How much water do you put in an orange juice till it's no longer called one. Imagine taking an orange and squeeze all its juice to a glass or simply put it into a juicer and you managed to get a whole glass of 100% orange juice, now pour it to a bigger container and add 1 spoon of water, is it still an orange juice? it is. Get another spoonful of water and pour it in, you still have an orange juice. Now add twenty spoons of water to the container, it is still an orange juice but the taste gets thinner. Keep adding water and the taste of the juice keeps getting thinner, keep adding and you'll reach a state where you will call the juice in the container water. The same goes with tradition, as time passes by, tradition is constantly changing, experiencing changes little by little. The value of tradition is like the squeezed orange juice and Like the spoons of water, slowly these little changes will bland out this value of tradition.
Chinese funeral tradition for example, during the journey and process to interring the deceased, family members are required to wear black and white slippers, not putting any make up and accessories, wearing black or white clothes. The slippers is actually a spoon added, changed from the original tradition which is to wear grass made slippers. Why did this wearing grass slippers change? because grass slippers can no longer effectively protect our feet from the road condition in today's time compared to our ancestors'. I remember once in the funeral interring process back to my hometown, one of the family members wore sport shoes, when asked why he answered it's not comfortable to wear slippers and that traditions are made by human and is flexible to change. Of course it is changeable, but like the scoops of water, little by little these changes will diminish the flavor of the orange juice or here the value of the tradition. Originally the glass slipper is worn to express humbleness and mourn for the deceased and changed to black and white slippers for the same reason. Changes are inevitable, but the real time changes should be made is when it's really necessary like the grass slipper unable to protect well in current road thus changed to the black and white slippers with the same intention. Is slippers not adequate to protect current road condition? if not why are people still wearing slippers on daily basis.
Tradition, if will continuously experience change for this small reason, soon it will be like the orange juice, lost its flavor. The value and core message of the tradition will disappear, therefore the only time tradition should be modified is when the former is unable to cater real important needs like safety, availability, financial cost, etc instead of comfortability, convenience, laziness especially if for just a couple of hours like the slippers' case. If now from a slipper can be casually changed into sport shoes for the reason of 'more' comfortable, like come on it's just a few hours process, then one day will change to high heels and leather shoes for beauty purpose.
It's actually sad that some people are disregarding tradition, no longer valuing it when tradition is made by our ancestors, in which without them we would not exist now, to follow is our responsibility and to change is only when necessary. For me, there is a value in tradition, be it a message or a respect for our ancestors. Of course everybody can have their opinion on it, and cannot be forced, therefore I can only think about it and keep it to myself.
