Sunday, July 16, 2006

Tradition is also technology

Every day, tourists visit famous spots from The KL Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur to the Hoover Dam in Las Vegas, snapping photographs to be part of human progess in technology. But do you know that about 1000 years ago, tourists then also visited hot sites like Great Wall of China and The Aztec City because of its technology? Wait a minute, I thought we are talking about technology and if yes, how come we have lsot cities and great walls? Aren't those historical sites?

Well, this is the point I want to make. History and technology are actually the same thing but only different from the time dimension. The National Science Center is the sequel of the Museum and the Museum is the prequel of National Science Center. Again, the difference is only time.

In another 1000 years to come, The KL Twin Towers will be viewed as another historial site like the Great Wall of China. Now, if you could still live by then, would you call that technology or history? Well, both are right.

If you agree to the above, then we should have the same mindset for tradition and the traditional ways of doing things. People tend to take tradition as a way of the past. And worse than that, there are traditionists who go all out to preserve the tradition. But tradition, just like history, is alive and it keeps changing. On the health part, a lot of traditionists believe that the best way for living has been discovered thousand of years ago and hence modernizing any part of it is viewed as 'adulterating' the ancient art. To many Chinese, the tea drinking is a tradition where special earth pots are used and the way tea is brewed strictly follows a set of steps. We may be proud of this tradition but again, don't forget that the tea pot and the way of brewing tea were actually TECHNOLOGY that the Chinese were proud of 1000 years ago!

So, put it simply, tradition is merely a 'state of technology'. It is evolving and plays different roles in different eras of time. In the next 100 years, blog could be the traditional way of communicating as by then, nobody writes anymore...it's all about talking or talknology!!

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