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Culturally Confused
Can you explain in four words or less where you’re from? Not what it _____________ (1 – to say) on your passport, but where you’re really from. If it _____________ (2 – to take) more time than ____________ (3 – to drink) half a glass of wine, then chances are you’re a TCK – a Third Culture Kid.
TCKs are children with a home and host culture who create their own blend-in – a third culture. They have common traits: often multilingual, they share acute social skills and a keen awareness of the world. They tend _______________ (4 – to have) an ability for _______________ (5 – to adapt) to lifestyles and language nuances, a skill that stays with them throughout life. It makes them very skilled at _________________ (6 – to fit in).
Signe Bruun Jensen is in her mid-twenties and __________________ (7 – to live) abroad for most of her life. __________________ (8 – to move) from Denmark when she was three, she grew up between the US and Europe, went on __________________ (9 – to work) and study in countries from Asia to Latin America, and eventually came to Brussels, where she works for a policy think tank.
“My father is in finance and his career meant a lot of relocation,” she says. “Moving around __________________ (10 – to give) me the skills ________________ (11 – to handle) changing surroundings and the courage ________________ (12 – to take) chances. _________________ (13 – to see) a bit of the world as a child drives me to see even more.”
There are, however, downsides to ______________ (14 – to split) between worlds: confused friendships, lack of identifiable culture and restlessness. For instance, when _______________ (15 – to move) around, children don’t develop much commitment towards people or places and they see their parents ____________ (16 – to do) the same. TCKs seem unwilling to commit because ____________________ (17 – not / to tie down) is part of their personality. For them it’s easier to tune out and focus on meeting new people rather than ____________ (18 – to feel) sad about what they ______________ (19 – to leave behind).
For a TCK, not feeling especially ________________ (20 – to attach) to a country or culture is common. Ninety percent of them end up ________________ (21 – not / to live) in their passport country.
(After Peter Philp, The Bulletin, March 2006.)
b) Answer the teacher’s questions.
| VOCABULARY EXTENSION |
4. a) Read the text filling in the gaps with the proper words.
franchise ['frWntSaIz] – a formal agreement for someone to sell a company’s products or services in a particular place, in exchange for a payment or part of the profits
arduous ['Q:djuRs] – extremely difficult and involving a lot of effort
to tame – to bring something under control
nomad ['nRuLmWd] – someone who belongs to a group of people who move from place to place in order to find food and water for their animals and themselves
End of the Road
The real threat to _______________ (1 – travel / journey / travels) is that our sense of wonder will vanish along with the exotic destinations.
Far is not so far anymore. When I took my first long trip to India in 1986, I didn’t speak to my parents for five months because the phone lines were so bad. These details already belong to a very ______________ (2 – outdated / old-fashioned / unfashionable) world. If a young traveller went five months without calling nowadays you would assume the worst.
The world is _______________ (3 – shrinking / converging / diverging), thanks to cheap flights and computers, cable television, mobile-phone networks and the spread of commercial franchises that have put Irish pubs and pizzerias in cities as far apart as Baku and Tegucigalpa. And yet, the purpose of travel remains the same – ________________ (4 – to encounter / to come across / to meet) the unfamiliar, to get Elsewhere. It’s a piece of enchantment and transformation which can be arduous to reach, but which promises to enrich your understanding of the world. But the same global culture that now draws us together also ______________ (5 – frightens / endangers / threatens) to tame Elsewhere with uniformity.
I once traveled by plane through a wilderness of snow to visit the Even, a group of reindeer-herding near-nomads in northern Siberia, only to find myself in a wooden hut watching a Hollywood submarine movie with them. I wanted to eat ritual food and talk about shamanism; they wanted to drink whiskey and discuss Mr. Bean.
Our appetite for more and more ____________ (6 – extravagant / exotic / extraordinary) destinations is partly driven by this sense that Elsewhere is disappearing. It’s almost a relief when you come across indisputable national ________________ (7 – identities / traits / features): Russians quoting Pushkin, Argentines dancing the tango. Yet you half expect those characteristics to disappear in a shopping mall.
The danger is that as travel becomes easier, and places change to accommodate the homogenized appetites of global tourism, we will lose the sense of wonder that travel has always inspired. And if we lose sight of Elsewhere then we are no longer provoked by its unfamiliarity, challenged to open our eyes and look at our own lives afresh.
Nothing _____________ (8 – lifts / raises / rises) your heart like the first ____________ (9 – glance / site / sight) of home after time spent Elsewhere. Our native planet never seemed so spectacular as when we first saw it from space. Yet the answer is not to take space tourism, but to recognize that the close and familiar can have as much ____________ (10 – strength / force / power) to surprise us as the snowy Andes, or any other Elsewhere you choose. I recently returned home after a weekend spent walking with three friends. We covered 60 kilometers in three days – it would have taken 45 minutes in a car. But at our slow ____________ (11 – pace / speed / rate), the hills and churchyards and soft rain of north Devon gave me a greater sense of Elsewhere than I ever got from my first and somewhat disappointing glimpse of the Taj Mahal.
(After Marcel Theroux, Newsweek, April 2006.)
b) Answer the teacher’s questions.