Culture: A Bridge to Connect Relationships

Relationship is an essential element in the lives of individual, society, and the country. It should be like blood circulating in our bodies via veins. A good relationship demands heart, not mind, and seeks humanity, not profit and loss. It will be ready to sacrifice for the betterment of others but won’t escape. So, the various dimensions can be pillars for forming relationships, but all the factors couldn’t be equally viable and reliable for maintaining harmonious relationships. Among them, culture is one of the invaluable mediators for sustaining pure, well, healthy, and friendly relationships. A country that is impossible to reach by geography can be accessible through culture. A country that is far away can become closer through culture. Therefore, culture is a pure thread for making, preserving, and keeping congruent relationships.

Culture is an indispensable part of every community or nation. It is a part of civilization. Culture ties people into beliefs and systems. It teaches about manner, rites, rituals, and customs and so on. It creates we-feeling and develops the habits of sharing and caring in the mood of happiness and sadness. Culture is the medium of recreation from where people get joy and pleasure by observing dance, music, songs and celebrations. It unites the people into a single thread. It is also taken as a source of identity and pride. According to Confucius’s notion, “Harmony without sameness” makes clear that a country having diverse culture can have strong unity and harmony. Therefore it is important to promote and celebrate cultural diversity rather than limiting it, and to work towards increasing understanding and appreciation of different cultures. When a culture crosses borders, it has the opportunity to flourish and thrive as people become more familiar with its history, norms, values, and principles that guide both individuals and society.

Culture is a bridge. As like, a bridge connects two different places or one to another, it doesn’t mean the value and identity of those places will vanish or decay, it means the lives of the people will be more comprehensive, easier, and comfortable. According to Zhengyu of Guoyu, “The harmonious relationship between things is helpful to produce new things, while sameness can’t. To add one with another is called harmony, so it can create something new. While if the same thing is put together, all will lose their vital force.” Through the exchange of culture, people could get abundant information and knowledge associated with others language, norms, values, customs, history, meanings, festivals, rites and rituals as well existing systems and methods. Furthermore, Cultural diversity can be compared to a garden, where different varieties of flowers bloom together in one place, capturing the hearts and minds of the people. It can be the source of exploration, innovation, attraction, observation and entertainment. People can get an opportunity to learn new things and ideas which supports generating new thoughts and concepts.

Culture can be explained through the principle of TIDE. Where T means Tie, I means Innovative, D means Discipline and E means Enthusiast. Culture conjoins the people. It makes people curious for discovering new ideas in a disciplined manner. If it doesn’t implement according to this principle, it may turn into the tide of sea and no one can imagine the consequences of destruction after happening it. So, it is the medium of peaceful co-existence, support and mutual understanding. A country can gain prosperity not only through the development of technology and well- infrastructure but also through the conservation, reformation and promotion of the culture across the country. According to well-known American philosophers Hall and Ames, “What we need to do is not only study Chinese tradition but also use them as a cultural resource to enrich and restructure our own.” The Chinese culture has tremendous possibilities for reviving humanity and creating a harmonious world as well as maintaining peace and mutual understanding. Culture enhances to fulfill the overall aspects of human life. Therefore, sharing culture increases the value of caring. Cultural exchange can make the mind of people wide and broad. Uniformity from cultural diversity fosters the feeling of reverence, brotherhood and cooperation. It can be the facilitator as well as root for managing relationships evergreen and forever.

“If we reform and transform the culture

There can survive the history

Though something outdated may disappear

But everything can’t be mystery.”

Dhakal is a research fellow at Institute of Hermeneutics of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China.