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英文回信“sorry, I am late but it is not toooooo late, to say 'Hello'I like to wellcome you to the team and hope all the ladies are friendly to you,smile.I think you heart already many things about me and so there is no need to explain myself.As you know I started my business mid of the year and sometimes I am pushing too hard,but thats me.Always looking for the best.”对方老总亲自的来信,希望有经验的朋友帮忙回信.内容简练,诚恳,幽默.对我非常重要,不是用奖励衡量的.烦请帮忙.!
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我假设你要去那里工作而回的信,如果我理解错了请指出Dear Mr.XX,I am so glad to hear from you and of course it will never be too late to communicate with such a great person like you.Thank you very much for your kind welcome and wish.I am sure that I will have a wonderful cooperation with the other teammates.After knowing your story,I realize that I really like to work with a boss who is so hard-working and prefection-pursuing,because I know that I am looking for a careeer,not a job.I do believe I will become one of the members of our team very soon.Yours SincerelyXXXX
其他类似问题
请根据楼上的翻译用中文写好回信，然后再请人翻译。不然谁知道你要说什么。
我理解是你刚刚加入他们公司，老总写信给你.对吗?如果不对,不好意思.呆会你再解释下吧.It's so nice of you to write me this welcome letter with the understanding of you being so busy as always. Yes, all the ladies are very friendly to me w...
Thank you for your letter. This is very important to me. I am very glad to make friends with other girls. I will try my best to work. In fact, I have started to prepare now. I will prove that in the future.因为具体的事情我不知道，你自己再加一点
“sorry, I am late but it is not toooooo late, to say 'Hello' I like to wellcome you to the team and hope all the ladies are friendly to you,smile. I think you heart already many things about...
Dear sir,how are you?I feel ashamed that you say sorry to me because you are so busy for too many business everyday. I have no complaints about you and I would like to express my gratitude toward...
扫描下载二维码Life story interviews
Life story interviews
Working with Migrants to Collect Life Stories
A key feature of the project was the development of skills and learning opportunities among migrant communities. Migrants who expressed an interest in being involved in the project were offered a twenty hour training programme on life history interviewing. The content included discussions around the knowledge about migrant communities they wanted to generate and promote, and how we might collect information.
Participants were keen to promote a positive image of migrants, to counter balance what they often perceived to be the negative portrayal of migrants, and in particular refugees and asylum seekers, in the media. At the same time it was felt important not to hide some of the struggles and difficulties facing migrants as they adapt to a new, and often very different culture and way of life. One participant described the project as &a way of saying hello to people who don&t know you&. Ethical issues, insider research and the importance of informed consent in research were all considered in the early sessions. Training was provided in writing an interview guide, posing effective questions and establishing a rapport in interviews.
The interviews
Please use the links below to jump to an interview:
As many of the participants did not want their identity known it was decided to use audio recordings rather than video recordings for the project. Having practiced using recording equipment and conducting interviews participants were given small audio recorders to go out and conduct interviews with friends, family and members of their community. Once transcribed the interviews were analysed together and the themes which are presented through the exhibition identified. At Brighton Voices in Exile the emerging themes were used with service users to prompt further story-telling and writing. It is hoped that the book accompanying the exhibition and the website will continue to be used in this way to promote further inter-cultural dialogue and learning.
The sixteen interviews presented here represent a selection of the interviews conducted. They were all conducted by migrants, most were conducted in English although one or two were conducted in a first language and then translated. The interviews and exhibition demonstrate the broad range of skills which participants developed during the project. The interviews, the book and exhibition represent the tangible outcomes of a project which, above all else, has been about process. In particular it has been about the process of engaging and working with groups who are often socially excluded to develop innovative and new ways of learning.
Linda MorriceJune 2012
Ahmad is from Afghanistan and came to the UK seeking asylum in 2009.
How long have you been living in Brighton?Exactly, since November 2009, so 17 months.
Have you lived anywhere else in England?No.
Can you compare life in Brighton with life where you have come from?I would say that comparing Afghanistan and a country like the UK is quite difficult. There are no logical points to compare, but well, I would say that here in England the quality of life is better.
I moved to my new house and it is almost 17 months, and neither of my neighbours has asked, hey who are you? Where do you come from? At least to be sociable with you, next door. Life is more individual in England. In Afghanistan is very different, if you come to a new house, the whole block or the whole street come and knock on the door because they want to know you, they want to help you. People bring you food and everything. But I can understand culture differences as well as culture similarities.
But would it be the same in Afghanistan if you moved to a big city?Well, I would say that at least your closest neighbours, at least they would come and knock on the door to say welcome, to say the mosque is there, the community centre is here, etc. They actually guide you and they try to find out if you are a good person to the community, that you are not damaging.
Have you had to adapt or adjust to Brighton?Yes, it is probably very important for everyone to adjust. Personally, it was very important to me to make life easy for myself and so I had to adjust. It doesn&t mean that I changed myself to compromise with the society. I&ll give you an example, many times I face lots of drunk people at the bus stop and most of them become harsh and bad, but I have to manage this, I adapted to this. No one could do these things in Afghanistan in public, they would be punished. But here, I just leave it, even if they swear. Other things I have adapted to are, for example, being social with people who have different thoughts, different beliefs. Many people think that as a muslim, I would be offended, but all I think is that we have just different beliefs. Most important to me is to respect and this makes me a good person. Yes, and adapting to thank you very much, please&
Is Brighton as you expected?Comparing Brighton to other places that I have visited, I find it very suitable for me, it is multicultural, I feel more secure, more connected to the community.
Britain is a good place for people who come from that region like Afghanistan, because the British went there centuries ago. People from that region know more about British culture.
So it wasn&t a shock when you came here?No, because I worked with foreigners in Afghanistan, but experiencing the real life in the society is different, but not shocking.
Can you tell me about work?Well, at the moment I am not allowed to work. Probably there are chances for me to work because I can contribute or get job in services such as interpreter or in places where I can help other refugees and migrants. Physical jobs I would do it for living costs.
Can you tell me about your background?I am from Afghanistan and that is a big back ground [laughs]. I am not married, I don&t have any children. My whole family comes from an educated background and they have been involved in Afghanistan with different regimes. My dad is a medical general practitioner and so are my mother and my younger brother, they all are in Afghanistan.
What kind of work were you doing in Afghanistan?I was working with policy-making with World Bank projects, to establish new policies, changing the paper work into computers system in Afghanistan. I am now involved with media to serve my people, my country. I am very busy, I have my own radio, so if people are interested they can visit my website. They&ll see what I am doing with my radio. Sometimes, Radio Reverb uses my show. I am doing lots of things, you can find me everywhere in Brighton [laughs].
Can you tell me about your experience of learning English?Well it is a long story, ah, ah. I went to Pakistan in 1995 because the regime of the Taliban took over and it was difficult for us to stay. I started learning English in Pakistan, but as a little boy it wasn&t really for me at that time because I didn&t even have the full knowledge of my own language. How could I understand other languages? So it was quite difficult, but my mother studied in America, so she pushed me, she said don&t waste your time at least you will learn something, and after two years I started learning. When I returned back to Afghanistan with the new government, in 2002, I stopped going to English classes. I thought it was enough, and in Afghanistan English is not a compulsory language. But then I started working with foreign organization and I had to use it. I started to use a different language that is not the one you learn in classes. And my university was in English, but I still need to improve and I am studying for it.
Would you say that there are differences in accents, slangs, dialects?Yes there are very big differences, but my intention is not to learn the correct accent, it is to learn the correct English which I can use in formal documents. And the other problem I face, as I studied American English, my pronunciation is probably American, but I try to copy and I ask my British friends how they pronounce certain words.
How many languages do you speak?Well, two Afghan languages, Pashtu which is the national language and Urdu and Indi and English, so four.
Do you use different languages or accents in different situations?Well not in the way that if I speak to a British person I put a different accent, but I try to pronounce correctly to make sense, because sometimes when you have someone behind the phone or a desk, they say sorry, it shows that I haven&t said the correct pronunciation and probably it is very difficult for them to understand.
When I talk to friends from my country we mix languages, like half Pashtu, half English, they don&t care. It depends on the situation if there is someone who can&t speak in English or if there is a British or a foreigner, I do what is the best for me and for the others to communicate.
How do you think people in England, in Brighton, see migrants?It depends, there are categories of people. I think that in Brighton people welcome refugees and migrants. But in England in general we know how the governments, how the politics is. They are using things to oppress the migrants, accusing them to steal jobs. Come on! Migrants do what the British wouldn&t do. Migrants do because they have problems, they feed their families back in their countries. But there are also in Brighton groups who don&t like migrants. Well, let&s hope we don&t face them, [laughs].
How does this make you feel?It makes me laugh, because when I see such people like the BNP, they can&t even give a logical explanation for why they go against migrants. Come on! Let&s go back to the history of Britain and have a look. Migrants came to this country, to save this country in WW2. Pakistani, Indians came here and fought for this country and died for this country and they are part of this country. They have full rights. Let&s look at good people and ignore the bad ones, they aren&t the majority. And it is difficult to leave your country, we know that the respect and the value that we can have in our country we can&t have anywhere else.
Do you think that speaking English as a second language makes a difference?Yes, I do. At the moment I am using it as a first language. Yes, it really makes a difference if we understand English. If you don&t know it, it is like you are a blind person, or if you know only a bit you are half blind. If you don&t know it, you will suffer.
How would you like to be seen?Well, I can&t expect anything. Probably people who know me, they think about me good, people that say that migrants are bad&
I would like them to see me as a human being. That&s the best option for all of us. I won&t limit my opportunities, life, visions just because people see me as a migrant. I am a free man and I can do everything I want.
Is there anything you could do to change these visions/ how could you contribute to the community?We have to promote ourselves with positive things, we have good things with us. We are part of the solution, we are not part of the problem. We can do lots of things as long as it is safe, campaigns, talks, events, conferences. We have to educate the students, they are the best of the society. They can spread awareness to the society, we can change thoughts about migrants.&
Is religion important to you?Religion for me is very important. This doesn&t mean that I am a fanatical who always bases the logic on religion. It is very individual for me. I don&t mean to influence society with my own beliefs. Anyone who wants to follow me, to ask me is very welcome, I will answer. It is important to me because it gives me peace. I have been believing in it and it is also the backbone of my culture. I practice my faith at home, sometimes I go to the mosque. My culture has also a big role in my life.
The transcript begins two minutes into the interview, after initial introductions etc& Anna has explained that she arrived in Brighton 6 months ago, having travelled by coach from Berlin. She came to do a Master&s degree in Anthropology at the University of Sussex.
The interview ranges from reflections on initial impressions, prior expectations, differences in social situations, language, clothes, weather, food etc& to considering the benefits or difficulties of living in another culture. In the final section of the interview Anna focuses on differences in higher education compared with Germany and considers her future.
And what were your first impressions when you arrived in Brighton? Well, my first, really first impression was that it was extremely warm, because it was a lovely sunny day. It felt like summer, like everybody [&] it felt like being on holiday somehow because of the sea and the beach and there were lots of people around. I really, really like that and then I somehow had the feeling that in Brighton and in general in England that everything is very small. I can&t really say how, why I have this feeling & somehow it&s like the buildings are very small and the houses are very small, the streets are really small. Maybe it&s just in comparison to Berlin which is a really big city and we have lots of really, really big streets. But here everything feels very tight and very small in a way and this is a feeling that I have all over England not only in Brighton but all over England, I don&t know, it feels small - but I like it. This is why I also moved here not London or something, because I really wanted to live in a smaller place, in a place where you can feel more familiar, where you can feel comfortable, where you don&t get lost so easily. [&]I don&t really know what I expected. I didn&t really think so much about what it would be like before coming here. Somehow for me it feels like, it doesn&t really feel like going to another country. At least before I went I didn&t think about I&m going to another country I&d better prepare. [ &] I&m going to think about what life&s going to be like, but then, but then when I was here I actually did feel I was somewhere else. But it is definitely that people are different, that people behave differently in a very subtle way, but I can&t I can&t really say what that is.
Were there specific situations that you can recall thinking &This feels different from the way people would have behaved in Berlin?& Mm& I know one thing that I&m usually well aware of or that I see when I go out, especially when I go out on the week-ends is [laughs] lots of girls in very, very, very short skirts and I would have thought this was pretty much the same around Western Europe but there are a lot more well people - well women and girls are wearing a lot more skirts in England than in Germany. I don&t know why this is really. Yeah, it&s not only when you go out. It&s also when you&re just on the streets or in the University, you see a lot more people wearing skirts and in Germany it is relatively rare: it&s mainly older women wearing skirts but young women do not regularly wear skirts - just for special occasions like marriages or something, you would there. Yeah. And this is something I become aware of every time I switch places and go back to Germany or come back here. Just, it gets my attention. Yeah.
In terms of social situations maybe, like conversation or greeting people or values? Are there any things you&ve noticed are different? Well, it is interesting that in the English language you don&t have a proper form which is more, I don&t know how to call this, a more distant form. You always say &you& to everybody never mind whether you know them or whether it&s your teacher, which feels strange for me because we have different forms for people whether you know them or whether you do not know them & like forms of respect. [&] And this is also that here you usually always talk to everybody with your first name. You will address people yourselves, introduce yourselves only with your first name. Lecturers only introduce themselves with their first name which is very strange for me because we, well people say that we have a sense of hierarchy which is more deeply embedded in German culture, but maybe this is something which also changes how you behave to people whether you call them by their first name or whether you call them by their more distant name as Mr So-and so&.
Um can you think of cultural events that are different or things that people do in their daily lives that seem different from when you&re in Berlin? Even small things? I&m just thinking about this. It&s not really a small thing but I was really surprised by Bonfire Night. I absolutely didn&t really know that it existed. And this is what I meant that when I planned like coming here, I didn&t really think about going to another country, but then when I was here I had the feeling that this is, well it&s actually a different country with a different history and you do not really learn this even if it&s all in E you do not even learn about the history of other European countries in school, so I was absolutely not aware of all this history around Bonfire Night and I found this really surprising, both in the ways of experiencing it and in the ways of, well, experiencing that you were absolutely not aware of this really important tradition.
How did that make you feel, the fact that you realised, once you were in Brighton, that, as you said, it was more like a different country than you&d expected?Well, I do feel a bit well, not necessarily guilty, but that I didn&t really think about it and I makes me feel strange, because I think I should have thought about it. I&m kind of unprepared. I&m just coming and expecting everything will be all right because they know English. Well, it is, well everything is all right, but there are still differences, you just don&t know&
Are there things that you found that are different that you particularly like, that you enjoy about Brighton or England, compared with Berlin? I don&t know, it&s probably not a thing about England, but I really like this thing you&ve got, even in situations where you have a certain kind of hierarchy, of respect, that still that you can still be very open, there&s usually a very open or friendly relationship between people. They&re not so distant, but maybe this is not always the case, it&s probably in the university context of course you have very open relationships between people and they&re very friendly. In other contexts people are not very nice.
And are there things that you miss about Berlin that you wish that that was here?I feel it is a difference in that in Berlin it definitely gets a lot colder in Winter and we have a lot more snow, but then on the other hand I think it&s also supposed to be a lot hotter in Summer, so that here it&s more temperate. In the Winter it&s warmer and in the Summer it&s colder. I find it a lot more comfortable here, because I can&t stand the cold, so this is what I like. But then on he other hand there is something about there being so much rain in England [laughs]. It is indeed raining a lot. But maybe it&s not, maybe it&s just the impression people have, because they have these expectations that it should be raining in England&Or maybe it is sometimes very windy which makes it feel cold even if it is not cold. But in general I&m very pleased with the way, I&m very pleased with the location and with having the seaside, being able to cycle from the university to the beach and all this kind of thing.
Is there anything you like about Brighton life that&s different from Berlin? Has it got a character that is different do you think? I think in many ways it is very similar because there are so many young people around. There&s so much about art and stuff&There is a general thing that I just, I feel more comfortable when I&m in Berlin, but that&s, it&s just because of the language. It just feels easier here if you can, especially if you&re just, if you&re meeting friends. It&s just easier to talk, it&s easier to make jokes or something, because in English I always think a moment, because even if I understand most things that people say, I can&t react so quickly and that makes a really, really big difference. And even I would say I&m pretty OK with English, but still it is always more difficult to socialise or to just be reactive and be spontaneous. That&s a general issue about language really and it is very, this is definitely something that I did not expect to meet so many foreign students here or so many international people, so I probably have more international people around me than proper English people, not because I&m just I&m not looking for them or something, but because all universities are full of international people.
Would that be the case in Berlin as well? I think it is not so much the case even if there are many people from other countries, but then they will stick more to themselves, I think, well because everyone is coming here that knows more or less English. English is still easier than German, so, for example, foreign students coming to Germany usually have a lower level of German than foreign students coming to England.
Oh, that is interesting. I don&t know. Maybe it&s just that you start learning English earlier. Maybe it&s easier to get to the level of communication, where you can communicate & you&re still maybe making mistakes of grammar and stuff, but you can still communicate.
But do you think there&s any aspect of your cultural life back in Berlin that you feel you keep to, that you want to still keep going while you&re here or isn&t there any difference really? Well, I don&t know really, Well for example about food. I wouldn&t say I eat specifically German food, but that is just food I&m used to, that I kind of like more sometimes [laughs] &cos bread in England tends to be [laughs] different from bread in Germany. We rather have stronger brown bread. The texture is very different from the white bread that we have here which is like. [...] They sell brown bread but then the brown bread still has this, it&s not strong, it&s somehow like fluffy, which I absolutely don&t like. They have this really, really, really dark rye bread, but then again really this is not something you
it&s like a special kind of bread, but like ordinary bread I didn&t really get. They sometimes sell it at farmer&s markets in Brighton, but then it&s really expensive, so I&m not really buying it.
Are there any other foods that you miss or that you&d try to get hold of that are German? I don&t know. There are some things like, for example where something like cream cheese, but which is not exactly something like cream cheese. Somebody said it was called curd, but then when I tried curd it&s something different [laughs]. It is a kind of cream cheese, but we would use it sometimes for baking or for putting fruits with, well it&s something between cream cheese and yoghurt. For each of these purposes you can use something else. It&s just something I was looking for and I didn&t find it. [Pause] In general I find it&s really easy or relatively easy to get hold of things here, even if I [&] Well, I guess most English people don&t have proper English breakfast all day or don&t eat like pies all day. I didn&t have any difficulty finding things that I like, even if there are some things that I don&t like. I think that&s the same for English people. They are not like in the books.
No. No. And is that the same in Germany, in Berlin? Yes. But I would say we have more the Arab and Turkish influence where here I really became aware and I really came to appreciate Indian cuisine. For example you can buy all this Indian stuff in supermarkets where we would never have that. Maybe, well there are less Indian and Pakistani people in Germany but also people are not so open to what&s Indian in food. And this is something that l really liked here.
So where would you get Indian ingredients in Germany in Berlin if not in supermarkets in Germany? Well. There are some specialist food stores run by Indians and Pakistanis. There are Asian food markets, but they are relatively rare and then it&s also difficult to buy what you want, because you can&t understand anything because it&s all imported, so it&s not produced for the German food market. Yes. That was something I really liked about here.
Yes. Thinking about why you came here, which presumably was your course that you&re doing at university& Are you glad that you&re doing this course and how does that fit into your life? Well, in terms of academically speaking, I&m very, very happy about the course. It&s really, really interesting. It&s definitely the best thing that. [&] Well, I think you always think that it&s that everything has been good the way that you did it, but I&m really happy with having chosen this course and having come here. Yeah. I think it&s always if you&re somewhere in academia it&s always good to have been to an English-speaking country, just because everything that takes place takes place in English, which can be criticised, but it&s just the way it is. So, it&s always good to have experienced both the language and the way people are. It works.
And do you see yourself as staying here after the course is finished or do you plan to go back? I think, well, I don&t know. It really depends on what is happening. I&m really looking for just randomly looking for opportunities for what I can do, both looking for a job or looking for some post-graduate thing for study. And if I found something in England I would probably stay here. But if not, I would prefer to go back and continue looking because the cost of living is higher than in Germany, especially in Berlin, because Berlin is (especially apartments) really cheap compared to here. But I would be open to staying if I get the opportunity in some way or the other.
Do you miss family and friends while you&re here or can you go back and see people quite easily? I think it&s not so much an issue because you can communicate by internet and by phone which is not so expensive and I have been back two times, for Christmas and I&ve been back a few weeks ago for interviews, like a job interview and things like that. It&s only two hours flying or like maybe seven/nine hours by train. It&s not too far. You can easily go back.
And what do you feel are the benefits for you? Well, I think language is definitely an issue. Also, in general, I don&t know, in general you always say it&s good to have experienced another culture. And in a sense I can&t really say what this culture is or what this thing that I have got to know is, or whether I really have adapted that much. Maybe it&s just that I haven&t really been exposed to British culture that much in here because all the environment seems very international in here and my flatmates are from California, so I sometimes have the feeling I&ve experienced more American culture than English culture and then I can&t really tell it apart because it&s all English speaking, so maybe there are even more issues that I&m not so much aware of or that would have been different if I had immersed more. But I think it is always good to go to other places and learn and like, being new, try to find your way in different contexts and different situations.
Sure. Would you say it&s made a difference to your confidence academically and as a person? Yeah. Yeah. I think it always does, because you learn you can find your way in some way or the other and that d even if it seems strange, it still works? It has rather opened a way because I did my undergraduate in another field and so I changed my career a bit. It was definitely a change for the better.
What was the field? I did politics before and I&m doing anthropology now which I find much more interesting because it&s centred more on what people actually do and not so much on theories on like how states interact or something like this, which is fine, I mean it&s always important to be aware of legal circumstances, of growth and political context, but it&s also important to ask people about what they do or how they experience something and look at the micro level and see how people make their world or how people experience their world. I think it&s much more interesting. It&s maybe not the best thing for finding employment, but I think I&m relatively confident that I will find something that will interest me. I would like to continue studies. This is another thing that, I don&t know, I sometimes think that university in general in England or in Britain is more specific in directing you to something where you can work. It is rather, you do your course and then you work. [&] We&re just the same in Germany, because people study in university to get a certificate for getting employment, but at the same time there is the pretension that it is about, I don&t know, that it&s about academic things, about research, about&
In Berlin? Yes. So, for example, in Germany it usually takes longer because you have more space. You don&t usually have more space. It&s more about this academic way of life, or this academic way of looking at the world which is more detached maybe, so, yeah, for example my Master&s here is really fast. You really have the feeling that it&s about doing some courses and then getting a certificate so that you know you have done the Master&s, and then you probably have a better chance of employment.
Does that seem entirely beneficial? Well, I think it&s different for different people. I think that many people who study at university do not want to stay in academia and that is perfectly fine, so it&s more about preparing them for getting a job in different ways or for doing the things they want to do in their life. Which is perfectly fine, I think. But on the other hand I think it&s a bit rushed or a bit more about having done something than about doing something, more about that you can put it on your CV, so I definitely feel a bit rushed in doing a Master&s degree in only one year. I&m, yeah, I&m pretty much done with my Master&s already. I feel I&ve just begun. I&d rather go deeper and spend more time.
Mm& and if not, what kinds of jobs do you think you might&.? Mm& I&m really interested in education, adult education, but, I don&t know, outside school, like additional things, not necessarily in the context of the school, like additional things like work camps, like thing like that where young people can meet and where young people can experience different things and learn in a more relaxed and a more free context than in the restriction of school.
Well&. Good luck! [Laughs] Thank you.
Domenico is Italian.
Could you tell me about your background?I was born in Italy, south of Italy, in a small but very nice small town. I used to live with my family and have many friends there. After I finished my studies in the University of Florence in Tuscany, I came to Brighton just for a holiday. One of my friends was living in Brighton, which was a nice place to live in, so I decided to settle there. Currently I am working on a voluntary basis. Previously I worked different capacities and did many jobs in Brighton. I am looking for a new job. I am single, have no children. In Italy, before going to the university, at the age of nineteen or twenty, I used to live with my family.& Since the university was in another town, during study period, I used to live separately from my family, but not lonely, always sharing apartments with someone else, mainly other students. On holidays I always used to go back and live with my family.
How many brothers and/or sisters do you have? Briefly tell me about them.I have one brother and one sister. My brother is married and has a small baby. He does many things. He have and is doing more than one jobs. He also has a small shop, kind of pharmacy. My sister is single and younger than me. Currently she is studying psychology and is working as a waitress, to cover her expenses. At weekends she is with the family. For the rest of the week, she is in a nearby town approximately 3 hours from ours, where she studies at university.
Compare life in Brighton with life where you have come from, what are the differences and similarities?There
one of them is the weather, which is much colder than in Italy. It changes so often and is difficult to get used to, or even predict. Another is the food. Britain is more cosmopolitan than Italy. Many different people and cultures lives in Britain eg variety of different kinds of food are expected to be found.
What about fish and chips, potatoes and puddings, which are traditional dishes here, are they popular in Italy?Neither of these I would call a dish, but then I wouldn&t call pizza a dish either. I tried fish and chips once when I came here but I didn&t like it. Such food I call junk.
Could you tell me about your experience of learning English? How many languages do you speak? Your experience of accents, slang, dialects. Are there any differences with your own country?I speak three languages, Italian which is my mother tongue, Spanish and English. Although my Spanish is not as good as my English, nevertheless I understand conversations, but I can&t properly speak in Spanish cos I haven&t practised speaking it. I am looking forward to learn new language, cos I like language and think they are very important for having/getting a good job, especially in a place like Brighton where there are many cultures. I studied English at school and the university in Italy, but my experience in learning, listening and speaking English in Italy is limited to Italian people who speaks English and not to native speakers eg English native speakers. Actually the problem is in the accent. You may know the grammar and the vocabulary but still don&t understand what is said in conversation. To learn, understand and speak English properly you must practise learning and speaking with native tongues. To me English is one of the most difficult languages, cos of the accent and the pronunciation. You can learn the grammar and vocabulary but then there are many other things that you have to learn. Contrary to Italian language English is not a phonetic language. Understanding, speaking and writing English properly, fluently is not so easy as it seems. Its needs a lot of time. That is what I try to explain to fellow mates back there in Italy, every time I go.
When you are with your friends or somebody else, eg at work etc, do you use different languages or accents in different situations?Yes I do. I have many Italian friends here so when we are together we usually speak in Italian or in dialects depending on, according to the time, place and also the people present. Sometimes in our conversation we use a mixture of languages and not one particular language. It is not proper English, Spanish or Italian just in order to understand what is said and to be understood by others, for example to understand each other. When there are English people with us or others (not Italians), we speak in English. When I am with my friends, especially friends I have known for many years, I prefer to speak in Italian. Using and speaking English is an everyday task and practice. Thinking translating and then speaking what I want or what I have to say causes me a stress. So when I am with my friends I want to feel relaxed to speak fast and fluently, accordingly I speak in Italian. That is why sometimes we start a conversation in English, (with English friends and other internationals present) and after a while we create small group of native Italians and I start speaking Italian. So yes I use and mix different languages and accents in different situations. The accent in which I used to speak to my Spanish and Italian friends or even people from other countries, is different from that I use to speak to English people. In speaking to English people, I try to imitate the accent and be more precise about pronunciation, otherwise they wouldn&t understand me & while others, for example non English & more clearly can.
How do you think people see immigrants? How does this make you feel?& How do you want others to see you?This is a difficult question &cos people see immigrants in different ways, according to the countries where they are coming from, the purpose for which they came, their education standard and background regarding culture and beliefs. For example, students coming to study in the UK are seldom called, referred to or called immigrants, &cos the English society is benefiting from them economically, they are here for a while and they are going back to their countries and &cos on completing their studies (even though they stayed here) they will be of high skills needed to contribute to economy. Nobody is going to complain about too much students, but everyone is going to complain about low skilled immigrants especially those with different cultures and beliefs. These are deemed to be taking the jobs, problem makers or even &milking the system&. People and countries have to deal and come to terms with such issues as immigration, cos globalisation means the influx of foreign people, cultures and beliefs. And their mixture with resident native cultures, beliefs and systems, whether socially, politically or economically migrants, whatever their background or skills are, should contribute to community, for example volunteering. Try to adjust to community/society by adjusting, approaching and embracing society values and beliefs. It is simple as that, when in Brighton, do as Brightonions do. It is fair &cos here is not anywhere you came from, it is Brighton. Common sense and understanding is needed from both sides, then appreciation and integration will be mutual. It is the same everywhere, not in UK only.&
Is religion important to you? What is the role of religion in your life?This is a fundamental question. In spite of the fact that I am a Catholic, however, religion has no important role in my life as spirituality has. While spirituality is of genuine importance to everyone life, religions are fake, empty, man-made schemes of hypothetical systems arising from, or because of, the weaknesses of mankind and their need for a creator and protector to be worshipped. Nevertheless, I like to read about different religions and cultures, to study them as an information and knowledge. When I came here, to UK, I was recognised as a Catholic, but then at that time, I didn&t know much about other contemporary Christian faiths like Protestantism or the differences between them. In Italy we usually call ourselves Christians but not Catholics. When I came here it was quite funny and striking to know and recognise that giving or saying you are Christian as an answer for a question about your religion is not enough. It seems to be always have to be followed by the additional necessary differentiating information as whether you are Catholic or Protestant. People will always react by saying &so you believe in this or this.& Pre-historic struggles and confrontations between UK Catholics and Protestants as well as internationally worldwide gave rise to all these differentiations. English Catholics are stricter in their beliefs and more committed &cos they were under constant threat and had many fights (faith fights as well as physical fights) against Protestants. Religion&s role and importance in my life arises from the fact that I was brought up in a Christian family and a Christian country, Italy. Christianity is my background culture, my values, my beliefs, attitude and behaviour are affected and derived from it.
Do you practise?To be honest in Brighton I never did, I never go to church but in Italy I go on occasions ie. weddings or funerals. Back in Italy I have some friends who are priests. Sometimes I visit them, stay with them and go with them to the church. Religions, faiths and beliefs have various differences &cos they are affected by different and various cultures, places, social, political and economical factors but they are all the same in their essence and objectives. Since they are all man made, eventually man is responsible for any differences and misunderstandings. Religion is man&s created link or connection with the invisible world. I would like to see American Indians before the European colonisation and how was their religion, I think it was very interesting.
Flexibility of religion & should it be flexible with, or in dealing with other religions, faiths, cultures, value, beliefs and people?I don&t like doctrines. Man was born free. Free to choose whatever he believes or likes or wants to do as long as it doesn&t hurt others or effects their interests. Fanatics are the ones who create problems. Radicals and hard, strict line religious believers are always behind or the cause of nowadays as well as historic struggles and confrontations. Wars, differences, confrontations and struggles between religions and cultures has nothing to do with spirituality. Globalisation necessitate that religions and cultures should adjust, change and be more flexible, otherwise they should have to go. Remember, UK is now almost completely a secular society but this is another story.
Eva is in her thirties and is from the Czech Republic.
How long have you lived in Brighton? Since August 2008.
Have you lived anywhere else? Yes I have lived in Southampton for four years and before Southampton I lived in the Czech Republic.
Can you compare life in Brighton with life where you come from? Oh yes I can, first of all because we don&t have the sea because the Czech Republic is a continent and is in the middle of Europe, so we don&t have the sea and that has changed life a lot because it influences everything if you live by the sea. The weather in the Czech Republic is different because in the winter it is cold freezing and can be minus 30 degrees and in summer it gets to really, really hot sometimes about 40 degrees. In Brighton the weather is all the time the same so that&s actually good, so I can cycle in the winter and any time. Yeah I can compare it in that way, I think the weather is really important to life.
Was Brighton the way you expected? I didn&t expect that Brighton was going to be so multicultural. I expected there would be many tourists, but I didn&t expect there to be so many people who live here who are not from Brighton and come from all over the world.
What do you like about Brighton? I like the sea, and I like the multicultural society here in Brighton. I like t that you can taste other things here as well, not just English food. That&s important.
What sort of food do you eat at home? The Czech food is really, really boring. It&s very boring food because there are all the countries in the middle of Europe like Polish, Slovakia, Czech and also Germans, they cook similar kinds of dishes but they are boring because they don&t use so many spices. We use mainly paprika that is it. So when we cook it&s just potato and meat, that is it, there is no vegetable,
the taste is always the same. Czech food is not very interesting at all and it&s really boring.
Do you have any access to your country&s food? Yes I do because there are so many Polish people living in the UK they have their own shops so time to time when I eat something that is special, for example, we have different sort of flour for baking, so I go there and buy in the Polish shop as the food is very similar to Czech food. But I don&t go there often because the food there is very expensive, so you spend quite a lot, so I can maybe go there four times a year.
Can you get it in Brighton or do you go somewhere else? I live in Hove and the nearest polish shop is in Seven Dials, and then in Kemptown there are two Polish shops.
And do you get the bus there? I cycle there, and usually I get the flour and maybe meat, meat as well because they have our own sausages.
How do you eat your food and how do you cook it? As I said it&s really boring and simple to cook. So it&s quite quick, and we have mainly based on meat. The food has to have meat, if it doesn&t have meat it is not a main dish, so therefore there is not so many vegetarians or vegans in central Europe as they do not have the chance to get anything [laughs]. So usually we eat pork and beef, which is the main. How we cook it is with paprika and when we eat there is not many vegetable in our dish so what we eat is we mainly cook cabbage for a long time and then add a tiny bit of flour to make it thick, sometimes with potatoes or dumplings and meat. So it&s really boring isn&t it?
Are there any similarities between your home foods and say English food? No I don&t think there is anything similar, probably we might have similar Sunday roast, you know when English eat roast chicken,
we do that similar dish as well at home, yeah, but nothing else can be similar.
If you can&t get your food do you settle for something else or do you travel to find it? My mum sends sometimes parcel of food but last time when I got the last parcel and she sent something in a glass and it was completely broken, so she decided not to send me anything now. Well, I told her not to send me anything becau she sent me some marmalade or something and it broke inside and everything was like yellow and because it was apricot marmalade everything was yellow and completely damaged so not anymore! But when I go home, I tend to bring luggage full of food and that&s funny because sometimes I have things that I really don&t know that I have packed because my mum tends to put everything in my luggage and gives it to me. So each time that I fly there is a person who asks you &Have you packed it all yourself?& and I have to say &Yes&, but I have no idea what is in the luggage because my mum packs everything! So I have to lie [laughs]. Yes, I bring it from home.
When you cook your food can you use original food or? To be honest I don&t really cook traditional Czech food that often because I try to eat something different and learning different dishes from different countries here. So I cook my traditional food only when my friends come to see me and I want to show them something from my culture. So I cook only for example for my partner, because I want to introduce him to my dishes before he moves to my country and complains! So I have to teach him what we eat and then I do it only when I want to show people what is our food, but I don&t cook it for myself like every day.
Is your food expensive? When I buy it here it is expensive, it is always expensive
What do the shops look like? I actually notice the Polish shops they kind of have the same way that the shops have in my country, I think it&s the way we have the shops divided. So some of the shops have a deli and that is very t when you have the deli, you serve yourself with food and put it in your basket what you want but then you go to the deli and they serve you with cheese and sausages and so on.
Is there something like a flag to show you where it is from? No, because all the food is actually from Poland, & but the shop is only for Polish so everything is written in Polish language. So for me sometimes it is very difficult to find what I really want because its written in polish which I can translate a bit but not everything I can understand.
Do you like English food? No, I don&t know I think it&s the same, I find it boring like Czech food it doesn&t have that many spices in it. And there&s one thing, what is the English food? Is it the shepherd&s pie? I used to work in the restaurant a lot so I was introduced to British food but most of the time the food has completely changed and you know adapted to people, so it&s more influenced by other cultures so it is not actually English at the end.
Can you tell me something funny about your food from your country? I don&t know what I would have from my country, but I have kind of story from here. Because as I said I work as a waitress in a restaurant and at the beginning & I didn&t speak English very well, so at times I would have to ask the customers a hundred times, you know, what did they say because I didn&t understand. And also I didn&t know the food very well and how the food is served here as well. So I learnt at the beginning and then people used to laugh at me because I remember one customer asked me about parsnip, but I didn&t know what a parsnip is, I know in my language but not in English and so I brought a bunch of parsley for the customer because I thought he had said parsley and not parsnip! That was confusing at the beginning. And another thing was one customer didn&t finish his food and he asked me for a doggy bag or something like this, and so I went to the kitchen and brought some plastic box and gave it to him, and then asked him, what sort of dog do you have and he was laughing at me! & I didn&t understand and he said well we call it doggy bag but it&s not for a dog it&s actually for me, for my dinner tonight! So I was like why do English say doggy bag if it does not go to the dog? So you know, this is a thing I struggle with in the culture, the language and you have to get used to it, you know? [laughs].
Okay can you please tell me more about the family life? The family life in the UK, I think it&s more what I found sad is that old people tend to live on their own without their family. And we used to live at home with my grandmother and my grandparents lived in a house a couple of metres from ours, so we were kind of all together whereas here because I used to work at a care home for old people and I found it sad to see lots of old people being left on their own, so that I found very sad in this country. But I think it is because the UK is a very large country and people tend to move for jobs somewhere else and can&t stay with their parents because they have to move from, let&s say, from north to south because of their jobs so I think it&s just because of that, I am not sure.
Could you please tell me more about your experience of learning English? Well there was the restaurant I learnt quite a lot [laughs]. I think I learnt more about the language of other countries because working in a restaurant, I was working in a Indian restaurant, in a Turkish restaurant and I had to learn actually the names of food from different countries, so yeah, but for English I am a person who learns by practising with people. Like practising vocabulary and being more practical I have to touch it, so I remember the word. So it took me a really long time to learn English and I came here a really long time ago, but I had zero English and I couldn&t communicate with anyone.
Okay how do they see migrants? There are different sorts of people. Some of them see migrants as people who enrich their lives and bring something with them &.especially when we talk about food, you know, when we talk about food this country&s got so much influence from other country&s food and I think this is one plus. You know, people see migrants bring something for them. But there are some people who think that migrants steal something from their own culture, so you have two sides of people. I think in Brighton we are lucky here because it is so multi-cultural and people kind of see us positively and that is really good.
How does that make you feel? I came across both types of people in the UK and especially because I work in a restaurant. So I have to deal with people quite a lot and I find it very positive, you know? I&ve never had any people who would feel like threatened by me, so it was kind of nice. But as I said it is Brighton, you go to different parts of the UK and you might feel you were not very welcomed.
What do you do for the community? Well that&s the thing you know I would like to be seen as bringing something for the country and this community, and what we do at the moment is we cook with other people and try to show food from different cultures. So I would like to show practically in this way, so people in the UK could see us as someone who cares about them as well and brings something new to share, because I think sharing is very important.
And what about gender, are females and males equal? Well I come from a country where equality with gender is happening but slowly and is still imbalanced. But yeah, there is a male dominance probably more than here in the UK because it is more balanced here. So for me it was difficult to adapt to it, but I think I&m learning quite a lot because each time I go home I&m a bit stricter with my father and he doesn&t like it! He says like six years ago when I came home I was able to go and give him a spoon when he needed it for eating, but now when I come home and he asks me to pass him a spoon I said well you have legs you can do it on your own, and he&s not used to that! So I think I'm learning quite a lot from this country!
Is religion important to you? Yeah I think it is, I was brought up in a catholic family and it is still an important role in my life and yeah, I&m lucky as well I can practise my faith in this country.
Okay is there anything else you would like to add to your life here? Less rain and I don&t know, I find living in Brighton is a really good experience.
What about social life, where do you socialise? I don&t have very much time to socialise to be honest. But if I do, it would be yeah ,sharing food with my friends so I would bring my friends to my house and socialise with them in this way, but there is not very much time.
Is it because of work or because of people are busy? I think it is more that everyone is busy and we don&t manage to get time for all of us like in one day, to decide we will do it that day because everyone is working or studying at a different time. But you know Brighton is small, but people tend to live in different places like Peacehaven and Saltdean and it is very hard to organise something.
Jessica is studying for a Masters qualification at the University of Sussex and is staying in the UK for one year. She is in her early twenties and comes from Taiwan.
I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about your first impressions when you arrived in Brighton.When I first arrived in Brighton my first impression was a lot of huge seagulls! Brighton has lots of seagulls and on campus where I live there were lots of seagulls, eating rubbish [laughs]. They fly down and take the rubbish from the bins and sometimes the food from people&s hands. I felt a little bit scared because in my hometown I rarely see seagulls. But here, it&s quite common and they are around us all the time. Brighton is a city, with a beach and a sea, which is like my hometown.&My hometown is called Kaohsiung, it&s in the south of Taiwan. Brighton is nice, but, compared to my hometown, it is a little bit small.
Transportation here is very different. The price of the transportation is quite expensive. Like the bus, it costs &3.00 or &4.00. It is quite expensive. In Kaohsiung one bus journey costs about 30p, no matter how far you travel in the city centre. We also have an underground which is a bit more expensive, but it is air conditioned. And in my hometown people also drive cars or ride motorcycles. We rarely have bicycles on our roads. But here, maybe because of the weather more people ride bikes. Kaohsiung is a tropical area so it can be very hot and wet.
Why did you choose Brighton? I think the weather is one of the reasons. And another reason is Global Studies is a famous school in Sussex. So, that is the reason why I choose here. I major in Globalisation, Ethnicity and Culture. To find the course I googled &ethnicity, culture and race& and I found 5 suitable courses in the UK. I chose Sussex because it is ranked highly, but it is not well known in Taiwan.
How did you come to Brighton then, from the airport? We booked a taxi from Heathrow to University of Sussex, because it was already 9pm, it&s night, so we did not want to take coach or trains, because we also had so many luggage, so booking a taxi would be convenient to us. And also because we eight people shared the fees, so it was not expensive, around 15, &15 each, so it was still reasonable.
And can you remember what your first impressions were when you arrive on campus? I think, our university is not a classic, British university [laughs]. Because I went to Northern Ireland, so the university there is like around 100 years old. So, the buildings, the style is quite different. But here is like a modern building, modern architecture. I thought our campus was quite near the highway, the A 27! Yeah, before I came here I googled a map to check where our university is and I saw there is a highway, the A 27 just next to it. I was wondering: &Oh my God, if it is a rural area it&s not convenient for me.& But I did not worry about it, but, when I arrived here I though &Oh OK, it is quite convenient&, because we just need to take a bus 25 to the city centre and it just takes 20 minutes or half an hour, so it&s convenient.
Campus life I live in accommodation on campus and there are many international students living together. So I had to get used to living with people who come from different countries. Some of the students they have different living styles. Like, they prefer to mess up the kitchen, they don&t want to clean [laughs] the kitchen. So sometimes we had to have a conversation with the student - &Please keep clean& or something like that. But it is a good experience for me to communicate with students who come from different countries. It meant we all had to speak English. Just one Taiwanese girl lives in my flat. And in all we are six people, two Taiwanese, one Japanese, one Thai, one Turkish, one Indian [laughs], so all from Asian countries. We are all postgraduate students and we don&t have parties every Wednesday like some of the undergraduate flats!
We usually eat dinner at the same time and we are curious about each others food. So, sometimes when we cook dinner we all have our own, traditional cuisine. So we will say &Ah this is Turkish cuisine, can I try it& (laugh). Yeah, so we share our own foods and our cultures. The kitchen is a very important place for recognising different cultures. For example my Turkish flatmate was Muslim, so he didn&t eat pork. At first I was nervous of eating pork in front of him and keeping pork in the fridge. Taiwanese and Japanese people eat pork quite often. But he said &No don&t worry! I don&t mind seeing pork in our fridge, it&s not a problem for me&. My flatmate from India was very young and hadn&t lived away from home before. She was really homesick and felt lonely, she said she had no friends here. We tried to talk with her about life in India and encouraged her to talk about herself and her studies. She spoke English well, but she was quite shy to make new friends. We used to take the shuttle bus to Asda and we invited her to come with us.
Life here in Brighton For me, I just study, and sleep [laughs] and sometimes I hang out with my friends in the city centre. We window shop and we watch English girls to see what they are wearing and what is fashionable in the UK. It is much cheaper to buy clothes in Taiwan, but some brands, like H & M and Zara are more expensive in Taiwan. And that&s it. Because I think I don&t have much time to go other places. I need to focus on my studies. In the first term I was quite nervous because I didn&t think my English was good enough and also the style of studying is very different. We don&t have seminars in Taiwan, just lectures. For seminars you have to read a lot, but I read slowly in English and I wasn&t sure how many books I should read.
To be honest, it was quite stressful to study here, especially the first term. But that&s the reason why I choose to study abroad. It&s a good challenge, for me. So, although it is very tiring for me I still feel happy to be here. The students in my flat were all international so we would share our experiences and encourage each other. So most of us found it hard to speak in seminars, even though we studied hard we felt disappointed if we didn&t manage to speak in our seminars. Most Asian students will wait for other students to finish their comments before trying to speak and we won& but here you don&t need to wait and people do interrupt. We want to say something but we have to wait and then the topic has finished.
How long was your Bachelor&s degree? Five years, because I enrolled two degrees. Yeah, Usually an undergraduate degree is four years in university. But I enrolled on two degrees & ethnology and education so five years for me.
Are there things which you miss about your life in Taiwan? Sometimes I miss Taiwan because in Taiwan we have lots of delicious traditional foods. It is very hard to find here. I especially miss my mum&s homemade dumplings. You can find dumplings in the UK, but they are usually frozen and not freshly made. I liked watching my mum cook and I learnt to cook when I was young. So I can cook the foods which I want to eat here in the UK. I usually go to Chinese food shops to buy ingredients for Eastern food.
Although I miss my hometown I still like it here. I like the different life style and different cultures. I am a person who adapts easily to different environments, different cultures. So, hm, yeah, so far so good [laughs].
Sometimes I go out with my British friends and they will recommend me which kinds of food is the traditional British food. British food usually has potatoes and there are many different nationality restaurants here, so many different kinds of choice for me.
Do you have contact to the Taiwanese Community living in Brighton? Or, just to the students here on campus? I have been to contact one owner, who is owner of a Chinese shop. And she told me there are a lots of people, lots of Chinese communities in Brighton. But people are from Hong Kong or China. But for Taiwanese, only students I think. And I contact my family in Taiwan quite often, maybe one or twice a week, we use skype, MSN. Usually I share my feelings about my study, about my friends. And yeah, I usually talk to my family about a lots of things around me. So although I am studying here, not in Taiwan, I still keep in touch with my family and share things happening around me. Everything, almost everything.
When it is one of my Taiwanese friend&s birthday we will get together to celebrate and to cook traditional foods together. But everyone has their own social activity and we don&t want to st the aim is to come here to practice our English, and if we stay together, we will talk in Chinese. So, it is not useful for me or my friends. But it depends. As I know, most of the Taiwanese choose to study school of business and maybe half of their classmates are Chinese [laughs] So they usually talk in Chinese. So if you want them to speak English all day, they will feel annoyed [laughs]. But for me, I feel it is okay to speak English all day.
So what do you do when you are not studying for example? In my case, I usually go to the sport centre with my friends, some of my friends who like to play badminton or squash, so maybe three times or twice a week, to just do exercise together. It&s important to do exercise here because we are under stress with our