Last night I had dinner with Gabor (the Hungarian), Orla (an Irish woman from Dublin), Sundya (an Indian woman), Brian (an Englishman) and me of course, the American. It is so amazing to hear all of there stories... Gabor grew up in a country that was dominated by communism. Brian grew up in the Bahamas, and Orla grew up walking to school with men holding machine guns lining the streets and in a world where terrorism was a very close reality.
We talked a lot about the different cultures that each of us know and experienced. One of the very major differences is that the Europeans seemed to know each other's histories, currencies, etc. and I knew very little. I grew up in a world where Russia/USSR/Soviet Union was evil, Ireland was dangerous and India was dirty. The differences between all of us scientists sitting around the dinner table was unbelievable to me. I felt like I needed to go home and study European history.
One of the biggest things that made me feel like a complete idiot was to find out that Irish is a language. Seriously, they all speak English, how was I supposed to know that they had another language too? Apparantly they all speak English in the home, but are required to learn Irish in school and have to pass exams etc. on the language to graduate high school. Don't I feel smart...
It was a good time though. And I really hope that I am always surrounded by people from different cultures... I love to learn about their lives.
2 comments:
Really?? Well, dont I feel rather uneducated. I wish we offered Irish as a language in school - screw Spanish!
Yup. Totally. They have to learn it in school, but otherwise it's fairly dead.
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