UK

Do They Really Eat Garlic and Drink Wine All Day? Read On to Learn More About DeeBee’s Beloved France

DeeBee, born in Paris, has been living abroad for 20+ years, currently in the UK. Although DeeBee has been living outside of France for a long time and speaks mostly English on a day to day basis, DeeBee loves to share her home culture with  us here on Pocket Cultures as a regional contributor and also on her personal blog: www.onlinetravelfrance.blogspot.com.

Where do you live? Where are you from? If those are different, can you tell us a little about what inspired your move?

I left France a long time ago, spent nearly 20 years in Asia, and have been living  in the UK for the last 3 years. Why did I move? To follow my husband’s various professional postings.

If you would describe yourself as multi-cultural, tell us a bit about what culture you most identify with and why. If you have kids, what culture do they most associate with?

I feel very French in my way of thinking but hardly speak French as most my friends and family speak English.

In fact I feel very European!

My teenage daughter was born and lived abroad for most of her life and feels that where she was born is “home” which is natural.

But despite having dual nationality she feels more English than French as English is her first language and she never lived in France.

Why did you decide to become a Pocket Cultures contributor?

I came across Pocket Cultures while reading someone whose blog is listed as a Blog of the World and thought that it was a very interesting and different approach to travelling and learning about foreign cultures

I also like the idea of contributing to a team work when I can.

Can you describe a typical day for you?

A lot of time on my computer as I am running my own web site and my blog

What is the best part of living in your country? The worst?

Best? Superb climate, architecture, cuisine, way of being…There is really a “French touch” as we are mid-way between the Italians and the English, we combine the best of these two opposite cultures!

Worst? Thinking that we are so perfect – but we are, aren’t we?!?!

What books or films would you recommend someone who’d like to know more about your country?

Films: Any from the 60s or 70s as they were produced by a very inventive and innovative type of producers and reflect quite well the way French are.

Books: Any historical or social novel from the late 19^th century (when society went through a major transformation) to the present day.

 What’s something that visitors are often surprised by when getting to know your country/culture?

That we don’t eat garlic from dawn to dusk!

That we don’t eat white bread as it is bleached and therefore is bad quality!

That Paris cafe waiters are very rude…even to us! Not good, but sadly true…

That French people drink less wine than people think or at least they drink less but better quality

That it can rain…even in France!

 

Pot Roast: a winter warmer from the UK

In the UK during December the days are short (where I’m from it starts going dark at around 3:30pm) and the weather is cold. Not surprising that our traditional recipes are warm and filling. Pot roast is one of these – throw it all into a pot, cook slowly in the oven and enjoy.

Photo credit

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Infographic: Top languages on the Internet

As the number of web users grows around the world, languages on the internet have continued to expand resulting in an increasingly multilingual internet. The Internet used to be English centric and even today; English remains the dominant language, but the remarkable growth of languages such as Chinese has changed the online language landscape.

Continuing on from a previous post on the Top 10 languages on the internet, which listed the growth of various languages on the web, I thought of revisiting the topic and look at the changes that have occurred since then through an infographic.

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A mission to understand the youth of the world

Adrian Fisk is the photographer behind the photos of young people from China and India we’ve featured over the last two weeks on People of the World. The concept is simple but effective: photograph young people with their thoughts about the future to compile a snapshot of the preoccupations of a generation, with the objective of increasing understanding between – and within – societies. So far iSpeak has covered China and India, and now Adrian is working on plans to take it to 25 different countries. I caught up with Adrian via Skype to find out more.

Western media project a certain image of China, but is it an accurate one? Pondering this question, Adrian realised how little he (and many others he knows) understood about China’s young people; their worries, hopes and dreams. Formerly a photojournalist, he had been living in India for the last seven years, and seen for himself the rise of South-East Asia, and in particular India and China. Together these countries have 1.2bn young people (aged 16 to 30): this generation is going to have a huge influence on the world, and so to understand where the world is going we need to understand how they see the world.

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UK riots: a Londoner’s perspective

Brixton is many things to many people. To me, it’s my home. To others it is variously the unofficial centre of black London; an artsy, left-leaning alternative and inclusive community; a gay mecca; a self-satisfied gentrified London borough brimming with 20- and 30-somethings drinking Starbucks; the drugs capital of London; the site of one of the best parks in London (complete with a recently restored 1930s lido); a deprived neighbourhood brimming with gangs, sink estates and gun crime. All of these clashing counterpoints coexist and are in their own ways true.

Walk around Brixton’s noisy, jostling, litter-strewn streets and you’ll see London in all its disorientating diversity: the chichi Farmers’ market; disreputable stalls unlocking stolen mobile phones; Marks and Spencer, the spiritual home of middle-class England; halal butchers sweeping blood and ice into the gutter at the end of the day; vegan cupcake shops; bearded, thobe-wearing Muslim men selling joss-sticks and distributing Islamist leaflets outside Iceland; a boutique selling expensive clothes made from traditional African prints; the Black Cultural Archives; Morleys (one of the oldest independent department stores in London); Portuguese delicatessens selling pasteis de nata; pound shops being undercut by 99p shops. All of life is here. These juxtapositions make Brixton the place it is: vibrant, exhausting, energetic, frustrating, depressing, inspiring and unique.

London after a night of rioting. Image credit: George Rex

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From our contributors: 9 August

Another week, another roundup of posts published by our contributors on their personal blogs.

From Anu, one of our contributors from India: Sky Watch Friday – Skies over Mumbai, a city skyline during Monsoon season.

Jason, our contributor from US West Coast, writes about Bolivia’s natural diversity in From Freezing Glaciers to Steaming Cloudforests: El Chorro Trek (more…)