Interview #3
ENGLISH191
Interviewer: Zhu Xian
Interviewee: Berner David
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Preparation of Interview
For the third interview, I followed the same interview questions but I slightly change my interviewee. My first and second interviewee they all students, though they come from different countries, the way their thinking are very similar. This time my interviewee is a 45 years old American taxi driver, because I think people with different age they have different angle to answer my question. About this last interview I decided not to provide my interview transcription. Because I want to after interviewed this person and compare the characteristics about that previous two countries China and Somalia.
The first time I saw David was last semester, my friend and I order a taxi from Orange Company to go to super market. David is a very passionate taxi driver and we talked to each other very happy. He told us that he is interested in China and he want to go to China for travel. After that we are become friends.
David is very happy to accept my interview; we meet each other in China Star which is a Chinese restaurant in St. Cloud. According to the last two interview questions I change a little bit for my last interview. They divided into four parts which including personal background, education, food family and economy. In these four aspects I will pay more attention on education, family and economy.
Education:
The last two interview shows that the education systems in many countries are almost the same; (1)before age 7, kids go to kindergarten (2) from age 7-12, elementary school (3) from 13- 15, junior high school (4) from age 16-18, senior high school (5) from age 19-22, university. So I decide to ask David more detail about the education issues in the United State, not just around the age level. For example what kind of activities the American students act in the school and their homework.
Family:
Although people get influences from the subculture where they grow up, people in China and Somalia share similar views of values. How about Americans?
Economy:
America is a developed country and China is a developing country. How does the national economy influence their citizen? For example the job and the daily life.
Personal review
This is my last interview, after finished that three interviews that I truly experience not only what is an interview, but also enrich my knowledge. Interview people from face to face can make me more confident; I know how to communicate with people very harmoniously. As my first and second interviewee, David is a very passionate person and he answered all the questions which I mentioned. According to this interview I summarized the differences between these three countries.
Education:
However, each country’s education means has a big difference. In China, the teachers decorate a lot of home works every day from primary school to graduate from high school, and we focus on the textbook. This also happened in Somalia. The thing is different in the United State, teacher encourage students’ innovation. Americans like to do something unconventional or unorthodox, the teacher in the teaching also use this mean. For example painting, in China, the teacher painted a picture on the blackboard and let the students to copy. The teacher evaluation standard of quality of painting like that who draw the picture is the most similar with picture on the blackboard and who painting the most cleanly. So this is the best. However in the American school, the teacher not to let students draw specific things, but give students a imagine topic. For example, if you see a dinosaur and how do this dinosaur looks like? So students according to their imagination to draw the picture. Of course, Chinese education method has been in reforms, also like the United State to encourage students.
Family:
The traditional American families are “nuclear family”, also called core family which comes up with husband, wife and their children. Today most American families have two to three children (maybe have some pet). In some country, people live in an extended family and even a few generations living together. This happened in China and Somalia. But in the United State, only in very rare cases generations of people living under the same roof.
American values in the internal family are very popular. Many families are democratic and every family member has the right to speak. In the American families is filled with the ideas of equality. The children will be as a friend as their parents and not be afraid of them. Wife, husband and children share housework. In most cases, the children in their bedroom enjoy privacy. The children also take responsibility of money management early. They may have some pocket money every week even fix the laborer. Parents often give children a free to make their own decisions.
In China, most children are so dependent on their parents, their pocket money from their parents. Not to the age of the legal work is illegal behavior. So most Chinese college students’ tuition fee and daily life fee all from their parents, this also happened to me. Before they graduate from the university they don’t need to worry about the work and money problem. After graduation you can find job by yourself also the parents will help their children. Now, most Chinese families are three generation lives together. Because when the children grow up and their parents are getting older and older, the responsibility of take care of parents falling at their child, not the government. The government is responsible only for old people who don’t have child. This are balanced, when you are a child your parents take care of you and when you grow up parents are getting old, you have to take care of your parents.
(4)
Country report
The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. (1)”The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.”
(2)”At 3.79 million square miles(9.83 million km ) and with about 305 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with an estimated 2008 gross domestic product(GDP) of US$ 14.3 trillion(23% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 21% at purchasing power parity).”
The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence. A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17,1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
(1)”In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states’ rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North’s victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world’s largest. The Spanish-American War and World War1 confirmed the country’s status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War 2 as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The end of the Cold War left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for approximately 50% of global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.”
Source:
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