Glamping is not the most political of acts. It takes little courage to drive to a designer campsite, where white airy tents are already pitched and long wooden tables laden with food. Yet choosing to go camping at this time of year in China, when the autumn moon is full, can be political—albeit rather enjoyably so. It is evidence that traditional festivals, once forsaken by the government and neglected by many, have been re-established, with modern glosses, as fixtures of the Chinese year.
In 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty, China’s republican government adopted the Gregorian calendar. The lunar new year, cancelled during the Cultural Revolution, was restored in 1980. It was not until 2005, however, that the party issued a document calling for the revival of other holidays—especially the mid-autumn celebration, tomb-sweeping day in the spring and the dragon-boat festival in late spring or early summer. “The younger generation, people born after 1990, are mostly away for their studies or work.
Because trains back home were sold out for the long weekend, alas this year her son could not get home from Guangzhou,.
Living “under the same moon” is a recurring propaganda theme around the mid-autumn festival. It’s only at festivals like this that they come back,” said Ms Chen, standing near a shrine to Confucius in central Zhangzhou. In the early 20th century reformers railed against the lunar calendar and its festivals, seeing them as antithetical to modernity. The Communists went further, branding many festivals as feudal superstitions. The return of these holidays as cornerstones of the Chinese calendar is thus impressive. In one of its more audacious about-faces, the Communist Party has morphed from sworn foe of old customs to their self-appointed arbiter and promoter. Xi Jinping has given these festivals even greater political weight. He calls them expressions of Chinese cultural confidence—and suggests, by extension, that the party is the guarantor of Chineseness. It is used to describe bonds between China’s ethnic groups, shared heritage across the Taiwan Strait and the common weal of humanity. State media seize on holidays to amplify an old idea much liked by Mr Xi: that nation and family are interwoven. Yet the revival of traditional festivals is much more than a top-down exercise. True, observance is patchy: in many cities people just enjoy the day off. But in the south, and especially in Fujian, where temples and clan halls survived the Maoist years better than elsewhere, the festivals help form the rhythm of life. Older customs are an anchor against modern anomie, and the joys (and headaches) of family reunion matter more for many than the abstract concept of national unification. His efforts entail risks. Championing holidays linked to ethnic-Han culture, as most are, could alienate minorities. For example, the lunar new year is not a traditional festival among Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Yet activists say some Uyghurs, most of whom are Muslim, have been pressured to drink alcohol and eat pork dumplings to show holiday spirit. The party also openly frets about villagers turning to temples and ancestral shrines as dispensers of temporal authority. Confucian mentors, such as one Chaguan recently met, can claim a moral power of their own. Confucianism, sometimes seen as a quasi-religion, is a statist belief system that emphasises hierarchy. As the mentor explained, a ruler does not have carte blanche. The population’s deference depends on the ruler governing with benevolence. Asked whether current leaders do so, he pursed his lips and declined to answer. The party has made itself the guardian of traditions it once belittled and even tried to crush. In so doing, it has summoned forces whose roots run much deeper than its own, and which may ultimately have greater claims on the loyalty of the people.
