Tradition

In Iraq, you don't know a man if you don't know his headband -- the seemingly ordinary rope, usually knit from wool, that is steeped in folklore. If the country is divided along religious lines, the agal is a reminder of the intangible tribalism that Iraqis share: a cultural thread present from Baghdad north to Mosul and south to Basra.

Every seven years since AD 301, priests from around the world have trekked to the ancient Cathedral of Etchmiadzin in Armenia to retrieve jarfuls of freshly brewed muron -- a sweet-scented holy oil stirred with what is said to be the tip of the lance driven through Jesus' side -- and carry them back to their respective dioceses.

His voice, throaty and full, is as known and intimate to this neighborhood as a mother hurrying her children home. It slices from the minaret, spreading over alleys, piercing the sounds of snapping sheets, whispering schoolgirls, scraping shovels and the bargaining pleas of the broom seller: "God is great. I testify there is no god but God. . . . Make haste toward prayers."

Giggles and whispers ripple like a breeze through the darkened auditorium. The curtain slides open, and the inevitable scolding voice cries out -- the babushka, self-appointed custodian of child rearing and decorum. "Quiet, now, people paid good money . . ." Gulliver's ship tumbles dizzily onstage, held on sticks, tossed on glistening waves of chiffon. Soon he's shipwrecked, a hulking figure taken prisoner by the tiny Lilliputians.

Iranians recited poetry, shared stories and ate fruits and nuts Saturday during all-night celebrations of the longest night of the year, a tradition going back thousands of years to when Zoroastrianism was the predominant religion of ancient Persia. For many Iranians, the celebration, known as Yalda, offers a link with ancient traditions as well as a chance to gather with family.

Gujarati parents of 25-year-old Brahman boy, NRI (nonresident Indian) living in the United States, working in management, seek suitable match with Brahman girl. Send photo and biodata. It wasn't how Dhaval Thaker, 27, expected to meet his wife. Born in India but raised in Artesia, Thaker assumed he would find his soul mate on his own. But two years ago, while Thaker was in India, his parents posted a matrimonial ad in a local newspaper.

By this afternoon, plumber Chad Pawlowski will be on his 48th hour of family tradition, having landed a choice Pasadena curb Saturday for three generations to camp out for the Rose Parade, then head to the Rose Bowl. The Pawlowski clan is not only watching the parade and volunteering to help bring it off, this year one of them, 16-year-old nephew Brian Anderson of Whittier, will be marching and playing trumpet \o7in\f7 the parade. "We're embedded in this parade," Pawlowski said.

Speros Mantas has long known that one day he too would dive for the cross. His uncle successfully dived in Long Beach 14 years ago and caught it. His brother caught it as well, four years ago in the chilly waters of Alamitos Bay. On Saturday, Mantas, 16, got his chance to leap into the same bay at Mother's Beach as part of an age-old Greek Orthodox ceremony marking Epiphany. Tradition calls for a high-ranking priest to toss a cross into the water to mark Christ's baptism.

THE fur is flying, not to mention the acupuncture needles, the firewort and the $15,000-a-pound bull gallstones. China's ancient healing arts, as integral to national identity as the Great Wall or steamed dumplings, have become embroiled in the country's struggle to balance tradition and modernity. A relatively obscure professor at a regional university kicked off the controversy in October with an online petition calling for traditional medicine to be stripped from the Chinese Constitution.

Her junior year in high school had just begun when Jasmine Bedell's telephone rang with the news she had been waiting for years to hear: A donor kidney had been located. The transplant ended five long years of dialysis treatments. It also ended her dream of attending her senior prom. After the operation, a draining regimen of medications to stop her body from rejecting the new organ forced Bedell to drop out of school.