TOPIC: ISSUE147 - "Tradition andmodernization are incompatible. One must choose between them."
WORDS: 474 TIME: 0:45:00 DATE: 2007-7-28
With the increasing living standards andnotion changes resulting from the growing knowledge about the world around usand the technological innovations in the past years, our society is becomingmore and more modernized than before and that leads to the increasingcontradiction between tradition and modernization. Although tradition andmodernization are incompatible in some instances, in my opinion, one canbalance between them.
In retrospect to the development in thepast several decades, one can find that our society has experienced a greatprocess of modernization. Tradition and modernization contradicts with eachother when deciding whether we should build modern buildings in a traditionalcity. While traditional architecture is necessary to keep the city moreattractive in tourism, modern buildings are important to accommodate morecitizens. This will certainly cause tradition and modernization contradictswith each other. Furthermore, with the development of society, people areseeking places to lead a more comfortable and convenient life which will makemore transportation facilities, communication base, and airlines indispensable.However, these infrastructures for modern city will heavily impact thetraditional building and culture in a specific city whose main attraction istraditional culture.
While tradition is needed to keepcivilization developed by our ancestors, modernization is necessary to accommodatemore people and make life more convenient. It seems that tradition andmodernization are always contradict with each other, however, it is necessaryfor us to recognize the relationships between them because modernization todaywill become tradition in future. For example, the skyscrapers built in 1970swhich was very modern at that time, but today the building can be recognized astradition. So is the modernization today.
However, we should realize the significanceof traditional things such as culture, building and customs since they keep ourcivilization in the past. And we can balance between them in the process ofmodernization. For instance, China has many minority nationalities living inits southwestern part where most people there lead a poor life. In the processof searching for a better life--that is modern life--the government is tryingto do their best to keep the modernization and tradition harmonious with eachother. With investing in places where people in poverty lives in the one hand,they also focus on the protection of the traditional culture there such asallocating funds for their ceremonies to keep customs and filming movies indialect to protect languages. Thus, in the process of modernization, we canalso try to consider tradition as much as possible.
It is important for us to realize the factthat it is the tradition that keeps our custom and culture; and it is necessaryfor us to take tradition into account in the process of modernization. Thoughtradition and modernization are contradicting with each other in someinstances, in fact, we can balance between them in contemporary constructionactivities.