The above drawings vividly reflect celebrations of the Spring Festival.
Compared with putting up couplets, making dumplings and children receiving money from elders, the traditional customs that have been observed for thousands of years, watching the Spring Festival Gala is a novelty, which has been incorporated into the joyful atmosphere.
It seems to me that the message the painter intends to convey is not limited to the Spring Festival celebration; it is also about inheritance and innovation of our fine traditional culture, to be exact.
It is essential that we hold a dialectical attitude toward the issue.
For one thing, abandoning the heritage left by our ancestors, if we fail to keep a foothold as a nation with unique characteristics.
For another, maintaining tradition doesn't necessarily mean we hang on to the rules handed down from distant ages.
In an era of intensified globalization, can China, the nation of the largest population and the third vastest land in the world, isolate herself from other parts of the earth?
Absolutely not.
Take traditional Chinese medicine for example.
The ancient field could hardly assumed new charm if it had been for doctors' endeavor to integrate Western medicine with it.
Generally speaking, only if we combine the preservation and the development of our fine traditional culture, can we keep abreast with the times in an all-around way.