PROCESS ESSAY:

        Gia Lai is a remote province in Highland. There are many ethnic minorities so that there are also many customs as well as culture. In Gia Lai, Bana is the most popular ethnic minorities. They live mainly by cultivating rice. Every year, they transplant rice seedling in April and harvest in October of lunar that year. When rice in field begins to ripen, they celebrate the new rice festival. People can understand this festival by the way “New rice” means rice in the beginning of crop. It is a traditional festival of Bana ethnic minority to be glad for the crop this year and pray bumper crop next year.

   Before the main celebration, each family in the village will prepare to worship in their house. First, the woman in this house will prepare a chicken, a tray of roasted rice and a jar of wine. All of these things are put on the big table in the centre of house. Then, the oldest man in family start to pray for healthy children, happy family and he also invites soul of ancestor to join together with everyone in family. After that, everyone will eat. According to traditional custom, to show the respect and grateful for the elder people, the older people eat and drink first. Then, each member in family enjoys the taste of new grain and drink wine together. The sound of laugh and voice of everyone in house make family cosy and happy.

  The next day, the women in the village will harvest rice and prepare for the main celebration. They get up early and carry dosser (a kind of basket which has 2 handles for people to wear on back) to go to the field for threshing rice. In the afternoon, the women come back village with baskets are full of ripen rice and happiness in each face. After that, all people in village gather in Communal House (a kind of house of Bana people, used for big event in this village) to common worship. The children wear new clothes and play outside Communal House when adult prepare for celebration. Each family in the village will contribute a chicken, a tray of roasted cereal and a jar of wine like when worshiping at their house and all of these things are presented along two row of the Communal House. The preparing is quickly completed to begin the celebration in the evening.

   The process of the main celebration is nearly the same as celebration in each house before. First, the village patriarch prays for peace, prosperity for people in village. He represents for village to gives thanks to Gods such as God of fire, God of water, God of tree, ect because of their help for villager to have a bumper crop. Each family also has its own wishes. After praying, people begin to eat and the village patriarch was allowed to eat as well as drink first. Besides similarities, there are some differences between main celebration in Communal House and celebration in each family. The first difference is pile of fire. Before the beginning of celebration, young boys burn a big pile of fire in the empty yard that is in front of Communal House. Bana people think fire is symbol of cosy, so pile of fire is indispensible in any celebration of them. In addition, after eating and drinking, people stand around pile of fire. Boys are striking gong and chink (kinds of instrument made of bronze of Bana people) while girls are singing and dancing. The fun last all night, even to the morning next day.

      Although nowadays, Bana people have no longer one crop per year like before, they still maintain “new rice festival” as a special feature in their customs. It is not only a good way to protect culture of Bana ethnic minority but also occasion for all villagers gather for exchanging relation.

THE QUALITIES OF GLOBAL CITIZEN

  “Do you think that our world, where we are living is really a good place?”Nowadays, the society is developing faster and faster. Its purpose is to build a better life for everyone. However, are you sure that all of people in the world have a good life. This world is very large and there are many people, but not all of them have adequate life. Somewhere in our global, many people have to face with poor, war, disease, ect. Luckily, in these places, there are also many people trying to make the world become better and better. They are global citizens. Becoming global citizens require a lot of qualities, however, base on the attitude toward themselves as well as others, there are three necessary qualities: empathy, respect, responsibility.

   Empathy is the first quality of global citizens. Empathic people are who can put themselves in the shoes of other people and observe problem not only from their sight but also other’s. In addition, they know how to put their point of view away and try to understand how other people are feeling. It’s like only when living in misery, people know how hard the poor life‘s are; only when losing a member in family, people know how do children in the war places feeling when they lose both father and mother. At that time, people will see the similarity between two soul, two feeling and thinking. It become easier for people to understand, share and help the others because being global citizens, people work to help the fortuneless. Thinking about others, helping with enthusiasm that begins from heart is manifestation of empathy-an important quality of global citizen.

  Respect is the second necessary quality of global citizens. What is respect? It is the way people accept differences between them and others. Each people, each country has own culture, customs, character, ect. This difference makes special for this person or country. Some time, unluckily, the difference is disease, poor, and misery. However no one wants to be like that and they are still worth to be respect. Imagine that you are working as a global citizen to help children who are victim of AIDS. There are many people who don’t want to contact with them due to scaring. Nevertheless you are willing to take care of the children, play with them and teach them because you know the difference between you and these children. You talk with them, listen to them and even learn from them. That’s respect. Respect becomes more and more important in special working condition of global citizens. They help many people in many countries with many differences in culture, religion, language, ect. Respect makes people understand, enclose and share each other. For instant, many people coming from many countries work together in a group. The conflict in culture is inevitable if each person in this group isn’t respect and don’t understand each other. That’s why respect becomes important with global citizens.

  The third quality but it is also indispensable for global citizens are responsibility. Responsible person is who aware what they are doing, how useful it is. They are willing to be to blame for their decision as well as what they did. Responsible people first must have responsibility with themselves. It is background to respond to others. Because of recognizing what they have done not only affect them but also others, they are more responsible. The effect of work depends on responsibility a lot because being a global citizen, people don’t work individually but in a big organization with many people. It requires each person must have good sense of responsibility to do common work. For example, when work for helping people in a dangerous area such as war area. Responsible global citizens don’t care how hard this work is or what risk they can get but try to complete their mission. This is sense of responsibility of global citizens.

  To become a global citizen isn’t hard for people who are empathic, respectful and responsible. You are the young and you have enough these qualities. Let’s use them as a meaning tool to bring happiness to everyone in our world and you will see that life becomes more beautiful when you live for others.