Blog Assignment 4: Cultural differences or just simple shyness?

Friendship open doors to every heart in this world. Life without friends is meaningless. Happiness, laugh, jokes brings peace to everyone and makes our life brighter.

As for international students, they do face rough going while living in other countries. Diffrence between cultures cause misunderstandings between people.  For example, anecdotes and jokes.

 

You can't judge me. You're white. You don't understand my culture.                    

Another example is anocdotes about blondes:

The assistant asked the blonde if she would like her pizza cut into six pieces or twelve. "Six please" she said, "I could never eat twelve!"

If an Asian student tries to translate american anecdotes about blondes to his own language it won't be that much funny as it is in America. First, it is difficult to Asians to laugh at blondes. They don't used to laugh at them and they do not understand why do americans laugh at blondes. Secondly, people from different countries cannot understand jive talks of some other country. And it cause misunderstandings.

As for Liu, he prefered Chinese atmosphere rather than living with an American family, McKnight family. Liu can laugh and enjoy his time without worrying that he might say something wrong. However, as I said before, friendship open doors to every heart. If Liu tried harder to make friends and tried to be closer with Mcnight family maybe by cooking Chinese food, he might have stayed in Chicago with Mcnights. Nevertheless, Liu couldn't overcome difficulties and he needed support. And approval came from Chinese people.

Part 2:

Slip v move smoothly, easily or quietly
Tempt v  take foolish or unnecessary risks
Shabby adj mean or unworthy

Blog assignment 3: Symbol of Peace

  Symbol of Peace

People of Mongolia consider shaking hands as a symbol of peace. You can see people shaking hands at every corner, every minute in daily life of Mongolia.

Mongolian people shake hands every day, every minute when they meet new friend, to respect an old man or just to greet an old friend. Also, we shake hands when we stepped on someone’s foot or accidentally pushed someone, or when we are appreciating someone. I heard many Mongolians laughing about misunderstandings they faced in foreign countries, when they shook hands of complete strangers. "I accidentally stepped on his foot, I said I was sorry and shook his hand. Stranger was quite shocked, he didn't understand that I was nice"-one of my friends told me. Also, when you see someone looking awry at you it doesn’t mean that this person doesn’t like you. In Mongolia you could meet many people who are in depression. According to this situation, the stranger doesn’t mean any harm to you and he wasn’t looking exactly at you. It was an accident, and the stranger was thinking about his own problems.

As I said before, it is very common to shake hands by apologizing to a person. If some of your Mongolian friends shake your hand it means: "Peace, brother. I didn't mean to hurt you" or just "Peace". If complete stranger shakes your hands do not panic, he is your new friend. And Mongolians do everything they able to do to help and to protect friends.

Blog assignment 2 (option 1)

Life is a game, and we are actors in it.
-Anonymous

To my mind this quote is absolutely true. Our life is like theater and we are actors, we have our own extraordinary roles. In your play you are a leading role and people surround you,are supporting roles.

Thus I can imagine that I'm playing lead role on the stage, I can play anyone I want to, and it would depend on my choice. I can be kind and nice, aggresive and sad at the same time, as if I have masks in my closet and every day I can cover the true me by different "mask-faces". To impress someone you just met, you must be good looking, nice and intelligent. So what are you supposed to do? Of course, you cover your face by an intelligent mask and then talk to that person. You can turn right and be polite, and then turn left and be rude.

On the other hand, you don't have to do it, if you are already an individual. Can you really be honest with yourself? Do you really know who you are? Who is real you?
Answers to these questions are hidden deep in your heart, even now; when you are reading them you don't feel very confident. I don't know much about pcychology, but I'm sure that practise makes us good at something. If you are not an individual then create it. Ask deep and tough questions and try to be honest with yourself. And you are one step closer to your true personality.

As for me, I can say proudly that I'm an individual. I'm playing my role on my stage, but I don't cover my face by mask, it just depends on how I feel the day. And when I meet someone, I'm just me, the girl like others.

Response to "Mother Tongue"

People all over the world face situation that had faced Amy Tan. And I'm not the exception.

I never spoke english at home, we use our national language. If english was my primary language and my family lived in english-speaking country, I assume that English I would have spoken at home had had a positive influence on me.

I lived in Moscow with my family. My russian became fluent, better than my parents. Sometimes when they were speaking to russian people, I was ashamed of them. At school we used jive talks and sometimes when I used it at home, my parents couldn't understand me. But few years later, I realized that speaking foreign language is not for speaking it like native speakers, but to be clear, so other people will understand you.

My mother is a poetess and a writer. I mentioned that my russian became better than hers. But I was wrong. She translated the novel "William the Conqueror" from russian to mongolian language. And it became best-seller. I realized that even if her pronunciation wasn't very good, her grammar and understanding the language, feeling its beauty was better than mine.
Now, I'm not ashamed of my parents, but proud of them.

When we came back to Mongolia, I transfered to Russian Embassy School in Ulaanbaatar. 80% of students were mongolians. First few months I was in a complicated situation, because I couldn't understand what they were talking. I felt uncomfortable among classmates. But soon, I made friends and they helped me to use mongolian jive talks. I noticed that slang was coming from the streets.

In my opinion, if your language is "broken" it is not the problem to be ashamed of. It is helping you to communicate with other people. People who are good, for example, in Spanish might have "broken" French. Also, we shouldn't use slang and jive talks everytime. People might see us as an uneducated and a rude person.

About me

Hello everyone!

My name is Sarantuya. I'm 18 years old. I'm Mongolian. I'm a freshman in the University of Delaware and my major is International Relations.

Since my name is very long my friends just call me Sara. As you know, in America Sara is a very common name and it is also common in Mongolia. In my country our names have their own meanings, and Sarantuya means moonlight.

My hometown is Ulaanbaatar, simply UB. UB is the capital city of Mongolia.I graduated Russian Embassy school. My hobbies are: learning other languages, reading about different countries and history, collecting old books from Mongolian and Russian literature. Also I like to play piano, watch soccer with my dad or with my friends.

I wish to all international students good luck.