Interview with Thuy

Q: Hi Tweety. I want to ask some questions for Mr. Patrick’s homework. You agree?

A: OK. I’m ready. J

Q: Where were your parents born?

A: Well, my parents were born in Hanoi.

Q: Where in Czech did you live?

A: I lived in Ostrava.

Q: What school did you attend?

A: It was called ZS Horymirová 100.

Q: What did you study in school?

A: I studied Czech language arts, math, music, P.E., biology, nature, arts. There were not a lot of homework.

Q: How was school?

A: School was really short. It started at 8 o’clock and ended at around 1 p.m. So we had a lot of free time.

Q: OK. How many students were their in your class?

A: Around 20.

Q: What did you do after school?

A: I hung out with my friends. There was a playground in front of our apartment. We played police and thief, dodgeball, across the ocean, hide and seek…

Q: It sounds really cool. Let’s change the subject. What food did you like to eat in Czech?



Guláš



A: I love guláš. Guláš is a special kind of stew made with beef, onions, and vegetables. I also like řízek.

Q: What’s the city like?

A: There’s much less traffic, much less than here. We do not have a lot of motorbikes. Cars, buses, and trains are more common. We could run around in the streets and not get crushed, but our teachers strongly advised us not to.

Q: How about the climate?

A: Well, in spring, it is really warm and cool. And flowers blossom. We have tulips, daisies, and daffodils. In the summer, sometimes the temperature can get up to 33 degrees Celsius. Fall is cool. The leaves turn to different colors. We have yellow, red, orange, brown, and some trees remain green. And the leaves fall off. In the winter, it is really really cold. The temperature can get down -10 degrees Celsius. We used to play snow fights, and sometimes we make the snow man. We even brought them home, but it melted anyway.

Daisy

Daffodil

Tulips

Q: Wow. It sounds really fun. Umm…I like to learn languages. Can you teach me some simple words?

A: What do you want to know?

Q: Good morning?

A: We say: dobrý den.

Q: How do ask for someone’s name? How do you answer?

A: OK. To ask for someone’s name, we say, “Jak se jmenuješ?” and then we answer, “Ja jse jmenuji Thuy.”

Thanks for you help Thuy. It is very interesting. J




     After reviewing my notes for the interview, I could see that the culture that Thuy experiences is very different than what I experience, because Czech Republic is so far from Vietnam. For example, our languages are very different. Vietnamese uses only one syllable per word, less difficult grammar but more flexibility in expressing but in Czech, you can have many syllables per word. The conjugation is absolutely horrifying, making English conjugations a clown's joke. Also, our climates are different, and thus our behavior and activities during these seasons are different. I am indifferent to the wet and humid climates because all my life, I have not experienced bitter-cold winters or played with snow or watched leaves turn red. However, Thuy has and she has created the snowman in the winter, etc... Our foods are different. The flowers are different. The city is different.

     Though these huge differences in culture, I cannot help but notice some similarities. For example, her school offered the same basic courses that Vietnamese schools offer: Language Arts, math, music, P.E. She connected with her friends. They liked to play many "children" games like: Cross the Ocean, Wolves and Sheep, all the games that we used to play as a kid. Thuy liked to hang out with her friends in the playground, just as we did. I vaguely remembered begging my mom to allow me to play a mini-bumper cars game with my friends.

       Therefore, I think that although Czech and Vietnamese cultures are so different in many ways, when we boil down to the simplest ideas, our Czech and Vietnamese cultures are fundamentally quite similar.