Reflective Essay: Keeping The Meaning Of Traditions

It was the eve of a grandeur celebration. Sounds of rushing feet, deep breaths, and hectic eyes pervade the Bondoc household. Spirits were up from the wake of dawn with each person in our abode actively participating in the preparations for the night’s celebration. During the day, my mother placed twelve rounded fruits on a display plate ranging from small grapes to large watermelons while my father stayed with her preparing the cuisine. Consequently, my brother drove around the village to buy supplies and groceries. Meanwhile, I was in charge of tidying up the house. When the night came, we followed our common procedures. Our attire included an apparel that had polka dotted patterns and our pockets filled with coins. When the clock hit midnight, we threw our coins to the ground. Afterward, my brother and I jumped as high as we can. The rituals we practiced were superstitious, but they played an imperative role in our new year’s jamboree. Despite my ambiguity about the meanings of these traditions or why it was necessary to practice them, we were instructed

Keeping the same traditions is difficult because new circumstances come to everyday lifestyles. Traditions are followed because of survival and safety, but ways of surviving and providing safety is not the same as it was fifty years ago. Many people keep these traditions as a way of keeping their cultures unique, but some traditions must be adapted to new contexts of life. The movie “The Fiddler on the Roof” by Norman Jewison demonstrates the difficulty of a father trying to hold onto his values, beliefs, and traditions as he advance in the world. As much as he strive to keep his traditions, he must allow them to change to meet his daughter’s wishes. In the following excerpt from Tevye’s Rebuttal from Act II (Jewison 1971), a tradition is broken when Perchik denounces his marriage to Tevye’s daughter without his