Archive for August 18th, 2009
You are currently browsing the Culturamor blog archives for the day Dienstag, August 18th, 2009.
18
Aug
2009
Consciousness of Environmental Protection
A green world for us all!
I like to use google earth and it makes fun. And if you have a closer look at the topographic world map, you’ll see that China is covered with large area of deserts and wasteland, while Germany is one of the greenest piece of the world. This is such an exemplary country which combines natural beauty and economical development in a highly harmonious way. And all of this should thank its environmental policies and the participation of all citizens in environmental protection in the long-run.
One very urgent policy China should learn from Germany is that the costs of material recycling and pollution disposal should not be covered by the state, but be shifted to consumers and pollution initiators. For example, in Germany when people buy a bottle of mineral water, the costs for the plastic bottle is included into the price which means in oder to get this extra paid money back, people have to return the bottle themselves to appointed places in stead of the state paying a huge bill to buy the bottles back. One other way to reduce recycling costs is that in Germany waste are carefully sorted and those dustbins with different colours can be seen everywhere.
But the most important point for a good environmental condition in Germany is that everybody conceives such a strong sense for it. Not like Paris and some southern European cities, Germany is totally clean, streets and lanes, subways and trains, as is also related to the neatness character of Germans. It’s not allowed to eat food in a bus; bags are taken along with from home for shopping; Bicycle riding is favored if time allows and all people pay lots of attention to the environment they live in and they enjoy. As Germans like traveling so, it’s not hard to imagine how can’t they bear pollution in their own homeland.
For a change in China the first step should be made by the government and industrial manufacturers. Investments to reduce environmental pollution should be done as well as to promote the environmental consciousness of all the folk. I really hope what I see here can one day also happen in my own country.
18
Aug
2009
Embarrassing Experiences in Germany
Every foreigner will have to confront all kinds of embarrassing situations while living in a country with totally different culture. I myself have suffered just much less from that as I can speak the language at least. So to my Chinese friends who don’t know one single German word at the very beginning (Normally they just start taking language lectures until their arrival here in Germany and some of them don’t speak English well enough neither), life could be really tough and funny as comedies. So here I’m going to share some of their interesting and embarrassing experiences which they ever told me and left me such a deep impression^_^
(1) As a girl friend of mine first came to Germany, she could not understand one single word out of language abilities. So no wonder that every time when she went shopping and paid the bill at the cash point, she could not figure out the money to pay as the cashier told her and didn’t know as well that in Germany we have electronic screen to show the customers the price. But she was afraid that other people in the queue laughed at her so she always hand over a large note for change and thus received lots of coins. One month later there’s a huge pile of coins at her place already.
(2) A Friend was once receiving guests at home and people smoked a lot and ran out of the cigarettes. So he described with hand movement to the little boy of his neighbour that he wanted two boxes of cigarettes from the automat . Ten minutes later, he got two condoms from the boy.
(3) A friend once shown me the kitchen paper (to dry hands and so on) to asked me: “why do the Germans need the toilet paper to be so huge?!”
(4) In China the bus driver will always give a stop at every station but here in Germany you need to press the button yourself. On the first day of one friend in Germany he cried out in a thundering way: “That’s my station, I want to get off please!”
(5) In the language lecture the professor always liked to ask what people did at the last weekend. Then there was one classmate shouting loudly: “Ich habe Liebe gemacht!” ( German for I’ve had sex!)