Tuesday 16 October 2007

taaaaaaa daaaaaaaaaaa ... thank you lee

so, now as i know, how to do it, i am here.
i want to give you some news. as you know i am here in halle and it is not bad at all, not even so ugly as they told me (christian, who told you it was so ugly here?!), i would post some photos, but i dont want to make a blogger genious out of me.
my plans for different for this year, but finally i one the jackpot in university! i got a scholarship for the next 3 years and will be sent to paris for next year for 2 semesters. how much more wonderful could it be? i am very happy about this. but in this case, i am not sure if my parents are more happier about visiting me in paris...
so, if you think that halle is not so worth to visit, you have the chance next here, or both :)
i want to leave you some lines, i wrote in an email. but in the end, i decided i want to make it read to you.
today i had my first lessen about "introduction in frenc cultural science" and it was quite awful. i hope it will not be like this until the end of the semester. you know, you go to evs for one year, to learn more about prejudices, klischees and pictures about foreigners. oh, not all french are like this, ah, i thoght spanish people are like this. ja, this "ah really feeling". so and now imagine my first lesson:
"what is french" - "wine, cheese, frog legs" "eiffel tower".
or something"are we allowed to judge our culture as better as ours? of course we are not allowed!"
bla bla...horrible. i am not sure, what i expected from "cultural science". and it made me wondering, if i am really this kind of person, that wants to put a boarder around the french culture, spanish or german culture. one year we are living this what could be taken in a naive, superior or optimistic way, called as the "european dream" and now i have the task to differ between what is french, german, spanish. actually i am fed up with this "ja, its a klischee, somehow true of course, but not all of them are like this". after my evs i was on the point to take everyone as a person. i didnt have the feeling we had to discuss about "our national culture" and i really totally forgot about where they were coming from because everyone seemed to be so much from "my culture", lets call it "evs culture". for sure i remember discussions about the way to say hello to each other but i dont want to put it into this kind of national frame. so, i am quite struggled with all these questions where we already know the answer. i am over it since a long time.
but finally i hope, it was just a very bad first lesson...

4 comments:

Miss Lee said...

Your welcome, Katha.
CONGRATULATIONS for your scholarship in Paris! For sure, I will visit you there!
The cultural thing... let's put it this way: french people like cheese with wine. Italian people put cheese in the pasta. Greek people put cheese in the salad. Ucranian people put it inside pelmeni. German and portuguese people eat cheese with nutela or jam!!
the thing is that EVERYONE loves chesse! like Chri said once: "We are all different, but we are all equal people!"
I guess, that now that you know people from all over, what unites and what seperate them, is your job to fight prejudice! Everytime your teatcher says: "French people like wine" you tell him: "Aude doesn't dronk wine and still she is french!"
Agaist prejudice ans stereotipes!! Avante tovarish!

Amelie et Jonathan said...

I'm french and I love cheese ! (stereotype)
I'm AMERICAN and I love cheese (wow, super original!)
the problem with everybody loving to eat cheese is that ... There isn't enough for meeeeeee !!!!! hi hi :)
I don't mind that stereotype, sometimes it's good to start with that and then explore a culture more in depth, good luck Katha !!!
Hello to everyone from the crazy french couple in Joelahtme

edokoita said...

I have to mention that we also put cheese in pasta (greeks I mean). Good luck Katha!!

feta cheese rules!!

subcomandante christian said...

l agree with all of you...but in greece the put cheese in the pasta because the copied from us:) lt s a joke
good luck katha!