Abstract On December 4, 2024, the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) was officially inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, signifying international recognition of its cultural value. As the most grand, important, and ceremonious traditional festival in China, the Spring Festival embodies the values, ethics, thinking patterns, behavioral norms, and aesthetic tastes of the Chinese nation, serving as a vital carrier of its culture. This study employs structural analysis to interpret how the conceptual origins of “Yuandan” (Chinese New Year’s Day, now celebrated as the Spring Festival), the series of related folk activities, and the symbolic meanings of traditional Chinese New Year foods together demonstrate the dualistic and dynamic thinking structure centered on “the harmony of Yin and Yang.” Furthermore, by examining sacrificial customs during the Spring Festival such as ancestor worship, deity veneration, and the welcoming of the Wulu Shen (Five-Road Wealth Deities), this study reveals the triadic (Sancai) and pentadic (Wuxing) thinking patterns in ancient Chinese thought. The author posits that these underlying cognitive frameworks and core concepts are manifested across diverse cultural phenomena, including Spring Festival rituals and customs. Therefore, a profound understanding of traditional Chinese culture requires grasping these foundational cognitive frameworks and conceptual cores, which in turn enables a more comprehensive interpretation of the culture and its people.
Xingliang He (Sat,) studied this question.