Opponents

Qing Chuan (www.rednet.cn): Many people have appealed to choose a day as China's own Mother's Day, instead of joining the Americans in celebrating their Mother's Day. But the fact is, the U.S. Mother's Day is already very popular with the Chinese, not only because Sunday is convenient for most people, but also because love and respect for mothers is a feeling shared by all nations. Thus, to set up a Chinese Mother's Day is un- necessary. Even if we have our own Mother's Day, that will not stop some Chinese from celebrating the U.S. one.

We should learn from others with a tolerant attitude. Any useful and advanced things that the Chinese feel like accepting should be adopted, particularly excellent culture. Western festivals like Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day, provide positive guidance to the young generation. Like scientific and technological advancement, cultural improvement should also incorporate excellent heritage from the past and from the outside.

It's wrong to blindly reject all "Western" things in fear of being "Westernized." We already celebrate many international festivals, such as Labor Day and Women's Day. According to some scholars' logic, these festivals should also be expelled and replaced with our own Labor Day and Women's Day.

To abruptly connect a simple moral festival to the bigger theme of "historical and cultural identity and even national belief and cohesion" is really making a fuss. This is not the attitude a mature nation's people should have toward foreign culture.

Zhang Fengyi (www.xinhuanet.com): As for whether China should have its own Mother's Day, we first need to make some problems clear. Is it necessary to restrict "the expression of gratitude" to a certain mode?

Second, is it that Eastern and Western cultures are rivals? Some people have been trying to resist the Western Valentine's Day with Chinese Qixi Festival (the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, inspired by a romantic Chinese love story) and are now fighting against U.S. Mother's Day with a newly invented Chinese Mother's Day. It seems that these people are trying to safeguard Chinese culture, but in reality this reflects a narrowminded thinking.

In the era of globalization, no culture can stand in isolation. Nowadays, people in other countries also celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival, the most important traditional festival of China. In some countries and regions, the Spring Festival is even a legal holiday. Western cultures can fill the gaps that Chinese scetraditional festivals leave, thereby enriching China's cultural life. We may not know the origin of Mother's Day in May, but as long as it reminds us of filial piety and gratitude to mothers, it's enough.

Many traditional Chinese festivals have become legal holidays, like the Dragon Boat Festival, Tomb Sweeping Festival and Mid-Autumn Day, in recent years. But these days seem to be more helpful for business people to do relevant business and scenic spots easier to attract tourists than for the real festival culture to spread. We already have many festivals, and to invent a new Chinese Mother's Day will likely just provide another opportunity for business people to make big money, and little else.

In the face of overwhelming globalization, traditional festivals can indeed serve as a cushion to safeguard our own national culture. But the urgent task facing us is not to passively reject, but to develop and spread our own culture on the basis of absorbing fine foreign customs. It's better to enrich and develop existing traditional festivals than to invent another Mother's Day.

Li Qing (Jiaxing Daily): It is true that many young Chinese today are enthusiastic about "foreign festivals" like Christmas, Valentine's Day and even relatively unknown festivals such as Easter and Thanksgiving. Instead, they lack the knowledge of China's traditional festivals. This is an unpleasant scetraditional nario, but it's not so intolerable that we have to invent a Chinese Mother's Day to fight against and reject Western Mother's Day.

Although Mother's Day is an "imported festival," its spirit is international—showing respect and gratitude to mothers. Celebrating U.S. Mother's Day is not a special worship of Western culture.

To encourage the young generation to cherish Chinese traditional festivals is important, but this goal can't be achieved by resisting "imported festivals." What we need to do is to properly reform and improve our own festivals so that they will attract young people and suit modern life.

The suggestion that Mencius' birthday should be designated as China's Mother's Day is constructive. However, a better understanding of festival functions and cultural communication will persuade people that whether we have our own Mother's Day or not isn't so important. The love for mother is the same around the world, so there are fewer differences in culture and ideology when it comes to Mother's Day than in other foreign festivals. To worry about Western cultural expansion in the name of Mother' Day and even raise this question to the height of national cultural safety is unnecessary. These worries reflect some people's lack of self-confidence and tolerance of outside culture.

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