What does it mean to be an adult? Adulthood in the United States of America is legally is attained when an adolescent reaches the age of majority. In most of the states, that age is defined as eighteen years old. Upon reaching this age in the United States, young adults are allowed to vote, marry, consent to sexual activities with other people of age, buy lottery tickets, and attain many other societal, familial and legal responsibilities. They are no longer seen as children who cannot handle the perils of the grown up world, and although coming of age can seem straightforward, it is a highly complex matter that is handled in various ways throughout the entire world. This is a concept that I, myself, have grappled with the entire semester, …show more content…
This is not necessarily a coming of age ceremony; however, in most Buddhist cultures, a boy must become a monk before he can be recognized as a man. The actual Shinbyu ceremony is generally a very large and elaborate community celebration, where the boys going through their initiation are “dressed in prince-style costumes and placed on a horse being sheltered with golden umbrellas by an attendant. All friends and relatives join to form a procession which is led by a man carrying a special robe on his head, to be offered to the Buddha… The procession travels through the whole village” (Lwin), until they arrive at the monastery where the boys will become novice monks. After these celebrations, the boys are presented to the monks to have their heads shaven to renounce vanity and to ask for permission “to enter amidst the Congregation of the Chapter of Monks” (Lwin). The boys then change into monastic robes and pledge to observe the Ten Precepts. Once the performance of all the initiative procedures concludes, the most senior monk in the monastery delivers a sermon related to the Shinbyu ceremony; after which, “the monks leave the main assembly to their living quarters, followed by the newly initiated novices” (Lwin). The boys then live an orthodox Buddhist monastic lifestyle for at least one week; they can choose to stay longer, return to the life of a …show more content…
During the month of February, the boys underwent Guan-Li, a capping ceremony, in an ancestral temple. “In the presence of family and guests, the young man was granted his inner cap, then a cap and finally a scarf. After this, the man's hair was combed into a bun, which meant that he had reached masculinity and, from then on, must behave as an adult, not like a child” (Rasi). A similar ceremony, called Ji-Li, or hair-pinning ceremony, was held for girls to signify her entrance into womanhood and her readiness to be married. “During the hair-pinning ceremony, [the girl’s] hair was washed, combed into a knot and kept together with a hair pin” (Shizuka). At the end of both of these Confucian coming of age ceremonies, the newly recognized men and women receive take on a new style name, which is “associated with respect… adulthood and takes the place of [their] given name”