In many countries, traditional dress and costumes are considered effective ways of maintaining links with the past. How effective can traditional costumes be in this sense?

What other ways exist to help citizens connect with a country’s past?

It is believed that wearing traditional costumes enables young generations in many countries to preserve traditional culture and evoke the remembrance of their ethnic’s ancient times. My essay would agree that traditional costumes bring some benefits to conserving connections with our past but they are by no means the most important.

Admittedly, historic dress and traditional costumes is one of the most instrumental ways to remind people of both the origin of cultural traditions and the glorious time in the past. To cite an example, ao dai, the traditional costume of Vietnamese people, was designed in Nguyen Dynasty and have been handed down to this period, gone into Vietnam’s history, literature, culture and became the Vietnamese’s pride. Furthermore, traditional costumes have become an effective way to transmit social memes as well as ancient values to modern culture. It is apparent that many scholars have studied traditional costumes to profoundly understand the culture and the daily life of ancient people.

However, beside traditional costumes, it seems that there are other ways to maintain traditional values and to hand them down to the next generations. To begin with, many countries have a rich heritage of legends and folklore about the birth and development of their nation, some of which are mythological and some being grounded in truth. These stories are a cultural inheritance which embodies important symbols and concepts far more effectively than dress. Plus, most governments have enacted effective policies and programs to conserve historical sights or cultural values in forms of art and music. For instance, in Vietnam, governments have carefully preserved ancient capital Hue and recognised shanties and dirges as national intangible relics. 

Overall, in a modern and globalised world, conserving traditional costumes plays a key role in helping to memorize people’s origin, maintain national tradition values and pass them on to future generations. Nevertheless I believe, the forms of story, art and music would appear to be the driving forces to help people connect with their past.