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Western Easter v. Eastern Chingming
As a matter of fact, this festival also falls in the beginning of April. It is today: Chingming Festival (literally: Pure Brightness Festival)!
So, today, let’s have an interesting comparison and contrast between these two “ghost festivals” that are most famous respectively in the western and the eastern world!
Origin, Naming and Time
Easter is a religious holiday to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection and a public holiday for nearly all Christian countries.
The word Easter actually comes from the name of a goddess in Anglo-Saxon paganism – “Ēostre,” who was celebrated on the spring equinox and who the month of April was once named after. As time goes by, “Ēostre” gets changed into today’s “Easter.”
Easter always falls on a Sunday, usually in April, but it is based on the cycle of the moon, so the actual date changes each year (and the date is different in Western Christianity and Easter Orthodox Christianity because of differences in their calendars).
Chingming is a special day to memorialize the dead.
It is the 5th solar “term” (or “period”) in the traditional East Asian lunisolar calendar. This calendar divides one year into 24 solar “terms,” and each “term” is defined by unique features of climate and seasons. Chingming is the 5th “term,” which begins 15 days after the spring equinox (the 4th “term”) according to Calendar (a famous reference book in ancient China). It features vernal plants, fresh air, and the clear sky. This is how the name was created: “Chingming” literally means “clear and bright” in Chinese.
The date for Chingming is comparatively fixed on the civil calendar: the day before or after April 5. As a traditional festival, this is a rare case, since most traditional East Asian festivals are based on the lunar calendar and consequently their corresponding dates on the civil calendar are movable. But the date of Chingming is tied to the change of seasons.
Customs, Symbolic Meanings & Literature
On Easter, people in America usually dye boiled eggs in various colors, and might hold an Easter egg hunt, in which children search for eggs that have been hidden. The Easter Bunny is also a traditional part of the Easter celebration, and it’s common to give children bunnies (a toy bunny or even a real one) for celebration.
Both eggs and bunnies come from celebrating spring and the renewal of life. Eggs symbolize birth, and the cracking of eggs can depict Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. Bunnies represent fertility - there’s a saying that goes, “to breed like bunnies.”
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) and William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), both of whom are among the most literary figures in the century they lived in, have poems with a shared title “Easter,” which show the joint meaning of Easter as a religious holiday and celebration of spring:
| Easter by Edmund Spenser Most glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day, Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin; And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin; And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye, Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin, May live for ever in felicity! And that Thy love we weighing worthily, May likewise love Thee for the same againe; And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy, With love may one another entertayne! So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought, —Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. | Easter (extract) By W. B. Yeats Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road. The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all. |
When Chingming comes, people in China commonly choose to go to their dead friends, relatives or ancestors’ tombs to remember them. This was extremely important in the ancient time, when Chingming became a primary holiday, because obedience and piety to the dead is regarded as a kind of virtue emphasized by the ancient orthodox values.
As the ancient Chinese scholar Tzeng Tzu (曾子) said, “when people seriously attend the funerals and memorize the dead people, the society will be harmonious” (“慎终追远，民德归厚矣”). The royal family at that time in China even put Chingming in a topmost position, seeing it as a good opportunity to exemplify their virtue in this aspect to the public.
Since there are quite different ways to celebrate Chingming, there is a mixture of both the moan for the dead and the spring exuberance in the ancient literary poems. Here below are two examples (in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, with my English translation):
| Poem 1 清明 作者：杜牧（约公元803-852年） 清明时节雨纷纷，路上行人欲断魂。 借问酒家何处有，牧童遥指杏花村。 清明 作者：杜牧（約西元803-852年） 清明時節雨紛紛，路上行人欲斷魂。 借問酒家何處有，牧童遙指杏花村。 Chingming By Mu Du (around 803-852) When it rains continuously on Chingming, pedestrians are in the swirl of extreme gloom. When one stranger asked where the restaurant was, one little shepherd pointed to Almond Flowers. (NOTE: “Almond Flowers” is the name of the restaurant) | Poem 2 无题 作者：曹雪芹（1724-1763） 阶下儿童仰面看，清明装点最堪宜。 游丝一断浑无力，莫向东风怨别离。 無題 作者：曹雪芹（1724-1763） 階下兒童仰面看，清明裝點最堪宜。 遊絲一斷渾無力，莫向東風怨別離。 Untitled By Xueqin Cao (1724-1763) Little children on the stairs are facing upward to see it, This most appropriate decoration on Chingming; When the string tied to it is broken, When the person can’t get it back, Oh, please please don’t complain about this to East Wind. (NOTE: This poem is originally a puzzle. It describes the features of this “decoration” and appeal people to guess what it is talking about. Yes, the answer is “kite.”) |
Ah, now you may have an understanding of both festivals. Hopefully this article can also be a good one for you to get a little bit sense of the subtly of the two different cultures :) Happy Easter and Chingming! Spring time is coming!
See all News Updates of the Day
International students may be able to get jobs at school
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
- By VOA News
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Music students find community through 'international chat' program
State University of New York at Fredonia is trying a new method to help international music students feel at home.
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Read the full story here. (October 2024)
