Believe me, I never wanted to be an anti-traditionist. On the contrary, I was always considered quite conservative by my friends during school days. As a lawyer, working experience only lead me to become more prudent rather than progressive. However, I must say that I am already lost in so-called "tradition".

My very first question is: what is tradition? My dad, the person who probably cares for me most on the earth, thinks that tradition consists of those practices that have been and will be followed by the majority of society. For example, in his opinion, women must get married before they are 30 years old because that is a Chinese tradition. If you don't follow this tradition (or pattern), you are a failure and your life is a tragedy.

My dad is not alone. During the Spring Festival, I returned to my hometown. It was a great pleasure to meet relatives in this family reunion season. However, when they heard that I was still single, they embraced me with a flood of sympathy and nagging. How could a woman over 25 still remain single? It is absolutely against tradition!

Interestingly, just before the Spring Festival, a friend from New Zealand told me that one of his children had children without getting married for quite a few years. Regardless of aging, many people tend to keep single in his country. In this sense, it is probably against tradition to get married very early in New Zealand.

Then, what is tradition? According to Longman's dictionary, it has three meanings. The first is that it is a passing down of beliefs, practices and customs from past to the present. The second is a customary way of thinking or behaving that has been passed down in this way and continuously. The third is the body of the said beliefs, practices, experience, etc.

In this sense, my dad and relatives do have a very good understanding of tradition. More importantly, they are sincere followers of traditions. But is it right to follow all traditions?

Following Chinese traditional thinking, we should love our country. Yes, in every country, people are taught to do so. But our tradition also tells us that our individual interests should always give way to the interests of the State. To put it more accurately, the interests of collectives are always supposed to be higher than the interests of individuals. The problem is that the interests of collectives become empty when the interests of individuals cannot be ensured.

Following our traditional thinking, we should love and respect our parents. There is nothing wrong with that. But tradition also teaches us to be obedient to our parents without any conditions. This means that you have to do everything according to your parents' demand. If they ask you to get married, you must get married, whether you feel like it or not. But it also produces a lot of unhappy marriages.

Following our tradition, you'd better worship Buddha and burn incense in the temple for good luck. The sad thing is that this can never bring true joy and peace to us. It can only lead us to become superstitious.

I am not saying that traditions should not have any place in our lives. But I believe that traditions are products of people's needs. They should bring us happiness and harmony rather than bondage. We love our country because it is our motherland rather than because it is a tradition. By the same token, we love our parents because they brought us up not because it is a tradition. Similarly, we get married because of love rather than tradition.

It is true that we human beings, like sheep, always love following the crowd because it gives us a sense of security. Nevertheless, don't forget that human beings came before traditions. By no means should we live for traditions. Instead, traditions are for people.