Dialogue

A. Do you think we should maintain our traditions or make way for changes?

B. In the country's like Japan, people have done both, though it is usually older people who pass on the traditions. The young are often embarrassed by them. This is a shame.

A.Why do you say that?

B.Let me explain. Take a traditional Japanese song, for example. Perhaps children are taught to sing this song by their gradmother when they are five years old. Well,when they reach the age of fifteen, they reject the songs of their childhood. Instead, they are into pop or rock songs which will be forgotten within weeks.

A. But,that is quite natural. Teenagers have always had an appetite for fast food.

B.It would be OK if they recognised the quality of the songs that their grandmother had taught them and went on to sing them to their own grandchildren.

A. Why should not they? After all, these songs have ben handed down for generations. If they are any good, then surely they will survive.

B. I am not sure about that.

A. Why not?

B. Because traditions are not under attack from mass production and mass marketing.

A. What do you mean?

B. Music today is owned by large multinational recording companies, many of which are based in the USA.