China’s rapid social transformation is reflected in a different order of priority of the country’s various annual festivals and commemorative days. As the communist state continues to seek tight control over what is permissible, yet as official thinking also adapts to and tries to steer the reclamation of “tradition”, the texture of China’s festive calendar is altering. This change increasingly raises problems for a country and a people caught between the “new” China of the post-1949 period (which is also now “old”) and the “old” China of centuries past (parts of which are again becoming “new”).
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May 06
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