Essay - Cultural Elements Transferred to me from my Parents and GrandParents

Cultural Elements Transferred to me from my Parents and GrandParents

Culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.
Being an inborn Nepali I am strongly influenced by Nepalese culture and have inherited Nepalese rituals and customs from my ancestors.
Three of such cultural elements can be listed as follows:

The first and for most thing that I was thought is deep faith in God and Hinduism. I learned our style of making daily prayer to God, performing several rituals for worshiping him. In the same context I have adopted many Festivals and the ways of celebrating them from my ancestors. We celebrate several festivals, lasting from one day to several days.Among which Dashain is the longest and the most important festival of all. Generally Dashain falls in late September to mid October, right after the end of the mansoon season in Nepal. It is "a day of Victory over Demons". During this festival Lord Durga is worshiped for ten countinuous days and on the tenth day with is also known as the day of Tika, the elders in family put a red coloured powder (Tika) to the foreheads of the younger and give them their blessings. These festivals not only strengthen our faith in god but also reflect our strong family relationships, our love for youngers and respect for the elders.
The second thing that was passed onto me from the earlier generation is my eating habit. Typical hilli staple foods consist of Dal-Bhat (lentil soup and cooked rice) with Tarkari, that is, vegetable curries. This is consumed twice daily, generally in the morning, and shortly after the sunset. Between these main meals, during mid-day, snackslike chura/Baji (beaten rice) and tea are consumed. While eating with hands, lentil soup is poured over cooked rice, a little vegetable currie is added, and the chunk so prepared is consumed by right hand.

And the third cultural element that I was passed onto is my native language Nepali. Every child learns to speak the language of his native place. All of those sounds seemed to come from nature, creating feeling of harmony and peace. So I got the sound to express myself in my world which I was taught by my father and mother and other earlier generations. With the first word "Aama" (mother) I gradually learned many other words and the whole grammar of my language from my earlier generations. When I was wrong founding the correct word for my feeling there were my earlier generations providing me the correct solutions.


These Cultures transferred to me from my earlier generations was also the outcome of their earlier ones. And have been transferred from me to my children and grandchildren.