Prompt: task: It becomes more popular to find out the history of your family, what are the reasons and do you think it's a positive or negative development?

Seeking the root of one's family has been gaining increasing popularity among city dewellers in recent years. This phenomenon, in my opinion, is a result of the alienation between people in cities, but can in effect help keep valuable culture of the country in this age of globalisation. Ċ Psychologically, a sense of belonging is essential for an individual to feel safe. The urban lifestyle, however, is not likely to afford people this. This is not only because of the fierce competition and poor labour relation in the workplace -- which can hardly make workers feel belonging to a team or the company, but also because the isolated neighbours in the living places rarely make the community a warm home. Accordingly, family becomes the only place where one can find this sense of belonging. They can be proud of a family member in their family tree when they learn a success story about him or her. And a closer connection may be established with a normal colleague or neighbour if a common early ancestor is identified between them. Ċ The process of discovering family history is also the process of learning stories about traditional values and culture. This gives the positive part of these traditions, which have been largely ignored by modern people, a chance to regain their role in the society. In fact, many young children in this country have started to realise the importance of and to show more respect to their elderly relatives and neighbours as a result of this process with their parents. Ċ As can be seen from the above, although the popularity of root-seeking stems from the unsatisfactory reality in today's world, its effect is in fact surprisingly desirable. Thefore, while the problems with cities need to be addressed for sure, this trend of recovering traditions should rather be encouraged.