issue207-[Spring小组] 第七次作业

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Issue 207. "Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are."
Dragon boat festival
Words: 558    Time: 2 hours    Date: 2007-12-5  

  In the globalize world, it is true that almost every culture is encountered with the tendency to be assimilated into the modern-day homogenous soup. Thus, I agree with the assertion that rituals and ceremonies help to define a culture and preserve the cultural identity. However, the role that the ritual and ceremonies play goes far beyond the function of definition and preservation.
  Admittedly, as composition of a specific culture, a unique set of rituals and ceremonies help us to distinguish the culture and preserve the cultural identity. Christians will go to church every Sunday; Buddhist will usually go on pilgrimage to temples; Islamite will read the “Alcoran” five times a day. The demonstration of the unique ritual and ceremonies set people apart from other culture and fortify their sense of who they are, constantly help them to preserve their culture identity. The reason why Jews can successfully preserve their distinct culture even under the pressure of Christian rulers’ lies largely in strictly clinging to their traditional ceremonies and rituals. Otherwise, the Jew risks total assimilation and loss of cultural identity.
   Despite of the role as resistance to the assimilation of the modern-day homogenous soup, rituals and ceremonies also play many significant roles and cast great impacts on the society. In the first place, by display and observation of the rituals and ceremonies, we can get a better understanding of the culture, because those ceremonies have their roots in the culture. Take the Chinese Dragon boat festival for example. On that festival, people held a dragon boat competition and dispose rice dumplings into rivers to commemorate Quyuan for his loyalty to his country and his great contribution to the traditional Chinese poem. The story of Quyuan passes down from one generation to another by the demonstration of the specific ceremonies, meanwhile the moral merits Quanyuan standing for, patriotism, has also been disseminated by those demonstrating the ceremonies. Nowadays, we can still feel the strong strength of characters of Quyuan and get a better understanding of the history in that specific period through watching the ceremonies.
    In the second place, ceremonies and rituals help to make people with the same culture background gather together to commemorate their tribulations and inspire them to struggle for a better life. In 1951, the Israel congress passed a law to establish the April 27th as the Holocaust Day on the purpose to commemorate those Jews who was killed by the Nazi during 1933 to 1945. On that day, Jews all around the nation are required not to eat any food, every family ignite kindles and chant a specific lection to mourn the victims in that massacre. The Israel government establishes such ceremonies to remind people not to forget the suffering and painful history as well as to make the recently founded nation become more cohesive, which ultimately stimulates the public’s desire to build a powerful nation to ensure that the painful history would never repeat again.
   To sum up, besides defining the culture, rituals and ceremonies also serve to distinguish the culture, prevent it from been assimilated, help people to a better cultural understanding, and make the society a more cohesive one. Taking all of the considerations into account, it is necessary for people with a unique and proud culture to maintain an outward display of that culture by way of rituals and ceremonies.