Zing Zang Culture

ENVIRONMENT: We are ZingZangs and we live on a distant planet in the universe called Cramos. We have two moons and one sun. Our climate varies throughout our planet. We live on a planet that is covered in greenery. It rains often in order to nourish our planet and the plants that flourish on it. We have mountains covered in fields of grass and a volcano at the top of one of our mountains. When the volcano erupts petals burst from the top onto the surrounding ground. We have many trees, but they are not normal trees. Our trees have large stumps that have channels within them in order to reach the top. The top of the trees are shaped like mushroom tops, these type of trees cover more than half of our planet. We have a river that flows throughout the entire colony, which can be used for transportation, rituals, and useful resources.

CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE:
NORMS: One of our cultural norms is that our children are seen as equals to adults. Everyone over 12 months old gets submerged in a capsule where they then acquire all the essential knowledge to survive in our society. All children are expected to do their part in society once they have reached the age of 10. Our society is governed by the women of our planet. The men handle the harvesting of food while the women handle the government. Women are the head of the households in our culture. The men are not treated as less of our society, their job of harvesting our food is so important and time consuming that the women must control the other aspects of our culture in order for our society to flourish. In our culture the way we greet one another is to place a hand flat on the chest of the other person in order to connect with each other's souls. We say goodbye by touching backs to one another than going on our way.
VALUES: Some of our values consist of kindness, equality, charity, and preservation of all life forms. Since we value kindness, it is frowned upon in our society to show hate or violence toward anyone. We value group harmony, and openness to ideas. We cleanse ourselves of hatred and anger each day by bathing in the river that flows through our colony. We rely on everyone in our society to make it work, everyone is essential to our success. We must cooperate with each other in order to prosper and continue our way of life. Preservation of life is the most important value of our culture. We believe that every part of our planet is living and it is our job to continue its life just like our lives.
WORLDVIEW:  We see the world as our companion, we see it as a symbiotic relationship. We provide our planet with essential needs and it in return provides us with things essential to our survival. We perceive time in terms of moon cycles. When both of our moons are in the same phase, one day has elapsed. We take everything as it comes to us, we do not worry of the days to come, but rather focus on what is to be done on the current day. We don't know of any neighboring planets, as far as we know we are the only planet in our galaxy. We have knowledge of other galaxies and planets existing inside them, but we don't know anything of their culture or society.
SYMBOLS: We have an intertwined sun and moon mandala symbol that represents our belief in worshipping the moon and sun. This symbol is shown all over our society. We use this to show our sun and two moons that we appreciate them and their consistency in enabling us to provide for our people and our planet. The second symbol in our society is a blue string tied to an individual's finger to signify marriage and the unity of two souls. This string is tied to both parties in acknowledgement that they have committed to another being, and are to share their soul with that person. A circle with two hands clasping the other is a symbol for our government. This symbol represents the unity of our people in government, we all feed off one another. For our education system, the symbol is a light bulb. This correctly represents our education system, because with a "flip of a switch" all of the information essential to survival is input into the children's minds.
CLASSIFICATION OF REALITY: Our system for kinship is simple, all adults are your mother and father, every child or adolescent is your brother or sister. Your birth mother and father are called Shimi, while you address other adults as Shuma. Your blood siblings are called Kai, while other siblings are called Kari. Our agriculture is divided into various categories, such as products we can eat, use for clothing, healing, use for making materials, and many more. We categorize green in five different ways, there are greens of harvest, greens of planting, greens of wealth, greens of health, and greens of sickness. Each category of green is seen in a different way in order for our people to determine which it is. Flowers and plants are divided up into either plants/flowers that heal or that can be used as resources. Resources such as vines used for climbing and tying knots. Some plants can also be used to extract ink for writing purposes.

STRUCTURE: In our culture, our religion consists of worshiping the sun and moons. We believe that the sun and moon have supernatural powers, and can destroy our planet if we do not show our appreciation. The sun and moons provide us with light, warmth, nutrients to our plants, and a view outside of our everyday life. By worshiping and believing in the moons and sun being higher powers, it gives reason as to why things happen. Marriage in our culture is for an intimate connection of two souls, it is not used for stability purposes. In our culture, marriage is the union of two beings as one. Our people marry to feel the connection of touching someone's inner self and being completely connected to that person. During a marriage ceremony, the two beings have a blue string tied around both of their hands to signify their two souls becoming one. Each marriage ceremony is performed when the two moons are at their highest peak. The ceremonies are performed outside next to the river that flows through the city. The Government of our culture is just in place to make sure harvesting and education of children goes smoothly. Everyone works together towards one goal, success of our society. We do not have many meticulous laws stating one someone can and cannot do. Our government is used as a guide if needed, everyone is united as one. Our education system is a simple one, after a year of living every child is placed inside a capsule where they are given all the essential knowledge to survive and prosper. This type of education reduces the amount of time our kids need to spend in school or learning ways to survive. We automatically give them everything they need to know. This way of educating our people allows for everyone to have equal amounts of knowledge, no matter what family you come from, you receive the same amount of education as everyone else in our culture. There are no class distinctions in our society, we all have the same amount of power in our culture. The only distinctions made are that men do the harvesting of our goods, while women participate in the government and formal aspects of our culture. Our planet consists of two million people. Our culture and planet is small but we use every aspect of it to our benefit. In our culture childhood is short lived, after the age of 10, children must begin doing their part in our society. At this age they are have the same amount of knowledge as any adult, thus being treated equal to adults. Once the children hit puberty, they may begin searching for a partner. It is not essential for everyone to find a partner and to marry, if one chooses to be without a partner there are no consequences. As people reach old age and come near to death, the entire society gets together to celebrate the person's life. Once someone has died, they are cremated and put into the fertilizer where a tree will soon grow. This is to put yourself back into nature once your physical life has ended.
CULTURAL EMPHASIS: In our society, we have an emphasis on the harvest of plants and food, as well as shades and meanings of green. We have many words referring to plants or flowers, as well as the seeds we plant and harvest. We use specific terms for our blood parents and siblings, compared to the rest of the community that we still consider our parents and siblings. In addition to the nature emphasis and kinship differences, we also focus on our two moons and our sun. We use different terms for each phase the moon goes through. It helps us keep track of our days and time.