Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

• England

  Date: 2009.10.11 | Category: Culture | Response: 0

  England is a highly urbanized country, with 80% of its population living in cities, and only 2% of the population working in agriculture. Its largest city is the capital, London, which is dominant in the UK in all fields: government, finance, and culture. England is physically the largest of the four nations, and it has by far the largest population. This dominance in size is reflected in a cultural and economic dominance too, which has the result that people in foreign countries sometimes make the mistake of talking about England when they mean the UK.

  British history has been a history of invasions. Before the 1^st century AD, Britain was made up of many tribal kingdoms of Celtic people. As the Roman Empire came under threat from the east, the Roman armies and Roman protection were withdrawn from Britain, and Britain was again divided into small kingdoms, and again it came under threat from outside, this time from Germanic peoples: the Angles and the Saxon.

  Two more groups of invaders were to come after the English: from the late 8^th century on, raiders from Scandinavia, the ferocious Vikings, threatened Britain’s shores. Their settlements in England grew until large areas of northern and eastern England were under their control. The next invaders were the Normans, from northern France, who were descendants of Vikings. Under William of Normandy, they crossed the English Channel in 1066, and in the Battle of Hastings, defeated an English army under King Harold. William took the English throne and became William the First of England. The Tower of London, a castle in the center of London which he built, still stands today. The next 300 years may be thought of as a Norman aristocracy ruling a largely Saxon and English-speaking population. The next few hundred years following the Norman invasion can be seen as a process of joining together the various parts of the British Isles under English rule, so that any English identity eventually became swamped by the necessity of adopting a wider British identity, both to unite the kingdom internally, and to present a single identity externally as Britain became an imperial power. At the same time power was gradually transferred from the monarch to the parliament. After a gap of 11 years in which England was ruled by parliament’s leader, Oliver Cromwell, the monarchy was restored. Further conflict between parliament and the king led to the removal of the Scottish house of Stuart from the throne, and William and Mary were imported from Holland to take the throne, thus finally establishing parliament’s dominance over the throne.

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• Culture Shock

  Date: 2009.10.11 | Category: Culture | Response: 0

  Specialists say that it is not easy to get used to life in a new culture. “Culture shock” is the term these specialists use when talking about the feelings that people have in a new environment. There are three stages of culture shock, say the specialists. In the first stage, the new comers like their new environment. Then, when the fresh experience dies, they begin to hate the city, the country, the people, and everything else. In the last stage, the newcomers begin to adjust to their surroundings and, as a result, enjoy their life more.

  There are some obvious factors in culture shock. The weather may be unpleasant. The customs may be different. The public service systems—the telephone, post office, or transportation—may be difficult to work out. The most simple things seem to be big problems. The language may be difficult, too. You will feel be in trouble when you try to communicate with others.

  Who feels culture shock? Everyone does in this way or that. But culture shock surprises most people. Very often the people having the worst culture shock are those who never had any difficulties in their home countries and were successful in their community. Coming to a new country, these people find they do not have the same established positions. They find themselves without a role, almost without an identity. They have to build a new selfimage.

  Culture shock gives rise to a feeling of disorientation. This feeling may be homesickness. When homesick, people feel like staying inside all the time. They want to protect themselves from the strange environment, and create an escape inside their room for a sense of safety. This escape does solve the problem of culture shock in the short term, but it does nothing to make the person familiar with the culture. Getting to know the new environment and gaining experience—these are the long-term solutions to the problem of culture shock.

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• A Brief Introduction to the United Kingdom

  Date: 2009.10.11 | Category: Culture | Response: 0

  The full name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is a complicated name for what is in many ways a complicated country. The things that people know about the UK may have little to do with how most real British people live their lives today. Britain is no longer an imperial country, though the effects of its imperial past may be often encountered in all sorts of ways; not least in the close relationships which exist with the fifty or more countries which used to be a part of that empire, and which maintain links through a loose organization called the Commonwealth of Nations. But more important today in Britain’s international relations is the European Union, of which the UK has been a number since 1973. It remains a relatively wealthy country, a member of the Group of Seven large developed economies. One other obvious effect of that old imperial role lies in the makeup of the British population itself. Immigration from some of those Commenwealth countries, which was encouraged in the 1950s and 1960s, has produced a population of which 1 in 20 are of non-European ethnicity.

  The UK is one nation, with a single passport, and a single government having sovereignty over in all, but as the full name of the nation suggests, it is made up of different elements. It includes 4 parts within the one nation-state: the island of Great Britain is made up of England, Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland, a province on he neighbouring island of Ireland, completes the set. But the distinction between the 4 constituent parts is only one and perhaps the simplest, of the differences which divide the United Kingdom. Also, it is a society with a class-structure. It is possible to exaggerate the importance of this class-structure, because of course most countries have some kind of class-system, but it is true to say that the class structure of UK society is relatively obvious.

  Another difference which marks British society is that of region. Even within each of the four countries there are different regions. Nevertheless, there is some basis to the distinction in economic terms as the south is on average more wealthy than the north.

  Part of the reason for that economic difference between north and south is found in another distinction which marks British society, a distinction which can be seen in many societies but is perhaps particularly obvious in the UK, that is, the difference between the capital and the provinces. London is in the south of the country, and is dominant in the United Kingdom in all sorts of ways. It is by far the largest city in the country, with about one seventh of the nation’s population; it is the seat of government; it is the cultural center, home to all the major newspapers, TV stations, and with far and a way the widest selection of galleries, theatres and museums. Also it is the business center, headquarters of the vast majority of Britain’s big companies; it is the financial center of the nation, and one of the three major international financial center in the world. London is a huge weight in Britain’s economic and cultural life, and to some extent the rest of the economic and cultural life, and to some extent the rest of the country lives in its shadow.

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