Issue_8_GRE_Writing

Author: Howard Gu
Issue 8 : Governments must ensure that their major cities receive the financial support they need in order to thrive, because it is primarily in cities that a nation's cultural traditions are preserved and generated.

It is no doubt that ensuring major cities receive enough financial support is government's important responsibility, but I cannot accept the author's reason that a nation's major cultural traditions are preserved and generated in cites. Actually, as far as I am concerned, not only cities but countries preserved and generated cultural traditions. Today's major cities even do not necessarily have the relationship with cultural traditions which are generated from the original time of a nation. As to the preservation of conventional culture, both cities and country have the duty that none could shirk, but country would encounter more difficulties.

Cultural traditions is a long time deposition from a nation's very beginning time to present; today's big cities may indeed contribute to present culture formation but not definitely play a important role in conventional culture generation. Many examples could illustrate it, and one of them is Hong Kong. Obviously, today's Hong Kong is one of the biggest and modern cities, and as a major Asian financial center it receives enough financial support to thrive. Before 1840s, however, Hong Kong was just a small village at seaside. Chinese culture almost originate from almost 2000 years ago, such cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, which only have less than 200 years of city history, could be considered that they play a great role in the Chinese culture generation. Moreover, some places much remarkably contributed to culture formation in Chinese history, such as Xian Yang (capital of dynasty Ch’in) and Yuanmou, are just small counties today. Therefore, the status that a place is whether a city or country cannot be considered as a prominent factor in weighing the contribution it made in cultural traditions.

As to the preservation of conventional culture, both city and country have their responsibilities; after comparison, however, I suppose that government should provide countries with more financial aids. Firstly, big cites commonly have better economic situation and cultural education compared with country. They could more easily afford the expense in conventional cultural preservation; adding more traditional culture curriculum also is not a hard thing as to an already much developed education system. In countries, especially some out-of-the-way countries in China, situation is totally different. The material condition in these countries in much bad, and lots of family even cannot afford the expense of children's primary education. As we know, education is the significant and indispensable link in the continuance of cultural traditions; in other words, absence of education almost means that culture might perish. Accordingly, government should do their best to reconnect the link and increase the financial aids to these countries. In China, moreover, the number of people in country takes almost 80 percent of all population, and they undoubtedly would greatly influence the situation of cultural tradition preservations, which makes the government aids to rural areas more meaningful.

In sum, in order to preserve the cultural convention, government should pay more attention to country and provider them with more financial support. The origination of cultural tradition is almost not related to the present status of a place, whether cite or country. When it comes to the preservation of cultural convention, however, country even plays a more important role. Without clear and adequate acknowledgement of it, our descendant might not acquire today’s cultural traditions any more.