What Tradition Looks Like If It's Not Called Tradition

For the last number of years I have been thinking of how to best articulate this idea that we are always doing tradition even if we call it other things. That when we go out to dinner we are doing tradition, or otherwise culture. I have often been heard saying, if you are hungry you eat, you don't bloody make a booking hours, or even days in advance to go out. That can't be from hunger. That is something else, usually called going out to dinner or lunch or whatever. But it's real name is making or doing tradition or culture. The tradition of eating when you may not be hungry and drinking wine when you are not thirsty and actually think the stuff taste horrible, that's what it is.

Perhaps in Hong Kong you do, you go down to play in the park because you have to go out and down to the ground level to run around. But not in South Africa. Here you have god-given space, plenty of it. You don't go to the park or drive or fly to the beach with your children because a park close to the beach is great for children. Children can play anywhere, even a gabbage dump or prison cell. You go to the beach or park to give them variety, an experience, a day or week out, because child-rearing experts say that is good for children. Or you yourself need to go out of the house, go on holiday for variety, have a day out, do something different. Whatever you call, it is more than just letting the children or yourself play . Another name for it is culture of child-rearing. And after a while it becomes tradition.
 
Because pictures sometimes are more efficient in saying things, I was looking for an image that would best represent this. Or rather, I am always looking for pictures to represent this idea. On Friday 1 June, driving along Beach Road in Sea Point, Cape Town, I chanced upon it. I made this picture. It will be no.1 in the series of What Tradition Looks Like If Its Not Called By That Name.

What Tradition Looks Like If Its Not Called By That Name, no. 1