Issue207 永不言弃第二十四次作业 by stgzhao 7#

stgzhaoUID: 2583165

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: 556          TIME: 00:27:37          DATE: 2009-3-3 10:43:42

It is a common circumstance that people of the United States can watch Chinese people living in USA celebrate their new year while Chinese people see Americans who live in China celebrate Christmas. Why do people carry on their ceremonies regardless where they are? Probably the answer is in the statement "rituals and ceremonies help define a culture". Moreover, without these rituals and ceremonies, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are. However, we must realize that there are other forms that could awake this kind of feelings.

All over the world different nations and ethnics have their respective way of rituals and ceremonies. Western people usually celebrate Christmas in December and define their new year to be the first day of a year - January 1st. Meanwhile, Chinese people find their new year to be decided by lunar calendar instead of the Gregorian Calendar which is used in everyday life. Even in China, different ethnics have different new years. For the Han nationality the new year has been talked above, however for the Zang nationality new year lays on another day. This kind of difference may result from the different culture and traditions.

People can easily get a better knowledge of their own nationality through these rituals and ceremonies as well as find a sense of who they are. By celebrating the same festival or ritual people of one nationality are likely to be more coherent. In addition, it is a good way for people from other ethnics to understand a nation's culture and tradition by participating into the nation's rituals and ceremonies. That is to say, to carry on a nation's rituals and ceremonies does great contribution to reserve the nation's culture and tradition, which is of great importance to hold together the nation and help the nation to remain independence.

However, as technology is developing so fast, situation has been changed due to a process of globalization, which causes some rituals and ceremonies to become extinct as well as some rituals and ceremonies to be accept by other ethnics. For example, you can easily see people of other countries celebrate Christmas as the Christians do. Another striking example of this is that the Valentine's has become a global festival that is celebrated widely on which young couples - no matter married ones and courting ones, and even old spouses give presents to each other and gather to have a romantic dinner. Such extinction and extension of rituals and ceremonies may at certain extent cause the diminish of a sense of who people are and may damage the culture and tradition of a nation. However, there are other ways for people to make up. Such ways may include ancestral crafts, traditional foods, and so forth. After all, rituals and ceremonies are not the only representation of a culture.
In sum, rituals and ceremonies are two important forms to represent a nation or an ethnic's culture and traditions, which, however, are not the only form. People should value these rituals and ceremonies and deliver them from one generation to the next if possible. Lack of such symbols of culture it is likely for people to have a diminished sense of who they are, and the culture is more likely to become extinct, which is proved to be dangerous for nations.