Traditional festivals have made a comeback. The Spring Festival celebrations have just ended, Qingming (Tomb Sweeping) Festival is on the way (April 5), followed by Duanwu (Dragon Boat) Festival (June 14). Later, there will be the Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival (Sept 22) and Chongyang Festival (Senior's Festival) (Oct 16).

It's been a stunning turnaround since it was not until January 2008 that these festivals were turned into statutory holidays.

Back in 1949 when New China was founded, most of the traditional festivals, viewed as "remnants of old, decayed or superstitious stuff from old society", were discarded.

Only Spring Festival remained as a legal holiday, along with modern holidays such as International Women's Day, Labor Day, Army's Day, and National Day.

China currently has about 10,000 traditional festivals among its 56 ethnic groups.

Nobody really questioned whether we needed more holidays until 2004 when a public debate took place about the popularity of some Western festivals and the waning influence of traditional festivals.

The same year, some delegates made proposals to legalize key traditional festivals at the General Assembly of National People's Congress.

The key message was: Traditional festivals are "important and therefore they need protection".

But many people, especially the young, say they are not interested in these festivals. Instead, they are embracing Western festivals and holidays such as Christmas Day, Valentine's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving Day, and even April Fool's Day.

A commonly heard reason for this thinking is: "Traditional festivals are boring, old stuff" while Western festivals are "much more interesting and exciting".

Meanwhile, concerned scholars want to preserve traditional festivals that "are vital elements of our unique historical legacy, and cultural identity".

If we really want to save our traditions, we should worry about the lack of content. Take Spring Festival for example.

In the past, people did a lot of interesting activities, as shown in popular costume dramas such as Antique Dealers of Peking, and Dream of the Red Mansion.

But today, most people just eat, drink, let off fireworks, play mahjong or watch gala shows.

In rural areas, people do more, such as putting up couplets, paper-cut window decorations, staging shehuo (bonfire ceremony, circus show and parade) in Shaanxi province, or huahui (flower fair) in suburban Beijing.

But local operas, yangge dances, lion dances, and lantern shows are the same every year and are unable to hold young people's interest.

To revitalize traditional festivals, we should not blame young people for blindly following Western festivals and Western culture but should change the way we celebrate traditional festivals.

This year, Beijing Television Station teamed up with several Internet portals such as sina.com and qq.com to hold an Online Spring Festival Gala Show, and a Global Spring Festival Gala Show, livecast on the Internet and mobile phone, for audiences worldwide.

Both shows were highly praised. This is a refreshing move to activate our traditional festivals.

In another example, the participation of global visitors and artists contributed to the success of temple fairs in Beijing during this year's Spring Festival.

Similarly, ethnic festivals such as the Sisters Festival in Guizhou's Qiandongnan Miao Ethnic areas and the Water Festival, initiated by Bai ethnic people in Yunnan province, have drawn thousands of visitors from home and abroad who in turn contributed to the atmosphere and cultural diversity of the traditional festival.

Some may argue that this may change the look of our traditional festivals, but traditions are not living fossils that are handed down without any change. Traditions are always evolving.

For instance, for Qingming Festival, young netizens are establishing online cemeteries to mourn their deceased family members or deceased pets.

With new forms and novel ideas, I believe traditional festivals can stay forever young and always be appealing, here and abroad.