-calendar New Year. In the end, the Nanjing National Government had to acknowledge that “as for the old-calendar year-end, aside from government offices, it is not advisable to interfere too much with popular customs,” and in early 1934 it stopped the practice of forcibly abolishing the lunar calendar and New Year festivities.
In July 1928, the Ministry of the Interior submitted a memorandum to the Nanjing National Government, deciding to “implement the abolition of the old calendar and universally adopt the national calendar,” and that “for traditional festivals of the old calendar, leave in accordance with custom shall be uniformly prohibited.” In other words, starting January 1, 1929, the Gregorian calendar would be used nationwide, while the old lunar calendar would be abolished and celebrating the old New Year banned.
The National Government introduced this order in part to echo Sun Yat-sen’s practice of “adopting the solar calendar from the first year of the Republic of China.” As early as January 1, 1912, when Sun Yat-sen assumed office in Nanjing as provisional president, he formally telegraphed the provinces: “The Republic of China adopts the solar calendar, taking the 13th day of the 11th month of the 4,609th year of the Yellow Emperor era as the New Year’s Day of Year One of the Republic of China.” On January 13 of the same year, Sun also issued the “Order of the Provisional President on the Promulgation of the Calendar,” instructing the Ministry of the Interior to compile and print the new calendar.
The “solar calendar” referred to the internationally used calendar system at the time, which took the birth of Jesus as its epoch. Having overthrown the imperial system and founded a republic, Sun Yat-sen was culturally influenced by the wave of “Western learning spreading eastward,” advocating alignment with world civilization to facilitate exchange. In Sun’s view, reforming the calendar “was the first and most significant reform after the revolution’s success.”
However, this measure—intended to sever the democratic government from the feudal dynasties—could not sever ordinary people’s feelings for the old calendar. To thoroughly end the coexistence of two calendars at the time, the Nanjing National Government formally ordered government offices, schools, and shops not to take unauthorized leave during the Spring Festival; otherwise, responsible persons would face severe sanctions and penalties.
As a result, not only did government officials have to report to work on time on the first day of the lunar New Year, but students and teachers also had to rush to classrooms to attend lessons on that very day. This was, of course, deeply dispiriting. Officials, fearing for their jobs, dared not complain; young students, less cautious, groaned bitterly. Some middle-school students once published a short poem like this:
“Today is the abolished-calendar ‘The New Years day,’
Playing at home is so Happy!
But the ‘boss’ still calls us to Study at school—
Thinking of it, it’s really so Sorry.”
Ji Xianlin, then a student, also wrote in his 1934 diary:
“Tomorrow is the first day of the old-calendar year; tonight is New Year’s Eve. I feel I still have a head full of feudal notions. As for celebrating the New Year, I have always supported it—especially the old-calendar New Year—because it brings back to me the beautiful, poetic New Year’s life of my childhood.”
For ordinary people, an order was an order—but the New Year customs could not be dispensed with. An article at the time wrote:
“In big cities, on ‘national-calendar’ January 1, the public, though needing to go through the motions, hangs the blue-sky-white-sun national flag on the front gate, and pastes a couplet on the door that has turned into a kind of slogan; but inside the gate, it is as if nothing has happened, and life continues as usual. Once the ‘lunar’ twelfth month arrives, moderately well-off households begin bustling from the 23rd day, when the Kitchen God is sent off, and do not finally, until after the Lantern Festival on the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, end this ‘mutated’ New Year life in a state of exhaustion. Set side by side, the contrast in warmth and cold is immediately apparent.”
Even though some local governments aggressively adopted violence to forcibly interfere with all celebrations and amusements during the Spring Festival, ordinary people still went their own way: you celebrate your “new new year,” and I celebrate my old-calendar New Year. In the end, the Nanjing National Government had to acknowledge that “as for the old-calendar year-end, aside from government offices, it is not advisable to interfere too much with popular customs,” and in early 1934 it stopped the practice of forcibly abolishing the lunar calendar and New Year festivities.
1967: “A Revolutionized Spring Festival”
If the 1929 cancellation of the Spring Festival was an official, one-sided wish, then the 1967 call for “no holiday during Spring Festival” came from the media.
The first to speak out was the Jiefang Daily on January 25, 1967. After the paper published an initiative—framed as “a letter from revolutionary rebels”—advocating not going home for the Spring Festival, newspapers across the country followed suit, publishing so-called “readers’ letters” and “initiatives,” whipping up public opinion and demanding the breaking of old customs and the cancellation of Spring Festival leave.
Soon the State Council also responded to “the demands of the broad revolutionary masses,” issuing a notice that the Spring Festival would not be a holiday, stating: “The Spring Festival of 1967 shall not be a holiday; employees’ home-visit leave shall be suspended during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, to be made up later.”
Under the political atmosphere of “Smash the Four Olds,” relevant departments promoted the idea of a “revolutionized Spring Festival.” The original intent of this “revolutionized Spring Festival” was to avoid extravagance and waste, and to discourage kneeling and gift-giving New Year visits, thus proposing the “Five Prohibitions”:
This “revolutionized Spring Festival” ran throughout the entire ten years of the Cultural Revolution. As the movement intensified, the idea also became distorted among the populace: from “no extravagance and no kneeling gift-giving” it shifted toward “attempting to cancel the Spring Festival,” and even treated nearly all traditional holidays—including the Spring Festival—as “Four Olds” to be eradicated.
Consequently, all Spring Festival celebrations were forced to stop. In many places, calls urged the masses to work overtime and “do revolution,” with slogans like “Change customs and celebrate Spring Festival—don’t stop on New Year’s Eve,” “Work through the 29th of the twelfth month; after dumplings, start work early on the first morning of the new year.” Because there was no Spring Festival holiday, some who had planned to return home to visit family had to go to stations to refund their tickets. The streets lost their festive, peaceful atmosphere; lively celebrations were replaced by unchanging model operas, and “No ceasefire on the thirtieth; keep working on the first” became couplets pasted on doors.
The “revolutionized Spring Festival” finally ended in 1976 with the conclusion of the ten years of turmoil, but the rule of “no Spring Festival holiday” continued until after Reform and Opening Up.
The first “ice-breaking” move came on January 17, 1979, when People’s Daily published two readers’ letters: “Why Isn’t the Spring Festival a Holiday?” and “Let Farmers Have a ‘Stable Year’.” The letters appealed:
“Frontline workers in forest regions don’t even rest on Sundays; these few days are the only holiday they have in a whole year, and they should be allowed to properly celebrate this festival!”
“Farmers work all year; the Spring Festival is the time to take leave and rest. Honestly, if Spring Festival isn’t a holiday—if you rely on fatigue tactics—the masses can’t celebrate well, they feel unhappy, and they can’t find any energy for work!”
If the 1929 cancellation of the Spring Festival was an official, one-sided wish, then the 1967 call for “no holiday during Spring Festival” came from the media.
The first to speak out was the Jiefang Daily on January 25, 1967. After the paper published an initiative—framed as “a letter from revolutionary rebels”—advocating not going home for the Spring Festival, newspapers across the country followed suit, publishing so-called “readers’ letters” and “initiatives,” whipping up public opinion and demanding the breaking of old customs and the cancellation of Spring Festival leave.
Soon the State Council also responded to “the demands of the broad revolutionary masses,” issuing a notice that the Spring Festival would not be a holiday, stating: “The Spring Festival of 1967 shall not be a holiday; employees’ home-visit leave shall be suspended during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, to be made up later.”
Under the political atmosphere of “Smash the Four Olds,” relevant departments promoted the idea of a “revolutionized Spring Festival.” The original intent of this “revolutionized Spring Festival” was to avoid extravagance and waste, and to discourage kneeling and gift-giving New Year visits, thus proposing the “Five Prohibitions”:
-
No setting off firecrackers
-
No burning incense or worshipping Buddha
-
No dragon-rolling or lion dancing
-
No feasting, heavy drinking, extravagance, or waste
-
No gambling
This “revolutionized Spring Festival” ran throughout the entire ten years of the Cultural Revolution. As the movement intensified, the idea also became distorted among the populace: from “no extravagance and no kneeling gift-giving” it shifted toward “attempting to cancel the Spring Festival,” and even treated nearly all traditional holidays—including the Spring Festival—as “Four Olds” to be eradicated.
Consequently, all Spring Festival celebrations were forced to stop. In many places, calls urged the masses to work overtime and “do revolution,” with slogans like “Change customs and celebrate Spring Festival—don’t stop on New Year’s Eve,” “Work through the 29th of the twelfth month; after dumplings, start work early on the first morning of the new year.” Because there was no Spring Festival holiday, some who had planned to return home to visit family had to go to stations to refund their tickets. The streets lost their festive, peaceful atmosphere; lively celebrations were replaced by unchanging model operas, and “No ceasefire on the thirtieth; keep working on the first” became couplets pasted on doors.
The “revolutionized Spring Festival” finally ended in 1976 with the conclusion of the ten years of turmoil, but the rule of “no Spring Festival holiday” continued until after Reform and Opening Up.
The first “ice-breaking” move came on January 17, 1979, when People’s Daily published two readers’ letters: “Why Isn’t the Spring Festival a Holiday?” and “Let Farmers Have a ‘Stable Year’.” The letters appealed:
“Frontline workers in forest regions don’t even rest on Sundays; these few days are the only holiday they have in a whole year, and they should be allowed to properly celebrate this festival!”
“Farmers work all year; the Spring Festival is the time to take leave and rest. Honestly, if Spring Festival isn’t a holiday—if you rely on fatigue tactics—the masses can’t celebrate well, they feel unhappy, and they can’t find any energy for work!”
At that time, there were still 11 days until the Spring Festival. People who had long since emerged from the “ten years of catastrophe” were already preparing and busily getting ready for the coming new year. A few days later, some provinces announced the restoration of Spring Festival leave. Not until 1980 did China fully restore the Spring Festival holiday system nationwide.