issue207 rituals and ceremonies

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Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture, without them, societies and groups of people will have a diminished sense of who they are.
Rituals and ceremonies, long been deemed as part-and-parcel of national or local cultures, represent the distinctiveness of a particular culture, and afford people a certain identity. However, it is fallacious to believe we will have a diminished sense of who we are without them in that with technological development and the evolution of societal ethos,  rituals and ceremonies have largely been supplanted by other culture expressions.
Rituals and ceremonies are deeply rooted in the culture. The Chinese feudal Emperors believed that their power came from the Heaven, thus whenever significant events took place in the country, they would hold large fetes to plead the aids form the heaven. Even today, Beijing, the capital of China, still kept the magnificent architecture, which is called the Heaven Altar as one of the nation's cultural identities. Another equally important ritual in China is offering sacrifices to ancestors for their blessing of the family, which sprung from the belief that the ancestors who died before them were still alive in another world and could protect their descendants from disasters if they wish. The rituals and ceremonies not only come from culture but also create culture themselves. It is common to find in various kind of rituals that particular songs and dances are performed, and the costumes and musical instruments manifest the cultural identities. The ceremonies of some areas involve divided roles and are in reality primitive forms of modern opera. Those ceremonies are always a special heritage of a particular tribe or family, which afford its members a personal identity and reinforce the tribe or family relationships.  
Since it is primary from the belief in the ghost and deity that our forefathers devised the rituals and ceremonies, it is easy to explain that in modern industry countries, they are largely abandoned or deserted. We are now more believe in ourselves than in deities, and very few would believe that kill a sheep or ox as a sacrifice to god will bring them good harvest, thus nowadays we use many other ways to keep our national distinctiveness. One of them is literature, which represents the thoughts and ethos of a particular society. Besides, since it employs the language of the nation, which itself a key symbol of national characteristics, it conveys more cultural distinctiveness than painting does. An illustrating example lending credence to this point is Chinese literature, which has a long history and which is the gem of Chinese culture. However, the invaluable treasure seem exclusive to Chinese, in that all the grandeur and delicacy of the literature seem all bound up with the Chinese characters, and it lose all its flavor when translated.
Another part of art which represents cultural identities is music. Chinese music distinguishes from western music first by its instruments employed. Whereas western symphony largely employ metal-made instruments like trumpet and highly intricated ones like piano, Chinese music instruments are mainly wood and bamboo chips in their crude forms, which in part represent the Chinese ideal that man live in harmony with nature.
Apart from arts, in contemporary societies, more things involves modern technological innovations serve as national identities. A case in point is that Americans define themselves as a nation on the wheels. The way they shop, eat, rest and the national legal and financial system are all inextricably related with cars and car industry. For example, Main Street has been replaced by strip mall and shopping mall, concentrating consumer goods in an auto-friendly space. Beside, in banks and restaurants, drive-in services are provided which is unimaginable in some Asian countries which are dominated by pedestrians and bicyclists rather than drivers.
All in all, rituals and ceremonies do convey cultural distinctiveness, and help keep and reinforce our family and communities ties. Nevertheless, with the progress of human society, they gradually lose their function and we now devise other means to keep our national identity.