Culture is the soul carrier of human being, is the core of one country. Different countries have different cultures. Festival, which reflects the most delicate and representative respect of culture, is the essence of human’s daily life. Being comparing American Christmas with Chinese New Year, Thanks Giving Day with Mid-autumn Festival, Valentines’ Day with Double-Seventh Day, Halloween with Tomb Sweeping Day and Easter with Dragon Boat Festival, we find out cultural differences between China and America. Thus, we know different cultures and histories and environments will result in different festivals and reflect different social values in different countries, which have a great influence on people’s mind and behavior. It is convenient to absorb the outstanding foreign cultures sensibly by summarizing the differences, in order to protect and promote the cultural essence of the Chinese nation. This article first elaborates the cultures from different five aspects on the Chinese festivals and American holidays. In order to expound the effect of cultural in both countries’ commerce activity, we analyse both countries’ core culture values, consanguinity, their manner towards love, the educational mode and memorial service from a cultural angle. Nowadays, by generally accepted, the culture is one kind of soft strength, and only using it in positive way can minimizes losses and reduce the nonessential misunderstanding and friction and gains the victory in the Chinese and American intercultural communication. The culture is the double-edged sword, only has danced this sword well, can both countries’ activities mutually benefits and develop harmonious.
Comparing the Chinese festivals culture with the American festivals culture, we can get a conclusion that the main factors of the culture are religion, value and material, people’s daily behavior code of conduct and the custom which accumulated over a long period. These factors mutually affect each others. What is more, from the comparison, we have got another conclusion: only treating the foreign culture rationally and absorbing the essence and discarding the dross of the culture discrepancies, can one make full use of the advanced culture of the foreign countries and make a great progress in his cross culture ability.
Key Words: discrepancies social values Chinese history and culture Chinese festivals American history and culture American holidays
文化是人类灵魂的载体，是一个国家的核心。不同的国家拥有不同的文化。节日是人类日常生活的浓缩和精华，反映出一个民族文化中最精致，最具有代表性的一面。我们拿美国的圣诞节，感恩节，圣瓦伦丁节，万圣节，复活节和中国的新年，中秋节，清明节，端午节，七夕节五个节日作对比，从而我们能够发现中美不同的文化。我们能知道不同的历史，文化导致了节假日风俗的差异，揭示了不同的价值观念。这些价值观念也能影响人们的思维和行为。
研究差异有助于更好的较理性的借鉴和吸取外来文化中的优秀成果，借鉴西方人的积极价值观，保护和弘扬中华民族的文化精髓。本文首先从不同的五个方面来论述比较美国和中国的节假日，并做具体比较，然后从文化角度比较分析两国的核心文化价值观，血缘观，对爱的追求方式，教育方式以及悼念方式等方面的差异，来阐明文化在两国具体生活中的影响。 当今世界，文化已经被默认为一种软实力，只有积极的利用它趋利避害才能在中美跨文化交际上减少不必要的摩擦和误解。
文化是把双刃刀，只有舞好这把剑，中美双方才能在两国的交际活动中互惠互利，和谐发展。在对节假日文化的详细比较中，我们不难看出对文化具有影响的几个主要因素：宗教，物质和价值观，行为准则以及在节假日中沉淀下来的风俗。 这几个因素相互影响，相互作用。也通过比较分析，我们最终得出一个结论：理性的对待文化差异，充分运用国外先进文化，吸取精华，弃其糟粕，只有这样才能更好的提高跨文化交际能力。
关键词：差异 社会价值观 中国历史文化 美国历史文化 中国节日 美国节日
2.1 The typical festival: Spring Festival and Christmas. 2
2.1.2 Culture diversities: consanguinity influence on the family. 3
2.2 Mid-autumn Day and Thanks Giving Day. 5
2.2.2 Culture diversities: the way to express thanks. 7
2.3 Double-seventh’s Day and Valentine’s Day. 8
2.3.2 Culture diversities: manner towards love. 9
2.4 Tomb Sweeping Day and Halloween. 10
2.4.2 Culture diversities: educational mode. 11
2.5 Dragon Boat Festival and Easter 13
2.5.2 Culture diversities: memorial service. 14
3.1 The religion influence on the festival culture. 15
3.2 Values and materials influence on the festival culture. 16
3.3 Code of conduct influence on the festival culture. 17
3.4 The custom influence on the festival culture. 18
