#technology2

English allows you be connected with the entire world. I heard it many times and with all these class I realised that it was true. Thanks to the video conference my classmates and I spoke and made friends with people around the world, U.S.A, Russia, and Mexico. With all these connections we could know a lit bit about them. 

Although sadly, we could not have the same number of connections with the Mexicans. I really thought that the connections with them will be a disaster and fail because they speak the same language than us, but I was wrong (not at all). From a teacher perspective, they were very responsible and respectful about the no use of Spanish. They spoke English all the time. I was surprised about the students from other countries like Germany, I did not expect that. 

My "Mexican partner" was a boy called Brian Oliver, he is from Germany and he learning Spanish and obviously about Mexico. He is very happy in this country and as I can appreciate, he is really polite with them. With the purpose of know more about Mexican culture, I asked him a question, and the answer will be very objective or at least will be the result of a comparison between German culture and Mexican culture. My question was the following:

How is the Mexican culture? 

It could sound a little basic but you must consider that culture include the lifestyle, food, celebrations and other aspects. But I will be focused in these three, because of the answer of Brian. His answer was: 

People in Mexica are very nice, they are warm. People in there are friendly and also strangers can talk. Food is delicious. One celebration that calls my attention was the "Dia de Los Muertos", they celebrate the dead, everything is orange on this day. In Halloween time there are scary things everywhere, no matter if children can see it, they really like "maiz" beans and chillies. Another celebration is the Independence of Mexico, it is very important for them so, they celebrate it on several times

I learn thanks to him and the video conferences that they are very religious and they have an interesting gastronomy without mention the delicious taste that it has. Mexicans are really nice people and they are polite with other cultures. Another thing that I learn was that some stereotypes that I was known could be true, for example, their love to the beans, chillies and tacos. 

Meaning of Life and Religion... I hear to many time that little phrase, the awesome is that I always said a different answer. Today’s topic was about how everyone looks the life and how can you avoid the religion and the church? 

With the Mexicans we have a nice conversation because everyone says what are their life meaning, some of us the answer, the happiness, the family, travelling have a career, complete your life’s tasks and makes your dreams real. For me? The meaning of life is that you have the power to be happy and to create happiness. I remember that I asked if the love is important in life, they say yes but fastly the conversation turn around married, we tell to the Mexicans the situation here in Chile, people do not want to get a compromise. I am not sure about it, at least I want to get married. Generally, couples prefer to live together without papers, I know but, all the Chileans.

Did you see the Christmas commercials on the TV? The topic of today was about the traditions of each culture. My partner and I were talking about how we celebrate culture. In the beginning, both are late because I took some of my time trying to remember and searching if I was in the video conference or chatting this day. Fortunately, I had the chatting, so I could take advantage to progress in my homework and chat with my partner Brian. 

He told me that in Christmas they cook a pork instead of a turkey, our ways to celebrate Christmas are exactly the same, the only thing that changes is the main dish. And then, in the next day, his family go to the grandmother house to continue eating, in there they eat a giant turkey in the company of their relatives. 

How do you feel if you have to speak English in a country that everyone speaks your native language? This feeling is the feeling that I expect to have during the presentation, but something unexpected happened, some of the students are from other countries, from German. From my perspective it is very interesting because I will sure that my partner will not use Spanish in the chatting, another benefit that I consider I could have is the contacts, I will be in contact with people from other countries, and probably I could meet more people of German and their neighbour countries. 

Finally, the last day came. Today was the presentation´s day, the day when everyone is praying waiting for a good connection, to could understand what are the people behind the screen talking. Dasha, Marcelo and I were working very hard on this, and like in the last time with the East Carolina students, when I had the presentation with Ari, the global question was a little bit confusing. In the beginning, Dasha did not trust in me about the collaborative way to answer that question. But when Rod said: “The global question is something you have to do together”, Dasha´s face was showing an indescriptive face of happiness. I hope that our answer was that our teacher wants.

My relation with Dasha was very good, in the beginning, was hard to establish a good relation, like all the relationships, and now we talk as good friends. The negative part of our relationship, was from me because I was a little lazy, she started very soon the presentations, and I did not pay so much attention, and with the time I get lost. I am very grateful of her behavior, and I am regretful of my behavior.

With the presentation, I learned that Russians are passionate in the same way like us when they have hockey or soccer matches. I am not an expert on sports for that reason this presentation was very interesting for me, another detail about sports that I learn was the environment, the environment could have an impact in the sports that you could practice. In the Global question we talked about elders, elders sometimes do not have ways to have fun, especially elders that live in a special house or in an asylum.

Every culture has specials things that make the cultures specials, my classmates talked about this topics too, one of the topics which called my attention was the Proverbs and sayings. Chileans have a lot of sayings, some of this sayings do not tell a story or are in relation to a historical fact. Nevertheless, the Russian sayings and proverbs can teach you a little bit about history, because it has their origins in the ancient written sources. For Chastushka, for example, is a traditional type of short Russian humorous folk. I think that the Chastushka is the Russian´s “Paya” because it has rhymes as the same our dear “Payas”. 

Russian and Chileans shared several things in common, I did not expect that, I thought it was hardest to explain about our culture, but they could understand usI am very impressive about the Russians, I was totally wrong about how they are, this time I was blinded by the stereotypes that I read and knew about countries with a cold weather. Dasha shows me that the stereotypes are false, she was very polite and nice to me, and the rest of her classmates too.