issue207

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Issue207
Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are.

In the era of the tremedous trends of globalization in the realm of culture, cultural diversity has diminished following with a mix of distinct cultures. Western festivals are common to be celebrated by eastern people and the Chinese traditional writing and painting are popular arould the world. These phenomena illustrate that people have a diminished sense of their own distinctive culture. Rituals and ceremonies can help define a culture to some extent, but they are not the only and most effective determinative factors. As far as I concern, there are something impartant to enhance people’s cultural sense of belonging.

It is true that rituals and ceremonies can preserve our cultural identity and distingish different cultural charateristics, especially at the ancient time. Historian finds that each primitive tribe has its own brilliant and distinctive rituals and ceremonies, which symbolize a sole social and cultural being. These rituals and ceremonies acquired varying meanings help to define a culture even if different ethnic groups can hardly communicate with each other through language. It is the rituals and ceremonies that serve to reinforce people’s sense of who they are. Simillary traditional festivals celebrated today is modern represent of rituals and ceremonies. American spend Christmas with the whole family every year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, Redeemer in their culture, while Chinese spend Spring Festival, the most important festival in Chinese culture, having dinner with the all family members to welcome new year together. Even Chinese people living in American would never fail to celebrate Spring Festival, which can keep him a sence of he or she is a Chinese.

With the increasing trends of globalization, different rituals and ceremonies tend to assimilate each other. Western cultural elements can be easily found in the celebration of Chinese traditional. Moon cakes, main food in Moon Festival, nowsaday is quite different from those at the past time. In the modern process of moon cake production, western cooking skills are added, making it more delicious and popular with both eatern and western people. Confucianism studied around the world is a strict example to illustrate this point as well. Confucianism today is no long a traditional culture belonging to China exclusively. On the contrary, philosophists all over the world are so enthusiastic to study and convey the rituals and thinking of Confucianism that the advancement of others’ national rituals are profoudly influenced by it.

Even if the the trends of globalizatin in the realm of culture, societies or groups of people still have a clear sense of who they are and what their culture is. Accordingly means of rituals and ceremonies may not be the most effective way to define a culture, there are other facters, like distinctive words, customs, actions and so forth, functioning. Someone would argue that American people and British people have the same language but are distinct ethnic groups. Though they both communicate in English, it wouldn’e difficult for these two national people to distinguish form each other, for the detailed usage and ruleof the words is quite different. What’s more, both of them have their particular customs. A British would perform formally, while an American would appear willful. Even though they have the same complexion, color of hair, skelecton of face and body, they could still be identitied by their words, customs and performs. A British wouldn't define himself as an American, even if one day he or she would have stayed for a long time in American after growing up in England.

To sum up, rituals and ceremonies can preserve our cultual identity and distinguish different culture to some extent. But in the era of increasing trends of globalization, some of the nation can still have a clear sense of who they are, such as American, China. Apart from rituals and ceremonies, other effective facters are also available for us to identity ourselves, like words, customs.

（想问问这样的思路行么，写完后我觉得自己一开始没破好题，后来看看觉得先承认rituals and ceremonies的作用，再补充art, customs等方面起到作用，两个方面又个写一段。）