Dear Richard,
When festival comes, there are various traditions that people follow. Tradition is good for bringing us together for a spirit. However, following tradition without thinking about the meaning of it could be unwise. Here is an interesting experiment done on monkeys.
Three monkeys were put into a cage. A bunch of bananas was hung at the ceiling of the cage. Near the bananas, there was a sprinkler. Whenever a monkey came near the bananas, the sprinkler would fire off a strong water jet, not only to scare the monkey away but also make the whole cage wet. As a result, other monkeys in the cage would also get wet. Days after days, no monkey dared to go near the bananas.
A month later, one of the monkeys was get replaced by a new monkey. The new monkey, of course, didn't know about the sprinkler. When he tried to get a banana to eat, the other two monkeys didn't want to get wet. They stopped him immediately, pushed him to the corner and gave him a big lesson. Because of the other monkeys' strange behaviour, he dared not go near the bananas again.
Similarly every month, a monkey in the cage got replaced. After three months, all the three original monkeys were not in the cage and the sprinkler was also removed. However, monkeys still dared not to go near the bananas. It became a tradition in the cage.
With love, Dad