week 13

Adriana Villarreal A00820061

Jessica Talamas A01381313

Countries and Cultures

For week 12 every team had to do a presentation about the country assigned and in this text you will read a report about what we learned about each country.

Wales

First of all we are going to talk about the country of team 6; Wales.

Wales capital city is Cardiff, a important fact that we learned was that only 21% of the welsh population can speak the native language also in Wales the flag had a lot of meaning, it has been changed; furthermore, my classmate said that he wondered if the Union Jack flag was going to change due to the separation of Wales from it. The government of wales is under a parliament and it makes laws about health, education, environment, transport and housing and other manner were in charge of the parliament. Also we learned that Wales has a unique holiday called St. Davis day in which they celebrate it with parades, festivals and food.

India

The team that presented about India taught us about the tribes that India had and it is important to know that they still have gypsies tribes. In India tourism is very important, you can visit India any time and it is assured that you will find a festival or a carnival, because of the many celebrations they have also India has the Taj Mahal, one of the 7th wonders of the world.

India has different traditional food per city because their food and seasoning is very different among all the indian cities. Mahatma Gandhi is one of the main characters and leaders of the world and he is responsible for the freedom of the Indian people from the Brits.

South Africa

South Africa is located as its name says in the south of the African Continent, it is a country with a population of 48,000,000 and it has a combination of black, white, coloured and indian people and poverty is one of their main problematics. South Africa is a democratic country and as for today their president is Jacob Zuma. The main religion in South Africa is christianity with a 68% and the following religion is 28.5% of beliefs that are based in indigenous and animist. An important thing to know is that it has 11 official languages and English is spoken for political words and in the corporate but most of the South Africans know only the basic knowledges of English. South Africa is recognise by many for being the only country that had hosted the cricket, rugby and soccer world cup also for one of the most inspirational figure in the world named Nelson Mandela.

Singapore

Talking about Singapore, we learned that this country is located in the Asian continent being the smallest state in the Southeast Asian region. It has different ethnic groups for example Chinese, Malays and Indian because of their location. This country is known because of their strange laws. One example of this kind of laws is selling or chewing gum. Another example is drink or eat in public transportation.

The team also talked about some special events that they celebrate. For example the Chingay Parade, the Thaipusam, Vesak Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and of course New Year's Eve.

Philippines

What we learned about Philippines is that it consists of volcanic islands. It is said that Philippines has more volcanoes than towns in the complete country. Talking about history, it is known that Ferdinand Magellan was the first expedition that arrived in Philippines and claimed the islands in 1521. By 1898 Philippine was declared independent from Spain.

The Philippine culture is diverse because they have Asian, Spanish and American culture. Referring to society, it is known that they have strong family values, they pretend to be richer and they have large families.

Because of their location, fish is one of their traditional food. In special occasions, they eat pig with rice and coconut milk.

New Zealand

From this team, we learned that people that live in New Zealand are called Kiwis. This is because a Kiwi bird is able to take fencing wire and do whatever they need with it and resourcefulness apply to who they are.

The team explained that the first inhabitants of New Zealand were the Maori. The Maori culture is still a core part of New Zealand's national identity and traditions.

Auckland is the largest and most popular city in New Zealand because of their Sky tower, volcanoes and museums. They also explained the main sports that people from New Zealand practice. Their main sports are rugby, cricket, soccer, netball and basketball.