issue207 同主题 大家互相修改啊！

傻妞UID: 2112292

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 contemporary society that characters itself as fast pace and globalization, many rituals and ceremonies are simplified or disappearing. Thus many people warn that without these rituals and ceremonies, we should be cautious of diminishing sense of who we are. In my point of view, I agree the significance of rituals and ceremonies. However, in refer to the self-definition that is in the inner-heart of every body, it would not be easily influenced by rituals and ceremonies.

In the process of our life, we take part in numbers of rituals and ceremonies to demonstrate who we are now. When we are 6 or 7 years old, we attend the school's opening ceremony, which means   we become one of the students in the school. Then when we grow up to 16 years old, our families or schools hold adulthood ceremony for us. After that, we should say farewell to our childhood and take the responsibility as an adult. Then, we may go to the opening ceremony of university, the ceremony for joining a political party or religious organization and the ceremony of commencement. Thus, we are no longer a student and enter the group of job seekers. After that, we may hold a wedding ceremony which means we should take the obligation of a family. More over, there may still be countless rituals and ceremonies waiting in the future. If you are an athlete, you will enter the ceremony of the opening of a sport meeting. If you are a soldier, you may attend a ritual sending you to battlefield. Our life is such a rich and colorful process and our roles are changing continuously in the process. In these cases, rituals and ceremonies act as mark on such a change. They clearly inform us which role we should play after that.

However, rituals and ceremonies are effective means but not necessary means to identify ourselves. Without rituals and ceremonies, people could still keep a strong sense of who they are, as people could still identify themselves through language, music, literature, the color of their hair and skin and evaluation from the people around them. A simple example lies on that many young couple now dramatically simplify or even cancel their wedding ceremony. The ceremony may be substituted by a family dinner, a travel or even nothing.  However, this doesn't mean that they have fewer sense of being married, as long as their lover's name is carved in their heart , which don't necessarily need a process of wedding ceremonies. To a large extent, we could take the example of African American people. Before they are emancipated as slavers, nearly almost ceremonies and rituals that could identify themselves are forbidden. However, most of them don't lose themselves in the long term of depression. They still keep in mind their traditional culture through music and other means of art. And under the leading of Lincoln and other people, they unified together to gain freedom and social status. Thus, people could identify themselves through a variety of means, among which, as far as I am concerned, people's inner awareness is most important.

Further more, with the strengthening of international communication, people sometimes learn and assimilate the rituals and ceremonies from other groups, which doesn't definitely mean that people also identify themselves with that specific group. During the process  of globalization, many ceremonies and rituals belonging to western culture flush into China. It's popular for Chinese to hold ceremonies on Christmas Day or Easter Day nowadays. However, as Chinese people could not really understand the meaning of these ceremonies, they won't have deep influence on Chinese own culture. More over, if some ceremonies and rituals don't have meaning to a group anymore, they will never affect people's self-identification more or less. As in ancient China, people annually hold ceremony to pray the god in charge of wind and rain for a harvest year. Nowadays, with the development of technology, people could make use of natural force for their own purpose. This kind of ceremony is no longer in need.

In conclusion, whether we could identify ourselves is not decided by the rituals and ceremonies. People in the same group may express the same ideas through different kinds of rituals and ceremonies. People don't hold ceremonies may also identify himself/herself with the specific group.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-7-19 at 17:14 ]

傻妞UID: 2112292

我～～我也不知道最近作文怎么老是控制不了字数，当然更别提时间了。
好像回到小学四年级，老师只要求四百字，可是流水帐一样的，我竟然写了一大堆，交上去后老师花花花删掉一大堆！
这篇写完后自己也看了不太爽，不知道这样处理culture可不可以，算不算偏题啊？