The Dialogue of Cultures

On May 17, 2007 four representatives of Australia, Germany, USA and Sweden met at the Department of Translation, ASTU. with the aim of exchanging views on global life styles and national traditions and mentalities.

The foreign participants of the interactive dialogue of cultures were represented by Ken Haley-subeditor of the newspaper “Herold Sun “(Melburn, Australia), Dr.Ludwig Vaas - representative of the German Ministry of Education (Munich, Bavaria), Andreas Advardson-teacher of Swedish, official representative of Swedish Institute (Stockholm) in the city of Archangel, John Stelling-microbiologist, executive director of Boston Department of the World Health Organisation (Massachusets, USA)

In the course of the interactive dialogue it was interesting to learn that all the four guests have been travelling a lot around the world. So they were ready to share their impressions of different countries, their traditions and mentalities. They all admitted that though there was a process of growing common world culture one could not deny the fact of cultural shock one experienced when they happened to be in a foreign country:

1. The problems started with the language usage when different or similar notions were confused in the English language. For instance, the word “gift” in Swedish means “poison’; a “mile” in Swedish equals to “ten kilometres”. In the menue of some Archangel restaurants Ken could read “hearing(under vegetables)” instead of “herring”. I myself happened to find a funny error in one of the menues when one of the ingredients for the meat salad was “boiled language” instead of “tongue”. A similar case was found by John in the website “engrish.com” when the Chinese cooks use “acid food” instead of “sour food”. The first and the ground floors in the American and English hotels may cause a bit of confusion for the foreigners. When you are invited for a cup of tea in New Zealand they may mean “ come for dinner”..Pronunciation problems in New Zealand might also cause some difficulty in understanding like “we’ve got fantastic chicken facilities” instead of “check in facilities”

2. Each of the guests produced a wonderful sense of humour when they tried to characterise their own communities and their life styles and traditions.For instance, Australians pride themselves on kangaroos, meat pies and their sense of humour.As Ken emphasised “ although Australia is a melting pot people have a common identity, i.e. belonging to one nation” He also thinks that Australian people have a herd mentality,i.e. like sheep to be taken care after. For Andreas Swedish community also has a herd mentality-it is a countryof collectivism-social order is more important than arguing in Swedish community.Since he studied in America for one year he realised that unlike American students, whose self esteem is very high, Swedish students tend to be rather modest and can’t “sell themselves”. John thinks Sweden is civilized, with lots of snow in wintertime and in summer it is a paradize.As for his own country, America, John is proud of their social harmony-there are a lot of caring in the American family. It is a country with individual freedom but what disappoints him is that it’s a conservative country. Ken considers Americans rather ignorant in Geography.Only 40 % of Americans have passports.But then he admits with a sense of humour that in fact Australians hate everybody.Ludwig is proud of the variety of German landscapes and especially in Bavaria where one can enjoy the beautiful sights of mountains and lakes. “Punctuality “ and “beeing exact” is one of the common traits of the German community.

3. As to their impressions of the Russian community they all agreed that Russian people are very friendly and large-hearted. John finds Russia culturally fascinating. He thinks the Russian and the Ukranian people are passionate and very emotional. But when you meet somebody in impersonal setting you find the Russians. exceedingly unhelpful.Ludwig was in Archangel fifteen years ago. He thinks people in Russia have become more cheerful.But when he visits restaurants or shops he sees that waiters and shop assistants are unfriendly. They don’t smile, neither do they greet you.Andreas having lived in Archangel for three years makes a conclusionthat you have to stay here longer to get to know the Russians better.

4. Judging by the quick reaction of the audience it was clear to the guests that our students appreciated their sense of humour. Students and teachers of the Department of Translation were delighted to hear this “Dialogue of Cultures”. They found this exchange of impressions extremely informative and invigorating. All the participants of the “Dialogue of Cultures” were unanimous in their opinion: such meetings help everyone to a better mutual understanding of national traits and characters which is very important for the future translators to know. Such talks also give our students an excellent opportunity to improve their language skills especially in listening and comprehension.

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