Hello
welcome back to our MOOC
Oral Communication for EFL Learners I am Zhang Wenxia from Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Tsinghua University Today I will lead you through Unit 3
which as Glenn has just introduced will focus on differences in food and eating habits
across cultures
Before we start the text let's think about the question How much do you know about food in different countries First I would like to invite Tom to go through the text with us and see how much you understand about the food cultures discussed in the text Hello this is Tom again and in today's lecture I would like you to read the text first
Next you can read after me sentence by sentence You may want to repeat reading until you feel comfortable about paraphrasing the main idea of this text in English People in different countries cook various kinds of food The historical geographical and climate features of where they live and their ways of life
influence their cuisines People in South Korea love to have pickles In Thailand
most people enjoy spicy food as Thai curries can be really hot
The Japanese prefer to have raw food and seafood for they live in a small island
In Italy most people have pizza and pasta
with every meal There are many specialty pizza restaurants all over the country The British love fish and chips
The traditional foods in the United States are hot dogs cokes and other fast foods
American-style fast food chains are currently on the increase all over the world
Most people in Europe or Britain have a simple but nutritious breakfast such as a whole-meal bread juice milk and bacon Some Americans have a sandwich and coffee for lunch on weekdays
Chips are also called French fries or fries for short Similarly
food is the best way to explore Chinese culture Chinese traditional food is mostly made of grain
Balanced nutrition is important in Chinese food Western people value time very much
So sometimes they eat fast food to save time as well as keep enough energy This is quite different from the Chinese attitudes towards food as they often eat together to communicate with friends and family
Unlike the West where everyone has their own plate of food in China the dishes are placed on the table
and everybody shares They tend to cook more than enough especially when they treat their guests at home as they will do their best to show their warmth We are what we eat and we choose foods
to suit our ways of life Now I want you to read after me sentence by sentence
You may want to read aloud to yourself at home more than twiceNow I would like to explain a few words and expressions that we’ve noticed in the passage After that my Chinese colleague will explain
the text in more detail in Chinese fast food chains
many people in Britain and America like to pick up food very quickly They don’t like to spend a lot of time waiting for their food to be prepared
So there are lots of restaurants in the West that consist of
very quick food These have become very popular and the taste is recognizable
across the country and lots and lots of the restaurants appear in
lots and lots of towns These are called fast food chains For example McDonald’s French Fries
there are many differences between the language in Britain and America French Fries is
one of those differences These are fried potatoes and we would usually call them as British chips but in America they call them French Fries
