【Talk about English】 我们究竟是什么 (Episode1-2/5)
本期主题是异域文化和跨文化交流。主播Marc Beeby认为，更多的了解不同的文化会帮助我们更加认识和了解自己。一起来听听吧Hints:
Kofi Annan
Rebecca Fong
英式拼写
全文听写http://t1.g.hjfile.cn/listen/201301/201301060242126718052.mp3But we start with what happens when communicatioin completely breaks down. War
I was a child in Berlin in the first world war and I used to lie in bed at night, praying that God should give victory to the German soldiers until one night it suddenly occured to me that at that very moment French and English children might be lying in bed praying that God should give victory to their soldiers
In 1945 the United Nations was established "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." 55 years later UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the latest attempt to build lasting world peace--the proclamation of the year 2001 as the UN Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.
The United Nation itself was created in the belief that dialogue can triumph over discord. That is why I have warmly welcomed the proclamation of the year 2001 as the United Nations year of the dialogue among civilizations.
This dialogue, this communication between people from different cultures, isn't something that's only relevant to politicians and representatives of the UN. It's personal. The world, we hear, is getting smaller. Global business, world-wide tourism, faster and more accessible ways of communicating all mean that most of us, at some point in our lives, will come into contact with people from cultures that are very different from our own. And when that happens we find ourselves facing some very interesting, very personal questions. Rebecca Fong teaches a course in intercultural communication at the University of the West of England. Here she is, a million miles away from war, facing up the flowers and the question of beauty...
When I was quite young, I went to live in Japan, and after having been there for a little while I was asked by some of the women I was working with if I'd like to do "Ikebana" which is Japanese flower arranging. I decided not to but I did go to many flower arranging exhibitions and one day I was at one of these exhibitions and I saw an arrangement and I laughed and I said "Oh well that one was obviously done by a beginner" and the person who I was with who had been studying flower arranging for a long time said "no no, that was done by an expert and I could never do that, that's very hard.' I later discovered that when Japanese are looking at flower arrangement they see something that we don't see. Because they have been trained in flower arranging and trained in the understanding or appreciation of the art of flower arranging. They can appreciate it for its beauty in a way that I was completely unable to see when I first went to the country. Think about what this implies for the way that we see beauty. We were both looking at the same object at the same time but they were seeing something completely different. What this implies is that we're all wearing culture tinted glasses if you like. We are looking at things and judging their value from our own cultural backgrounds and our own experience, which is often very different.
Rebacca Fong
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