Hello! Hey everybody
Today I've been in the UK for exactly two months
The main thing I want to talk about in this film is culture shock
First let's look at what 'culture shock' is defined as in the dictionary
Culture shock
(different way to say in Chinese)
means when a person or a group
finds themselves within another country's culture
or a different environment
and experiences confusion or anxiety
though it's quite possible that nothing serious occurs
The meaning is that I've changed the place I'm in
and I feel a certain way
I feel surprised and confused
Like I can't adapt etc
It's not saying that something is good or bad
It's something you experience personally
The first culture shock is about
forms of address
We know that in China we'll call our elders by a specific form of address
Their inherent form of address e.g. Uncle or Auntie
Older brother or sister, etc
But in Britain they don't have the same thing
For example people only address their own parents or grandparents
'mum' or 'dad', 'nan' or grandpa' etc
These six people, they address them by their
form of address, they won't directly call them by their given name, but
excluding these six
basically everyone will address each other by name
You can call your uncle by his name
or your auntie by hers
Your mother's brother by their name (this is a specific address in Chinese)
You don't have to worry about doing that
Then for a daughter-in-law
For me
How should I address people?
Actually you already know
I just call them by their name and that's fine
Because Scott's parents aren't my birth parents
So I can call them by their names without any concern
But in respect to long-standing Chinese culture
we receive our own culture's influence
and with it, what we're accustomed to
When you really marry somebody British
and you have to call their parents by their names
Directly call them by their name you feel
that actually it's very hard to adapt
There's a mental obstacle inside myself
I'll feel that if I call them by their name it's not very polite
But the reality is that other people think this couldn't be any more normal
I expect that you'll call my by my name
For example I can call Scott's dad Geoff
and Scott's mum Dawn
but I can't overcome that mental hurdle myself
So I think this is a culture shock
The second culture shock is
Actually Scott warned me about this before I came to the UK
You know that we'll have a basket for tissue next to toilets in China
We'll dispose of tissue in it
To prevent the toilet blocking up etc
But over here it's exactly the opposite
Before I came here Scott cautioned me, he said
once you're at my house don't throw toilet paper outside the toilet
You'll have to throw it in the toilet and flush it down, otherwise
otherwise people will find it disgusting
All of their toilet paper is flushed away
So I think this is pretty interesting
Yeah, this is a culture shock
I'd already experienced my third culture shock before I came to the UK
It's that you don't need to wear slippers indoors
In China we have to wear them because
normally it's something we pay particular attention to
or we've sweeped the house clean
We have floor boards etc so clean them often
In order to stop them getting dirty we wear slippers right?
But here people don't wear slippers
Because here they
have carpets in basically every corner
so they'll wear socks or bare feet to walk around
The most important thing is that with bare feet they'll
walk to the toilet and then to the kitchen
and afterwards then go back to their bedroom and onto bed
It doesn't matter
When me and Scott were living in China he'd often do this
I felt like I really couldn't stand it
I thought, why are you wearing socks
hopping around to the kitchen, toilet
and then returning to the bed?
Don't you think it's dirty?
He doesn't
It's because they're already gotten used to this in his country
And right now I also don't have that mental obstacle anymore
I'm basically used to it
But in general it's still two countries
I mean
behaviour and habits, mental inclinations that are different
The next one is
that westerners don't drink hot water?
This isn't a culture shock
More like a stubborn impression
In China
Chinese people think that foreigners don't drink any hot water
Before I also thought that westerners don't drink hot drinks
So I waited until I came to Scott's house to find out what it's really like
Actually they do drink hot water
They like drinking hot stuff
but normally they'll add some tea to it
or something else to put in it
They just won't drink hot water with nothing else in it
But actually they do drink hot water
Before my impression was
that them not drinking water meant that they only drink cold water
In the morning they get up and drink iced water, cold water
But actually people do drink hot drinks
And through this thing, drinking hot water
I also discovered how much British people love drinking tea
For example Scott's parent's house
They have so many kinds of tea leaves
The next is about Britain's food culture
I remember the first day we came to England
we got off the plane in the morning and Scott's dad met us
And at that time my stomach was already hungry
I waited until lunch
and found that - hey - it seems like they don't have any plan to make food
and Scott made me
a simple sandwich, which I ate
I was still waiting for lunch
In the end I was still waiting till after 3pm and no one was making any lunch
I didn't ask, I didn't know what was going on
I thought they were too busy or tired
And finally once it got to dinner time Scott's mum made a big
sumptuous meal
and we began to eat
I always thought that they'd been too busy so hadn't made food
But it wasn't till the second, third and fourth days came
lunchtime every day after
that I then found they don't eat lunch together
Everyone makes whatever they like themselves
You can eat sandwiches or whatever you want
But everything's pretty simple, everyone makes their own
It's only at dinner time that everyone eats a proper meal
We all sit nicely together
and have a meal
Us Chinese
to use Scott's words, 'every meal is the most important meal'
Our breakfast is very important
Lunch is important and so is dinner
Scott said that if there's kids at home then
you'll usually eat breakfast together too
But right now, if everyone's an adult
Everyone's grown up
Then basically there's only dinner
when everyone eats together at a table
Yeah, so lunch is very unimportant for them
Just eat whatever
Make do with eating something small, as long as you don't starve to death it's fine
There's one other thing about lunch
Lots of working people, they might
not be able to go home to eat so they'll take out a packed lunch or whatever
Those packed lunches are usually cold
For example a cold sandwich or some bread/pastry etc
Just eat it cold
I reckon this wouldn't happen in China
We don't like eating cold stuff
And when it comes to the matter of diet
I've found it's rare for them to have leafy greens on the table
For me I simply can't accept this
Especially the first couple of weeks I was in the UK
Because I discovered they eat green-leaved veggies so irregularly
I feel like at that time I almost went crazy
So I always want to buy some green leafed vegetables to eat
but their supermarket
The local supermarket's green-leafed vegetables
are really not the kind we like to eat
They're like lettuce and raw vegetables
Normally they're used to make salads
So I found that the only opportunity for British people to eat leafy greens
is in salads
and I don't know how often they eat salads
so their intake of leafy-green veggies is very very low
And
for someone who likes eating vegetables as much as me I can't accept it
So right now I'm looking for Chinese supermarkets
and buying Chinese cabbage and water spinach etc
Of course this doesn't mean I can realise 'water spinach freedom'
Because it's really expensive here
And you've been picking your own
And a couple of days ago I was riding my bike and found a field of rapeseed
There were some small rapeseed leaves
I had to pick some
So eating green-leaved vegetables in the UK
Eating tasty things
The leafy greens Chinese people are used to, is pretty hard
Then we've talked about greens so let's talk about meat
English people eat meat really strangely
Everyone knows that westerners don't like eating bones
and organs and stuff
so they'll buy meat that's been picked free of bones
or boneless
They eat it like that
But when they eat some
for example meat with bones
like chicken etc
They'll take the chicken and
roast it in an oven
After roasting it they'll for some reason first
seperate the chicken meat and put it on a plate
And they'll leave a huge chicken bone
There's loads of meat still stuck on the chicken bone
But they won't eat it! They throw it away
In China this is extremely wasteful
People would perhaps buy this chicken bone wouldn't they?
On the top their's still lots of meat stuck on
They don't eat it
For us this should be another dish
But they just throw it away like that, they think
The bone isn't tasty
And they don't want to use hands to hold and gnaw it
They just use a knife to scrape it off
But they can't get it all off
They don't eat the skin!
For example two days ago Scott's mum made a
I guess it's something like braised lamb
It stayed in the pressure cooker a whole afternoon and became soft and broken
And when they were eating they all left their skin in their bowls
It was that...
like collagen
That's it's own dish in China
But here I didn't expect them to just left it in their bowl
I asked Scott's brother Rob
I said why don't you eat the skin?
He said
The first reason is because the texture is bad
and second is because there's too much fat, it's unhealthy
But I think that's what us Chinese eat
So for me I feel like it's so wasteful!
Next, regarding English people's level of politeness
How polite are the British?
In one day you can hear Scott's family say so many 'thank you, thank you'
or 'sorry, sorry'
For example if you make a meal they'll feel very appreciative
and even if they don't like it that much
they'll still say 'Very tasty, very tasty!'
Anyway you don't have a chance to hear 'This food's not very tasty'
This kind of opportunity, you know?
Like, people will try very hard to make you feel--
They're very polite
and don't want to hurt you
through what they've said
They think that if they say the food I've made isn't tasty
It will hurt me, but for a Chinese person they won't think this way and won't be hurt
This is also a kind of culture shock
They are super super polite
Even if they don't like it that much
they're still say 'Mhm, very tasty'
Talking about the question of politeness, I've discovered
When we're on the road driving there's a funny phenomenon
For example, if you give way to someone
You give way to another driver
Or you give way to someone riding a horse
They'll do this
The meaning is thank you
And the first time I saw Scott do this I didn't understand why
Why did he suddenly do that?
And the person opposite also did the same
This is a kind of sign language
It just means thanks for giving way
Or thanks for waiting for me etc
I feel like this is really really warmhearted
I feel like it's really lovely
No one's scrabbling to get in front
In fact they'll take their time
And wait slowly
For example, if the road is narrow ahead
They'll stop and wait for you
Patiently wait for you
I think it's lovely
And people will nod at each other from a distance through their windows like this
Just nod their head slightly etc
I think this interaction is great
Especially this, I really like this
Thanks!
There's another thing about driving
Before I came to the UK Scott
experienced this culture shock in China
Because in China we
We-- lots of drivers like to honk their horns, right?
Firstly we do it if there's a traffic jam and we want to express that we want to go on quickly
The second circumstance is
if there's danger ahead and we'll use the horn to warn you
Don't crash into me or whatever
This point isn't the same in the UK and China
In itself, perhaps because there aren't that many traffic jams
So no one will hurry whilst honking about
And even if it's in for example
on back country roads, sharp turns
They also won't honk, but instead they'll drive slowly
Because for them, honking your horn is a kind of rudeness
An impolite or impatient action
So here it's very rare to hear people honking their horns
But there was one time I saw a car that was very rude
It was
that there were two cars
Scott, us two were in front, riding bikes
There were two cars from behind that wanted to overtake us
Inside those two cars there were young guys, like the village's
the village's delinquents
Honking their horns at us PAH PAH PAH, telling us to ride on faster
This is the only time I've been honked at in the UK
All other times everyone's been very nice
And there's one thing that made me very culture shocked
English households seem like
without exception they all have gardens
Basically every household has a lawnmower
Towards cutting the grass they have a
manic passion
To the extent that they'll ensure their grass is always this tall, all about here
It's not able to grow even a little
If it gets taller then it's cut a bit and cut again
So before audience members asked me
why is England's grass all the same?
It's because they've cut it
They cut the grass every day
Everyone's out trimming the lawn so that's why they all look the same
And also I think that the English put a lot of stress on resting
For example
there was one time that around 5pm
we went to a nearby town to buy vegetables
We discovered they were all closed
I really don't think I can understand it
It's only 5pm and everything's closed?
You have a business but you're not working?
But I think people are pretty self-willed
Here the shops all close pretty early
Maybe it depends on the place
Maybe in London or big cities it'll be later, 7 or 8pm
But at the latest, after 8pm
Basically all the
the shops are all closed
Except maybe a few bars or pubs that are still open
Compared to China
You can go outside
You can go somewhere with entertainment
and you can do stuff in the evening
It's limited and small-scale compared to China
Especially when we're living in a village
or in a town
In the evening we basically don't go anywhere
because there's no entertainment
So we stay at home
And you can avoid ordering Chinese bbq or take out
Because there's no way to order them
When it comes to the last culture shock
I think this is also a
It also touches on a stubborn impression of Britain
For example when we're studying teacher will tell us
that after westerner's kids turn 18, parents don't care about them anymore
They have to be independent
Once parents get old, kids won't look after them
Anyway, these kind of descriptions are told to us
Makes us feel that westerners
Westerners households don't have any warmth
That they're a very cold-blooded place
It feels like parents and their children
don't care about each other, that kind of thing
But actually I think
British people also care about their family
and moreover, their affection for their family is very intimate
It's the same as us Chinese
I think our affection for family is the same
Because through living in this kind of household
I've observed and understood and experienced, I've found
that family is very important to them
and it's a very big part of their lives
It's just the way that care between family members is expressed that is different
This is just my conclusions after being here for two months
and the culture shocks I've experienced
There's still much I haven't mentioned
So this topic will continue
IF you're interested UK culture or the differences I've mentioned
you can have a look at our old UK films
See you next time