ISSUE 207 -B1-嵩嵩@3.2

cousonUID: 2389644

TOPIC: ISSUE207 - "Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are."
WORDS: 527
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2011/2/10 1:46:05

With the development of modern society, some rituals and ceremonies have been passed down from the ancestors and some are not. When it comes to that whether people will have a diminished sense of who they are without rituals and ceremonies' help in defining a culture, there are always a set of different opinions. Would we lose ourselves without rituals and ceremonies? Admittedly, rituals and ceremonies did help us defining our culture; however, they are crucial to how we identify ourselves.
Granted that, rituals and ceremonies have contributions in defining the culture we are living in. In this perspective, we might find out what our society looks like through the culture presented by rituals and ceremonies. Then we are able to gain our positions in a group or a society. An apt example is that the Chinese are always encouraged to maintain restrict orders between the seniors and the youth. In most cases or situations, the youth should walk behind the seniors in order to their respect to the senior. In Addition, the youth should salute to the seniors in major rituals and ceremonies, such as wedding. With such help of rituals and ceremonies, the stamp of culture will be easily pressed in our minds and we will remember who we are and where we come from even though we had left hometown for a long time.
Rituals and ceremonies, however, are not the only factors in defining a culture. Some other factors such as apparel, customs and art are also help defining a culture. The Arabian women, who have veiled their face, have showed the culture of that the Arabian women have a high society class. The dining tools of chopsticks, knives and forks have demonstrated different dining cultures of eastern countries and western countries. The painting styles of Chinese painting and oil painting have revealed two opposite styles which the former is focus on the sketch of things and the latter is famous of its strong colors. A culture reflected by almost every perspective in our daily, contains far more than rituals and ceremonies did, and that is why the ethnic group is distinct from the others.
As we further inspection some rituals and ceremonies we might found that we might not lose our identifications if there are vanished. If we look back to the pre-historical tribes, they had carried on some cruel and superstitious rituals and ceremonies, such as sacrificing. Thousands of people were buried alive with a dead load in purpose of glorifying the greatness of the dead load, to show that his had a large amount offspring. What's more ridiculous, these sacrificed people had being told that they would gain immortality after they finished the ritual, and reach the heaven where they were meant to belong to. As a result, there are some rituals and ceremonies passed down from the ancestors and some are not.
In sum, even though we can observe our culture through the forms of rituals and ceremonies. Yet, other ways such as apparel, custom and art are also reflecting the culture we are living with. Literally, we would have known more about ourselves in a comprehensive way.