Essay about Culture: Culture and Special Holiday

Submitted By packa92
Words: 1263
Pages: 6

Culture Culture, it means the total life way of a people, the legacy of the tradition that individual acquires from his group. Now, society transformed to a globalization, variety of nationalities of people live around us. It is important to recognize that people from different cultures have are different in a variety of ways, including rituals, traditions, ways of looking at things, dressing and expressing personality. In this essay, I will introduce culture of Korea. I am from Korea and as I grew up more than 20 years, I acquired most of Korean culture. Since I have been living in America for one year and half, I realized there is a big difference between the two countries, and it is important to know those differences. There are four rituals and traditions associated with the birth of child, a wedding, a funeral, and a special holiday or event. The first tradition is birth of child. Having a child, it is the most valuable moment in a life. In Korea, traditionally, when a woman realized she was pregnant, she would tell her mother-in-law first, then her husband and lastly her mother. Thereafter, the whole family would assist tending to her needs, as opposed to her tending to theirs. During the pregnancy, Korean people think that baby eats, feels, thinks and sees are directly influence by mother. The mother expected to only look at beautiful things and not look on dead things such as flowers, animals, etc. Everything she ate, felt, thought or saw could influence the characteristics of the baby. Pregnant women were not allowed to eat duck because the baby might be born with webbed feet if she did. She would not eat tofu, because "it falls apart too easily". During this period, the family try to negative happens in the family were kept from her so that she would only have good thoughts. And, during the pregnancy, there is interesting ritual event exist. Many Korean people like to predict gender of their baby while pregnancy. If a woman’s dream about snake, the older members of the family predict that it will be daughter, and if woman dream a dragon, they will predict it will be son. Dream is a very symbolical meaning in Korea. Baby’s visual, personality, characteristic, and future associate with mother’s dream. It is not realistic and accurate habit, but, just for having a good memory of baby while pregnancy. After the birth, the mother would eat seaweed soup it is her first meal after the birth because of its healthful properties, have it three times a day over the next 2-3 months. It is still common tradition. After that, the father-in-law would name the baby with the name carrying a wish for the child’s life. Names usually had two syllables with meanings, Korean people hope to child follow the meaning of name. In Korea, the birth of a child has a lot a meaning and it is most important event in families. To add a value into their child, Korean people keep the rituals in a long time. The second tradition is a wedding culture in Korea. There are two types of ceremony exist, one is traditional and other one is modern style. Koreans have kept several aspects of the traditional ceremony, however, currently, modern ceremonies resemble Western marriage ceremonies more than traditional Korean ones. Even modern marriage ceremony is influenced by Western; it is different than Western style. The most of Korean wedding have in place called wedding hall. These are large building that have at least three rooms in which to get married and holds a wedding an hour in each room. Usually, Saturday is the popular day to get married and there is 9 to 18 weddings scheduled in one day. The modern Korean wedding is crowded. The wedding hall is large, with a stage in front and a walkway. There are tables where people could sit and get tea, mostly occupied by friends and family. Before the marriage, Korean people invite everyone they know; few hundreds of guests visit their marriage ceremony. The ceremony itself is short, it is only take about