Festival is an important part of a nation’s culture。 Different countries have different personalities and characteristics of festival culture。 It has a great effect on improving the spirit of a nation, enhancing people’s cultural identity and maintaining national unity and solidarity。 The study of festival culture is an important topic to contemporary scholars。 Up till now, many scholars have ever done lots of researches on festival cultural differences between China and the United States。 For example, Wang Jinqiang (Director General of China Association of Folk Literature and Art) has ever said that different festivals are created by different groups, so festivals must have a specific cultural background and national connotation。 In 2010, the National Social Science Fund Project set up a special topic researching festival culture。 The subject has been highly valued by the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Academy of Arts。 Members of the project also wrote an academic work to carry forward the traditional festival culture at present situation and the countermeasures。 They said that the present situation of Chinese traditional festival culture is very severe and is filled with all kinds of challenges, so they believed that we need to recognize the status of the problem。 They also point out that when developing our traditional festival culture, we need to learn and absorb the excellent culture of other countries。 There is no doubt that this academic book has achieved great success and also has a crucial reference value。 

This paper aims to do a comprehensive study of the cultural differences between some representative Chinese and American traditional festivals by using the comparative analysis method and bibliography data analysis method。 Through a clear understanding of the differences in their origins, main customs and other aspects, we can know how to make the traditional festival culture adapt to the international community better in the process of globalization and promote the communication of traditional festival culture in the world。 What’s more, by figuring out the differences between them, we can enhance our cultural competitiveness and better develop the culture of our nation。

This paper consists of four parts。 Part one is an introduction, including the research background, the research method, the main content of the essay and its frame structure。 Part two chooses some representative traditional festivals in China and America and discusses their cultural differences, such as their different origins, the main customs and other aspects。 In part three, it analyzes some major factors that caused these differences, for example, Chinese farming culture vs。 American religious culture, collectivism in China vs。 inpidualism in America and their different ways of thinking。 In part four, the author points out that these traditional festival cultures are blended with each other in contemporary society。 We should not only pay attention to our native traditional festival culture, but also take the essence of foreign festival culture and bypass its dregs to help to bring our native traditional festival towards the world and to a better future。文献综述

II。 A Comparison of Traditional Festival Cultures Between China and America

Traditional festivals have a special social and cultural meaning。 They can reflect a nation’s spiritual and cultural features。 The customs of the traditional festivals are closely related to people’s life experience。 That is to say, people’s different life experience results in different traditional festival cultures。 From ancient times, Experts and scholars had not stopped the research on the traditional festival culture。 They have gradually reached a consensus on the research of traditional culture。 On the one hand, at first, the traditional culture is the ideology of the feudal rulers to maintain their rule。 Its meaning is mainly expressed in ancient books, permeates in all aspects of national life and passes down from generation to generation。 On the other hand, people begin to treat the traditional culture of China in a new way。 In the past, people all retained or totally negated the traditional culture of China, which was a big mistake。 Experts and scholars in the United States have also been studying the traditional culture of their native country。 Here, the paper chooses some representative traditional festivals in China and the United States and compares them in their origins, main customs and major cultural differences。