Thursday, November 8, 2012
An American's view of Europe
Dear class,
Listen to Bill Bryson, a travel writer from Iowa in the United States. He first went to Europe in 1972. You are going to hear an extract from his book Neither Here nor There. In this extract he describes his impressions of Europe and the Europeans. Is this an example of 'a clash of cultures'? Why?
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i think it is a clash of cultures because He says that everything was unfamiliar and different, people, cars, food, language, money,newspapers, and he had never seen some other things before... he also says "they are from another world" and there is a sentence that describe his impressions: the world could be so full of variety. Finally, i could say that IT IS A CLASH OF CULTURES BUT IT IS NOT NEGATIVE BECAUSE HE FOUND IT INTERESTING!
ReplyDeleteYeap Andrea! Culture clash isn't always negative, it's just when two cultures and all that comes with them meet in one environment, they would realized they're incompatible and different. Therefore it would start a challeging process of finding out about each other but not like a conflict or something.
ReplyDeleteI definitely believe it's a clash of cultures. He arrives Europe without knowing anything about it and like a child he starts to find out and enjoy those marvelous places, architecture, its believes, social behaviourism and more. :)
Well, I think it's not really a "clash" since a clash implies violent confrontation and has a negative aspect. I think is just a drastic encounter of cultures. He probably didn't expect to find such a different way of life in Europe. So he was surprised and shocked. But at the end, he gives a positive review about that. He finds interesting the fact that people from all over the world have a different way of doing the same things. I would feel the same way, too!
ReplyDeleteI do not think the clash of cultures have to involve violence as Elias says. I think if it was a "clash" that Bill experiment. Because from his perspective he found himself in a world where people do totally different things as we do like eating and drinking and call things by different names. I would like to live an experience like Bill too!
ReplyDeleteYes, I think the same as andrea! this is a example of clash of cultures because he compared everything and he said all the differences.
ReplyDeleteof course, I think it is an example of clash of cultures because he mentioned many different things like eating, people and language. He had all this around him and he could find how diferent was from him. He talks about Mickey Club and Yankees New York and a woman didn't hear about it, he was surprising because he thought it was a very important part of his culture.
ReplyDeleteOne important point to consider is that he found the city different from their hometown, it was his own impression nobody had a bad reaction with he, so he just didn´t adapt to this city and a clash of culture is present when there is an opposition between two cultures so I don´t think it is an example of clash of cultures...
ReplyDeleteWe should first of all look for the meaning of ''CLASS OF CULTURES'' and i'm sure i have the answer well, the problem is that you are confusing CLASS OF CULTURES with CULTURE SHOCK.
ReplyDeleteThe first one comes from Clash that is to fight or argue so If two opinions, statements or qualities clash, they are very different from each other. Culture clash is a noun and means:
a conflict arising from the interaction of people with different cultural values.
The second one ''Culture shock'' is the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, or to a move between social environments also a simple travel to another type of life.
So as a conclusion what we can hear in the audio a is an example for culture shock and not for a clash of cultures.
Anne Marie, I believe you are referring to CLASH not to CLASS of cultures?
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