Sharing Tradition : by Frank LePana

 

Sharing Tradition : By Frank LePana

[The Writer]

Introduction of the essay :

The essay 'Sharing Tradition' is about passing on culture and the different values from generation to generation through oral tradition. 

The writer is talking about the importance of passing on cultural values through oral tradition. He has also talked about some (four) major major problems regarding to maintain oral tradition.

What is oral tradition ?:

Oral is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. 

The transmission may be through speech or song, or folktales by talking to each other. 

[Grand mother telling children stories of their culture : A form of oral tradition]

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Summary :

Oral tradition  helps maintain the value of a culture. It hands on all cultural values from one generation to another generation. If it were not so, our (anybody's) culture would have lost centuries ago. 

So it is the responsibility of both the older generation and the younger generations to carry on culture through oral tradition.

But it is a  difficult job - "This is easy to talk and write about, but it is hard to practise." The writer has put forward four major problems with regard to maintain oral tradition. We can see the problems in the following terms :

1. Difficulties in filling the 'niche' of elders
2. Impacts of modern technology on people
3. Modern educational system and its impacts
4. Sources of information and ways of perceiving and sharing them

1. Difficulties in filling the niche of elders: 

Although everybody becomes old with the passage of time, but some elders create their importance in their particular fields, by gaining a good expertise (expert skill or knowledge in a particular field) in their related fields.

Thus they create a niche (an important place in a society).

If such people could not hand down their knowledge to the next generation, all their knowledge and experience would get lost with their death. It is a great loss to the society.

The responsibility of carrying forward such valuable information through oral tradition goes on the shoulders of the junior generation. But the sad thing is that young people do not pay much attention to it. Mostly they are indifferent to it. Thus the niche of the elders has become hard to fill up.

Of course some people regret it. The writer has met many elderly people who regret now, because they didn't listen or pay attention to  what their elders tried to tell them. They now feel to have missed something very important which their elders tried to pass through.

2. Impacts of  modern technologies on people :

The emergence of new technology is the second obstacle with regard to maintaining the oral tradition.

There has always been a generation gap. Every generation makes certain necessary changes in the world with new technologies. It hampers our natural world also, having negative impacts on the natural resources of air and water. It is important that part of our tradition is tied to the natural world which is being destroyed.

Furthermore, modern technology has imposed (forced something bad on someone) things like stress, and different changes. it has been hard to live with all these. It is hard to maintain traditions.

3. Modern educational system and its impacts :

The modern educational system is another obstacle on the way of oral tradition.

Many modern researchers conduct studies on tradition , but there is always a danger of the truth and the reality of tradition being manipulated (exploited/ influenced). This happens particularly when the researcher is guided simply by the interest of research. 

In the present times people get degrees to show how educated they are. They gather knowledge out of necessity to show how educated they are. 

They don't do it out of interest or passion. (They don't go for true stories) 

So many times such researchers even don't get true stories. They are not always told the truth. And in this way the truth behind oral tradition suffers. The erroneous (wrong/ incorrect/) information is published and falsely validates one's research.

4. Sources of information and ways of perceiving and sharing them : (Information sources and how to recognize and share them properly)

The next problem is to know and recognize dependable and proper source of information. 

Many times it so happens that even those who claim to be 'experts' (of culture, values etc.) , either don't have proper knowledge or they pass on wrong information. 

The validity (correctness/ authenticity) of information plays a great role. The major responsibility of it goes to both the researchers and the ones who provide information. The chances of such information being validate increases if the speaker and the listener both are insiders (of the same group).

[In simple terms, if the researcher should try to collect information from reliable sources (people), the responsible persons should give authentic information.

 If they don't have a  proper proper knowledge about related matter, they (s/he) should be honest and and should direct the question to someone who has a good knowledge about it.]

The writer has also showed a difference between living oral tradition and written tradition.

A living oral tradition is different from written tradition in that there are chances of correction in it (whereas with printed literary tradition there is no such chance). 

Conclusion :

The writer has developed a relationship between art and oral tradition. Oral tradition is an art form. It has an impact on which an artist visualizes his artistic imagination. It helps artists how to visualize the stories, the characters, the design and colour of an art. When traditions are changed, a piece of art becomes an abstract. 

The result of a genuine art work depends on what is included or left out in terms of oral tradition tradition. 

It is by sharing our traditions truly that we can honour our elders.

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Questions and Answers

Before reading :

Answer these questions :

Question a.: Do you share your cultural traditions with your friends ?

Answer : I live in Kathmandu, which is a metropolitan city. People of different parts and cultures of our country live here. 

I have a friend circle, which includes friends from many cultures. Certainly we share our cultural traditions between us. We do it in several ways, for example, we enjoy songs together. We love to invite friends (from other culture) in our festivals, and also by enjoying foods.

Question b : Did your parents tell you stories when you were a child? If yes, did they have anything to do with your culture or values ?

Answer : Yes, in my childhood there used to be a story telling time in our family. My mother and mostly my grand mother used to tell us stories almost every night.

The stories were varied , but mostly they used to be little segments (pieces/parts) form the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. The good thing is that those stories still help me in different decisions in my life.

Question c : Should we preserve our cultural values and traditions ? Why ?

Answer : Cultural heritage is the real property of a society. Every society has its cultural heritage. It encompasses (surrounds) a society's ideas, traditions, arts, values, etc. 

Culture and its heritage reflect and shape values, beliefs and aspirations. This helps in defining a people's rational  identity. It also keeps our integrity.

So, it is a must to preserve our cultural values.

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Understanding the text:

Answer the following questions:

Question a. : According to LaPena, what is the importance of the oral tradition? To what extent do you agree with opinions and why ?

Answer : According to the writer the importance of oral traditions is in helping maintain the values of culture. It helps in handing down our traditions and cultural values and heritage generation to generation. If it were not so, they would gradually be lost.

Yes I agree with his opinion, because had there been no such practice, we wouldn't have known our cultural traditions. Our future generations too would not be aware of such a heritage.

Question b. : Who preserve and pass on the oral tradition?

Answer : It is the duty and responsibility of both younger and elder generation to do it. Always the elder generation pass on the oral tradition to the younger. In its turn, the younger generation pass on such things to next generation.

Question c. : What is the danger of not passing information from generation to generation ?

Answer : If our culture, traditions, values etc. are not passed from generation to generation, they will neither be preserved, nor will be transmitted (passed on) in future. 

The natural result will be that they will be forgotten by society gradually. That will be an irreparable loss for the whole society.

Question d. : What is the difference between oral tradition and literary tradition ?

Answer : Oral and literary traditions are two different channels of imparting information. 

The major difference between the two is that in a living tradition, there are chances of correction, whereas written tradition leaves a permanent impression . If by chance a wrong information is passed this way, it can not be corrected.

Question e. : How does LaPena establish a relationship between art and the oral tradition ?

Answer : The writer has developed a relationship between art and oral tradition. Oral tradition is an art form, and it has impacts, on which an artist visualizes his/her artistic imagination . 

It helps  an artist to visualize the stories, the characters, the design, and colour for art etc. when traditions are changed an piece of art becomes an abstract.

The result of genuine art work depends on what is included or left out in terms of oral traditions.  

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Reference to the context : 

Question a. : LaPena states that the oral tradition helps maintain the values of a culture. If you believe that oral tradition is important, how would you maintain it ?

Answer : There is no doubt that oral tradition helps maintain the values of a culture. There are many ways of maintaining it, e.g. through speech, folktales, poetry and so on.

Although in the modern times with the internet, T.V.. or radio, it has been difficult to maintain a true oral tradition. 

For this we can follow a bed time tradition, when the family might sit together and elders can tell youngers stories from culture, their heroes religion etc. 

Another very good way is to give information to children about stories related to religion related holidays. For example, we can tell them the story of Goddess Durga killing Mahisashur before sending them on Dashain Vacation . 

Question b. : "Not everyone is capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders." Explain this statement with reference to the essay.

Answer : It is natural we get old(er)  with the passage of time. But that's not enough. Elders have a particular role. 

As elders have a deep experience and good knowledge of their culture, tradition, it is their duty to pass on this knowledge to the next generation through oral tradition. 

But as all the elders don't do it, or don't know the proper way of doing it, we can say that everyone is not capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders.

Question c : What is the controlling idea or thesis of this essay ?

Answer : The controlling idea of this essay is the importance of transmitting (transfer/ pass on) knowledge and values of a culture through oral tradition to save them from being forgotten.

Question d : How do topic sentences guide the reader through the essay? What would be lost without them ?

Answer : A topic sentence is a sentence that summarizes the main idea of a paragraph. It is very important because all the other sentences of the paragraph are deeply related to it. 

If there is no topic sentence, readers will find problems in understanding what the paragraph is about.  

Question e. : What are the four major problems developed by LaPena with regard to maintaining the oral tradition. How are they used to structure the essay ?

Answer : Although transmitting culture, values etc. through oral tradition is of utter importance, but it is not so easy. The writer has mentioned four major problems to maintaining the oral tradition. They are :

1. difficult in filling up the 'niche' of elders.
2. impacts of modern technology on people
3. modern educational system and its impacts
4. sources of information and ways of  perceiving and sharing it

The writer has presented them in a proper structure. As he wants to focus on these problems, they come after he has introduced the importance of oral tradition. 

Then the problems come in the main body of the essay. Here he has used problem-solution method. They all support to the main thesis of the essay. Finally the essay ends with a nice conclusion.

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Reference beyond  the text :

Question a : Write a paragraph or two explaining your attitude toward the oral tradition of passing along information .

Answer : Oral tradition is the first and still the most widespread way of human communication. Oral tradition is not "just talking". It is storing, and transmitting knowledge, art, culture, and tradition. It preserves cultural and historical memory. They preserve the history of the past and important events, and contributes to transmit stories, legends, songs etc. 

It also has been a reliable source of historical writing.

In conclusion, cultural preservation is vital (very necessary). It brings a sense of unity, togetherness and belongingness among people of a community.

This has been a difficult task in the present time because of today's busy life-styles and increasing responsibilities.

Question b : Our culture is our identity. Write a few paragraphs explaining how you intend to preserve your culture, values and norms.

Answer : We all have our own distinct culture, norms and values. They are so dear and valuable for us. They stand our identity. So it is our duty not only to follow them, but also to pass on such things to the coming generation, so that they are not forgotten or lost.

To preserve our culture, there is nothing better than to continue practicing them in our family. This will not only bring pleasure, but our children will learn them naturally. 

If someone is in a foreign land, it is better to meet with people of one's origin, and enjoy different festivals together. We can even wear traditional dresses on such occasions. 

Smell and taste have powerful connections to memory. So it is also  very good to cook some traditional dishes on such occasions. 

Another way to maintain our culture is to tell stories, legends and myths to our children, as story telling gatherings once or twice a week.

Next important thing is language. Mother tongue is the life blood of a culture and community. So, in order to preserve culture, values, etc., it is very important that one should strictly use mother tongue in family. Use formal language or the language of majority only in formal or other social situations.

By following such things, we can preserve our culture and values.

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