#166, Tradition
Tiny sticks of wax are lit and placed upon the top of a colorful pastry. Then the lights are dimmed and people yell at you in unison perhaps even asking how old you are. Then it’s up to you to extinguish the fire using a single breath. If you are Korean, you might also eat a hot liquid filled with an algae from the sea. On another day, a man and woman will adorn attire dating back to 37 B.C. and put shiny pieces of metal on each other's finger promising not to leave one another until death do they part. Then they'll lie on the ground in front of some people they know.
tradition n. a way of thinking, behaving, or doing something that has been used by the people in a particular group, family, society, etc., for a long time
If alien beings were to view the birthday and wedding traditions, they might seem as unusual as I have described them. Traditions are rather unusual human behavior. The behaviors we practice are not dictated by logic, but simply because. We follow traditions that are centuries old and many of them don’t make a lick of sense.
To complete this Journal response,
Imagine that you can permanently rid the world of one tradition. It will never have existed. What tradition would you eliminate? Why?
Comment on a peer's response.
-Brenden Lee Teacher