Hello everyone!
Welcome back! This will be my last post for this blog as we reach the end of the semester. It has been a great journey these past 10 weeks and I have learnt a lot about this topic and myself along the way. To all my readers, I hope you all have learned a thing or two from my posts as well.
In my first few posts, I explored how traditional festivals celebrated by the Chinese were promoting unsustainable consumption patterns. Of course, this nature of festivals is not just limited to those from China, but to most festivals of a whole as they seem to promote overconsumption. Afterwards, I blogged about how traditions have fuelled the demand for some unsustainable practices, such as jade mining and incense burning. Through these posts, I was able to explore how these old traditions still play an essential role in our world today and shape our practices and decisions. As such, I hope that my blog has shown you all that the influence of traditions on our environment and sustainability should not be easily overlooked.
I would like to take this chance to thank all my friends and peers who have helped me along this blogging journey, be it through participating in my surveys and polls, leaving me wonderful comments that have helped to promote deeper discussions about the issues or simply reading my posts and supporting me along the way.
As the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens. Although this is the end of my blogging journey, for now, I am sure there will be more of such opportunities for self-discovery and learning in the near future.
Signing out,
Jun Yu
Wow, Jun Yu,
Your writing is amazing:) I would like to say that your posts have been very insightful since I too come from a Chinese background and my family follows many cultural traditions. Though I am a little late to the game, I would like to ask if you think traditional practices and beliefs will still hold the same amount of cultural value and importance if changed to be more sustainable?
– Chloe Y
Hi Chloe!
Thanks for reading my posts and I’m glad that you found them insightful. I do believe that trade-offs between following traditions and being sustainable can be made, without eroding away too much of the cultural significance that these traditions possess. For example, Yee Qi commented on one of my earlier posts on how red packets for Chinese New Year were being replaced with ‘e-ang baos’ instead. However, as mentioned in this article, such trade-offs may not be acceptable to everyone due to differing values, as some may feel that traditions should be strictly adhered to, with such alternatives being unacceptable. Of course, making these trade-offs will be a good start in making our celebrations and customs more sustainable, but I am also wondering if such actions are enough to mitigate the environmental issues or if stronger action needs to be taken, where traditions are rejected outright instead. I’m guessing this will depend on the severity of the impacts that arise from the tradition in question, and how effective the tradeoffs are in striking a balance between preserving our cultures and preserving our environment.
-Jun Yu
Hi Jun Yu,
I agree with Chloe that your blog showcases good writing and thinking and I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you for doing a great job with this assignment. Please don’t stop blogging. Something else I might also suggest to you is exploring this topic further, perhaps as a UROPES. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything about how celebrations could be made more sustainable and whether the public would be receptive of that.
jc