Lesson 29: Unit 57 DIFFERENT CULTURES

Lesson 29: Unit 57 DIFFERENT CULTURES

David: Today we look at different cultures.

Kevin: And what happens when people move from one country to another.

Natalie: And we meet this woman. Joan Tull, who lives in England, but will soon be moving to another country. You’d move to another country, haven’t you Kevin?

Kevin: That’s right. I came to Britain a year ago a lot of things are different here. British food is different, but I’m used to it now and here in Britain they drive on the left. I’m getting used to that, but the weather the sun doesn’t shine much in Britain. I still can’t get used to the weather.

I’m used to it now.

I’m getting used to driving.

I can’t get used to that.

THE TWO MOLES

Mole 1: Winter’s coming.

Mole 2: Yes.

Mole 1: It’ll be cold.

Mole 2: I know. I hate being cold. I’ll never get used to winter.

Mole 1: I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we go to Australia?

Mole 2: Australia? Where’s Australia?

Mole 1: Down there!

Mole 2: How far is it?

Mole 1: It’s not far. Come on!

Mole 2: Ok.

Mole 1: Just think. This time tomorrow, we’ll be sitting in the sun, we’ll be lying on the beach, we’ll be… Australia!

Mole 2: Already? It’s still cold. And the sun isn’t shining.

Mole 1: Yes. Australia’s just like home.

This time tomorrow, we’ll be sitting…

This time tomorrow, we will be sitting…

Natalie: What will you be doing this time tomorrow?

1.    I’ll be at home watching television.

2.    I will hopefully be having lunch.

3.    At this time tomorrow, I will be sitting down in my office.

4.    I should be having a meeting with colleagues.

5.    I’ll be on a train to Leeds.

6.    I’ll be sleeping.

Natalie: And what will you be doing in ten years’ time?

1.    In ten years’ time I hope I’ll be living somewhere else in Europe.

2.    I will be working somewhere.

3.    In ten years’ time I may be thinking about retiring.

4.    Hopefully in ten years I will be picking up a couple of kids from kindergarten or something.

5.    I really don’t know what I’ll be doing in ten years’ time at all.

6.    If my plans go correctly I shall have retired from being a headmistress and I should be teaching my subject again to students who want to learn it.

Kevin: This time tomorrow I’ll be working here, but this time next year I’ll be back in the United States in California.

I’ll be living in California.

I’ll be driving on the right.

I’ll be eating American food.

Kevin: But I’ll miss some things about England.

Joan Tull VSO volunteer: I’ll be going to Zimbabwe to quite a large village school. And I’ll be teaching English to 16 years olds up to a level and I think I’ll be a form teacher to twelve and thirteen years olds. I’ll be staying for two years minimum and there’s a possibility of having that extended to three or four years.

David: What will Joan have to get used to?

Joan: I’ll have to get used to a whole series – a whole raft – of different working conditions. I’m used to working in quite a high-tech sort of industry that’s got lots of machinery has no machinery apart from a typewriter, has no electricity at all, no photocopiers… all the things that you take for granted, they just won’t be there any more. So I’m going to have to get used to that sort of thing really.

I’ll be staying near the school which is called “curandera” in quite a small village it’s amid sich of farmers generally it’s quite near to a sort of small town, but it’s quite rural itself and I’ll be staying in a teacher’s house living with two or three other Zimbabwean teachers.

I’ll have to get  used to not having the variety of different foods that you have here; like 20 different varieties of breakfast cereal, and all the food that you could possibly want and can think of you can have here; and the range of food there is much smaller. I’ll have to get used to getting water from a bore hole; not having electricity, which means gas lamps in the evening, which means the difficulty of preparing for the next day’s lessons in poor light; different ways of getting your clothes washed; how you make your own entertainment in the evenings, because I’m used to coming home and watching television and, you know, phoning your friends and listening to music, and that sort of thing. And there’ll be quite big differences like that, that I’ll have to get used to.  

I have eight I must have had more than twelve actually I have eight different sorts of courses of injections. I’ll miss shopping for clothes in my favorite clothes stores and I’ll miss seeing my friends after work and going to the cinema and going to a club, I’m going to a parties an endless list of things that I can think of that I do that I do without thinking about it really, but I’m going to miss.

She’ll be teaching English.	She’ll have to get used to…	She’ll miss seeing her friends.
She’ll be living in a teachers’ house.	She’ll miss shopping for clothes.

I think that there will be quite a lot of cultural differences, and those are going to be the most difficult things to get used to, because physical things I think you can adapt to really quickly. I think a different way of looking at the role of women in society is going to be quite difficult, because I’m used to saying exactly what I think about everything and I’m just going to have to learn to keep quiet about things. But the problem with that is that I can see why you have to do that but, then, If quite a big part of yourself is to not like injustices or whatever it is and to say what you think, then how much is it that you are changing yourself as a person and as a personality? And maybe I’ll get there and I’ll find that, you know, it simply is not a problem at all.

David: What’s the training like for VSO?

What we’ve got here is a sort of mishmash of the reason why you’re doing becoming a volunteer, Yeah? And what I wanted to do was kind of look at the actual the pictures you had in your head, because they overlap with your expectations with what you’re expected to get out of it.

In terms of formal training and before I go I’ll be doing two or three weekend courses one will be about development issues asking you questions about why it is that you want to do there so and there’s going to be one that it’s going to be really concrete about how you teach English as a foreign language or English in Zimbabwe.

David: Why does she want to do it?

I always wanted to do something that was about helping people, and feeling that what you did was important to people, and that it mattered. So that’s the basic reason why I’ll be going to do VSO, I think.

I’m quite looking forward to going to a completely different environment, that’s different on all sorts of levels: in terms of the culture, in terms of the standard of living. I’ll be quite interested to just find out how a whole different set of people live. I’m looking forward to not being in England, because I’m tired of it. I’m looking forward to hot, sunny weather. I’ll be quite interested to see how I fit into the new job; just a whole, new life really… suddenly will open up.

It’s a bit dangerous because I don’t know how I’m going to cope with it but that’s all part of it. It’s all part of kind of, you know, saying my god wasn’t I. Wasn’t I pray for once in my life and I’ll get to 30 and I look back and I sell be able to say I think. God! You know, for once in my life I did something that was just a bit unusual and a bit different.

WORD BANK

Get used to	Acostumbrarse	Adapt to	Adaptarse
Running around	Correr de aquí para allá	Borehole	Perforación/agujero
Miss	Echar de menos algo	Cereal	Cereal
Pick up	Ir a buscar	Cultural	Cultural
Retire	Jubilarse	High-tech	Alta tecnología
Subject	Asignatura	Injustice	Injusticia
Hopefully	Si todo va bien	In terms of	En cuanto a/ en términos de
Range of	Variedad	Matter	Importar
Raft	Cantidad/montón	Role	Papel/función
Series	Series/serie de cosas	Set	Grupo
Standard of living	Nivel de vida	Take for granted	Dar por sentado/dar por supuesto
Variety	Variedad/diversidad