"Ah, But Madame, Our Water is Very Fresh!"

That was the response I got in Italy three years ago, when I asked for ice in my water. By this time, I had been through this a number of times, and learned you had to beg for ice. Even after begging, you were lucky to get one ice cube. They always looked at me with great surprise and even alarm when I asked, but this was the first time the waiter had argued with me. (Fresh means cold.) I assured him that I did want ice, and a lot of it please. I could tell it caused no small stir as soon the bartender with a couple of other employee onlookers came to gawk at this weird American and to deliver the ice. It was a fabulous night- I got four cubes! Who knew that was a cultural difference? A tradition, if you will. It caused me to think about our cultural differences. What seems so normal to us may seem very strange or even wrong to others. Most of our differences, like whether or not we take ice in our drink, have no significant consequences, but there are traditions we have that are worthy of review. I recently posted in the “Quotation of the Week” a quote that has caused me some great thought: “Just because we’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly stupid.” What are we doing, or more specifically, what am I doing that is incredibly stupid?

A year or so ago, I read a book called, “The Imperial Woman” about the last reigning empress of China by Pearl S. Buck. I learned so much about Chinese history, customs and traditions from this book. The theme of the book could be summed up in one word, “tradition.” This empress devoted literally everything in her life to preserving China’s culture and traditions. Throughout the ages, reigning emperors and empresses had written books – preserving their culture and traditions. She studied these books- spending hours a day reading, and then fiercely clung to the old ways as the world around her was changing. Some of these traditions were worth preserving, but others of their traditions were barbaric, cruel, or stupid at best: beheading for the slightest infractions, slicing, worship of the throne, unbelievable opulence for royalty, opium, banning of Christianity or even white -skinned people in China- to name a few. It made me think about our/my traditions. Are we clinging to traditions just for the sake of tradition? Are there traditions in our culture that are destroying us? We’ve all seen horrific examples of traditions and customs of primitive cultures that literally destroy the human body: everything from nose rings to neck rings that elongate the neck to . . . much, much worse. What traditions are we clinging to that are destroying us? Here’s some I’ve thought of: Tanning skin, gossip, prejudices, women wearing high heels (who thought of this- could this possibly be a throw-back from China and feet binding?), and love of stuff. Whether we drink ice or non-ice water probably doesn’t matter much, but there are traditions we cling to that maybe are worth some analysis! Cheers!