[i习作temp] [ISSUE 207] by CHERISH [复制链接]

kidlove
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电梯直达

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发表于 2011-2-10 12:31:45 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

本帖最后由 kidlove 于 2011-2-16 20:02 编辑

TOPIC: ISSUE207 - "Rituals andceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of peoplehave a diminished sense of who they are."
WORDS: 650
TIME: 00:44:27
DATE: 2011/2/10 12:25:33

What is the key element in defining who the people are, what is the origin of them? Insofar I agree with the author of the statement by claiming that rituals and ceremonies help define the culture of a society or a group of people, but they are not the only element that people can rely on.

Admittedly, rituals and ceremonies are an indispensable part of a culture, they help people define their culture by setting a stable form of behaving, celebrating their traditional festival, and by means carry forward their own civilization and a spiritual home from which they believed originated. On one hand, ceremonies are a form of microcosm of a group of people that have experienced thousands of year’s development, they are ageneralization of how people act and behave in the process of transformations oftimes. They carry the best wishes to one whole nationality. For example, theChinese people are known as possessing long history, when one couple getsmarried, in the wedding ceremony, this couple should offer the parents fromboth family cups of tea respectively, which means showing the respect to theirparents, for Chinese people often offer tea to respectful people; later, thecouple would kowtow to their parents, as showing thanks to their parents forthe love and care since childhood. On the other hand, rituals are an image ofone nation's temperament and culture background. For instance, Japanese peoplecares a lot about the courtesy, when they meet with others, they will alwaysbow and say respect words to them; the Chinese people are known as meekly andof introverted poise, which is due to the influence of Confucius, etc.

However, we are living in a society withrapid changing and colorful images of different groups of people. Many ritualsand ceremonies of culture have been changed, people in different nations haveadopted cultures and ceremonies from other cultures, and the Information Agehas gathered the world into a closely related global village. The festival ofChristmas must be in the very frontier of changing. Christmas nowadays is morelikely an international festival rather than just a Christian one. Take thecase in Spain, traditionally the children will get present in the day of ThreeKings Festival, which is as well called Epiphany and is the same withChristmas, but today, the Spanish children can get presents twice a year forthe wide-spread of Christmas. Another example, the Chinese New Year Festival isbecoming more and more popular among the world owing to the wide-spread ofChinese people in every corner of the world.

There's no doubt that rituals andceremonies do help define a culture, but they are not the only factors thatdefine a society or groups of people, there are many other elements that formsthe culture as a whole and thus help people find the origin where they are stemmingfrom. Take the history of one nationality for example. A certain group ofpeople is like the skeleton of a human body, history is like the soul of thatbody which is the base and very foundation of a people, it tells people wherethey are from, what their ancestors had done to bring them the heritage, thesplendid civilization, etc. The language of a nation is like the flesh of thebody that makes the human plentiful. The rituals and ceremonies are like theexpressions of the human which enrich the people of social skills andcharacter. Thus with elements mentioned above, can a person really find theorigin of him.

In the society of rapid changing anddevelopment, we cannot deny the fact that rituals and ceremonies help us findthe definition of a culture; moreover should we notice that other factors are indispensableas well in forming us in the shape of where we are from, what's more, they arewhat we should cherish and worship most.

ISSUE207