Hello everyone! Welcome to E-com Monthly Intro to American Culture.
I'm Heather.
And I'm Marcellus.
And it's February.
That's right and you know what? That reminds me of something, Heather.
What?
Happy Valentine's Day!
Awww, you shouldn't have.
That's right, but I did.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Well, Valentine's Day is celebrated in America a little bit differently than in Japan.
So, in America, I think the men and the women give gifts to each other equally.
That's right. Valentine's Day is a holiday for love and love means love from a man to a woman or from a woman to a man.
You don't have to just give chocolates either, you can give roses, just like the rose I gave to Heather.
You can give diamonds if you're lucky enough to or rich enough to give diamonds.
Yeah.
You can give a Valentine's Day card if you want or you can just give a person a hug and say, 'Happy Valentine's Day.'
Yeah, you can take them to a nice dinner.
So, all of these things are showing your romantic kind of love for someone,
but Valentine's Day can also be celebrated between friends and family to show your love in that kind of way, not romantic,
but just you're good friends or something.
You can give maybe a red rose usually means love, but you can give a pink rose or yellow rose.
I think yellow means friendship.
That's right.
And just cards or do something nice for your friends.
And as children in America during Valentine's day, we always had a kind, at least at my school, an exchange.
We exchanged candy between boys and girls and also Valentine's Day cards that we made for each other.
Yeah, so, well, Valentine's Day, let's get started. Are you ready?
That's right.
Let's begin!
Alright, now let's talk about sports.
That's gonna be the topic for discussion this month and it's gonna be about the 3 big sports in America.
Baseball,
basketball,
and football.
That's right. Now, in America the sports that we are in to depends on the season
and in springtime, the sport that everybody's talking about is baseball.
Ooooh, baseball.
That's right. Typically baseball happens in the springtime.
It's a sport that's played outdoors
and usually at a baseball game we get together with our friends, we drink a lot of beer, at least I do.
Sure.
Eating hotdogs is very important when you go to a baseball game. You have to have hotdogs.
Put a little ketchup on it, a little bit of mustard on it
and everyone will look at you and say, 'That guy knows American culture.'
What about basketball?
Basketball is in the winter, I guess. Is it in the winter?
Yes, it is in the winter.
Yeah, it's an indoor sport, played inside and college basketball is actually very huge as well as professional basketball,
which we have the NBA is for men and the... what's the women's? NWA?
That's right.
I believe. And um... But the men's NBA and college basketball is very popular
and actually, I went to University of North Carolina and that has a very good men's college basketball program.
We had Michael Jordon at our school.
My God, he was the greatest basketball player that every lived.
Yes he was and he started at my school.
Wow.
Yeah.
Very fascinating stuff, so in springtime we have baseball, in the wintertime we have basketball and in the fall we have football.
Now, in America we call American football 'football'.
Everywhere else around the world football is referred to, is the term we use when we talk about soccer,
but in the States, when you say 'football', nobody thinks about soccer, they only think about American football.
And American football is a very popular sport.
It's played from fall 'til wintertime.
Lots of people get really excited about football games in America.
We go outside, sometimes we wear make-up, we get really crazy.
If you get to a city that's really passionate about their football teams, like my city Cleveland is,
sometimes they can be a little bit rough, but you can stay away from the rough guys and you can still have a great time.
Yeah, and how 'bout the final championship of football, what's that?
That one is called the Super Bowl.
Yeah and it's very popular and if you love football, definitely you're going to watch the Super Bowl on TV.
That's right.
And if you're like me and you're not a big fan of football, well, the commercials during the Super Bowl are really great.
They make special commercials just for the Super Bowl and they are very exciting, so you should watch the commercials too.
Now, you know, I realized something. I said from fall to winter, but Super Bowl, does that happen around Thanksgiving time?
No, Super Bowl is in February, this month.
February, okay. I'm safe then.
So, be prepared, get ready for the Super Bowl.
If you're watching it on TV, remember this fact, it's the most watched program in America.
It's like Kouhaku for Americans.
So, when you get to America, have fun, enjoy your sports and stay warm.
We'd like to thank everyone for joining our February videocast.
We hope everyone is out there studying hard and learning English,
but don't forget to take a break and go watch some football or basketball or baseball on TV and enjoy yourself.
Until next time, that's all!
Bye-bye!