Monday, November 19, 2007

Similarities Between Ibo and Me

It is very surprising to find similarities between the Ibo culture and the Vietnamese cullture. The most striking common custom is the marriage ceremony. Wedding in the Vietnamese culture is a chance to gather family and friends together. Everyone, including family, friends, and neighbors, comes to the bride house to make preparation. The men and boys are responsible to clean and decorate the exterior of the house. The men also kill pigs and chicken to use for dishes. Younger boys help spliting woods for fire. Women and girls prepare the ceremonial food for all the guests. They cook special dishes, prepare fruits and vegetables, and decorate the house with flowers. After all is done, the groom’s family arrives. Leading the way is the groom, the matchmaker, and his parents. Immediately behind them are ten close male friends and relatives of his carrying trays of gifts for the bride’s family. One of these trays include bottles of wine. Other trays hold fruits, candy and snacks, cakes, tea, the bride’s dress, jewelries for the bride, and many more. The bride’s family receives the gifts by sending out their female friends and relatives.
The Ibo culture share very similar traditions. Almost all the women from the village come to Obierika’s compounds on the day of the wedding. They help the bride’s family make preparation. They cook yams, cassava, and make vegetabl soup. The men duty’s is to help pound foo-foo and split woods. When their shares of work are done, they welcome the guests. The groom’s family is welcomed by the important females of the bride’s side. The groom leads the way. He is followed with his male relatives carrying pots of wine. When everyone is in the compound, both family exchange words. It is obvious as to how similarities these two culture have when is comes to marriage. The procedure from preparing foods to greeting the guests are almost identical. It is fascinating to find two countries, which lies thousands of mile apart, can have such tradition in common.
There is one belief which the Vietnamese culture does not agree with the Ibo culture. The killing of children is seen is murder. It is immoral to take the life of any person. Everyone born has the right to live under any circumstances. No one has the power to decide whether the person deserves to live or not. In fact, having twins is rare in the Vietnamese. The mother should actually be happy if she have twins. The Ibo believe twins are evil; therefore, they should be killed. It is unfortunate to have this belief. In Things Fall Apart newborn twins are left in the forest to die. This practice is cruel and dehumanized in the eyese of the Vietnamese. I believe the approach of the Vietnamese on this issue is universalized. Whether is it an American, Canadian,, European, Chinese, Japanese, or Austrailian, they would all agree that putting a person’s life in danger is unhumane and no one should have such authority to do so.
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1 comment:

LCC said...

Fate--I love the comparison between the wedding traditions of the Ibo and the Vietnamese. Thanks for sharing with me a little of your own cultural knowledge. If you want, you could use that comparison as the basis for your essay next week. I'd be glad to talk with you a little about how you might approach it.