Monday, 12 May 2014

Culture - Country - Product: Quest, p. 24, x. H.

Exercise H. on page 24 of Quest is Hartmann's first response writing exercise, something we have been practising for the past two weeks. However, I think it's also useful to spend the ten minutes that Hartmann suggests on this exercise, which is what we will now do.

Choose one of these topics:
  • a popular product in your country that comes from another country
  • one custom that is important in your culture 
  • one value that is important in your culture 
Write about your topic for ten minutes. Don't worry about grammar, only that your ideas be clearly stated in sentences, and don't stop writing to use a dictionary. You don't need to worry about being correct or providing solid support for your ideas here. The purpose is to put down as many ideas as fluently as possible in the ten minutes you have.  

__________
Reference
Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

17 comments:

  1. A popular product in my country that comes from another country is Garret Popcorn because the taste of this brand is different from another popcorn that is full-flavored both of Caramel and Cheese. Actually, this brand used to be ordered from people who went to abroad but when it had a shop in Bangkok, many people had a long line to buy it, and now they still have many people who have a long line to buy it. In addition, when you try it, you might addict with it, and can't stop eating.

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  2. One custom that is important in my culture is unity. You have to be a part of the group to be successful. The decision always based on the need of the group. Sometimes they promote their man instead of the one that has potential. However, I'm not agree with that. I always think it is wrong to promote someone because he only has good relationship with big guys, especially in government section.

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  3. I think a popular product in my country that comes from another country, first thing that come in to my mind are crispy cream and garrette popcorn. Two product are also very popular in other country, not only in thailand. I think Thai people accept and admire products from other country more than Thai's one. Two of them are popular, so many Thais vendors import these and sell in the internet. With popularity, few months later, 2 shop are being in Thailand, Siam paragon department store. There are many many people form a line to buy them.

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  4. A popular product in my country that comes from another country is cellphone. These days, most of Thai people use cellphone, and all of them are from other countries, such as the United States and Korea. Apple and Samsung are the two famous brand which is quite popular. I think both of them have a good shape. They all are easy to use and quite effective.

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  5. A popular product from another country which is popular in Thailand, the obvious one in my opinion, is Moji. It is a typical souvenir gift from provinces not far from Bangkok. It is one of the most well known OTOP (One Tumbol One Product). If my friend went to travel and bought something for me, the first thing I would expect is moji. I don't understand how Japanese sweet became Thai souvenir. It's sold next to original Thai sweets, but it's sold more.

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  6. I'm thinking of one product which almost Thai people use it, It's Apple product. I don't know how its minimalist and curve design began to popular but at last I bought iPhone5 too. I saw many of my friends use iPhone and other Apple product such as Macbook MacAir Apple TV. I even knew someone who use every Apple products and collect them. For me, It's very expensive but I bought it because of its function which is suitable for me. Anyway, I still wonder why kids want iPhone. I saw my 12 years old niece and 8 years old nephew asking their parents for iPhone, what will they do with it except playing game and enjoying social network? some people just only choose iPhone for their kids because they think it's cool which is very dangerous if your kids' iPhone will be stolen.

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  7. One custom that is important in my culture is respecting the olders. Thai people should respect to the person who is older than them and some another countries don't have something like that. I think this custom is good for us because the older person have more life's experince, they maybe have decide better than the younger. Although their opinions are sometimes different from us but it's good to listen thier advice.

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  8. One popular product in my country that came from other countries is smart phone. I think that this product pretty influence our lifestyle nowadays. As we can see the scenario on the dinner table that most people lessen care about their partner on the meal time but they glance on the phone all the times. This's scenario really demonstrates the thing that happens in our life. Our ways of life have been changed by many things that from other countries, especially Western Countries. This lead me to think why we don't consider the Thai product and follow the very old slogan that "Use Thai product, Eat Thai product for Thais". This we can do things like this. Basically we can reduce the import of goods for the other countries and that will make our economic become stronger. So have you used Thai thing today?

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  9. to me, important value don't always mean "useful value", so sometimes i believe that important value is something critical and need to be changed in order to progress my country forward.

    the important value that i need to discuss is seniority. in thailand, most people are conservative so they pretty care about seniority. for example, they usually give priority to elder than the youth. in companies, it is normal to see the fresh graduate with proficiency ignored by the employer who prefer to use the elder.

    i don't say that every younger should be received a great respect or important duty. in fact, it depend on the person. the factor we should use to measure someone should be skills, attitude or something like that -- not the age.

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  10. Power distance is one of the values that is important in my culture. I think both people with high and low status should help each other to do a work for avoiding mistakes. Maybe boss can make some decisions and get good results, but rationally, I'm sure that many brains is better for sure; moreover, everything does not depend on levels in the company. Sounds interesting.

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  11. One custom that is important in Thai ''s culture is respect to the Royal family. Thais deeply respect to the king and queen. If someone disrespect to the Royal, they will go to jail. The king and queen of Thailand have made Thailand better and better. They are the central of Thailand value. People stop rioting for the king's birthday. If someone continue doing something disrespect to them in that day, thais will not accept and forgive that.

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  12. I am writing about a popular product in your country that comes from another country is Line appication used in smartphone and computer gatget. It is very useful to make an easy communication with each others from whereever they got internet.there are many benefit from using Line. First is easy communication, Line app provide communication in realtime like text mesasge, picture message and voice. Moerover, it not only for individual chating but are capable to make in group.Next, one of interesting part is Line offer easy and funny online game that you can play alone and have comparing the scores with your friends.

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  13. Touching someone's head is very rude in Thai culture. Thai people believe that head is the highest part of human's body and it is the center of soul, so when whenever you touch someone's head that means a kind of insult. Moreover,Thai people always pay attention with the part of body. We believe that lower part of body,feet for example, mention dirtiness, so we don't put feet on the table too, that means not respect.

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  14. One custom that is important in my culture is "wai" which is the behavior for praying respects to one another, especially my father and my mother. I think this is a good manner and essential custom for Thai people. I have been teaching that when I meet someone that has higher status than you, I must pray my respects and do this action because the others who is given will have a first impression in your politeness also have a good attitude too. I have never seen this action in any other country but I think that the foreign people might have their own actions for praying some respects to the others too but aren't "Wai" as Thai style.

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  15. One of values that my culture valued the most is "Gratitude" especially to your family members. There is an old Thai proverb that said "Gratitude is a symbol of a Good man" which use by some school as their motto. It is very important in Thai culture to take care of your elder parents and keep the family bound after you move out your parent's home, unlike in western culture. This value was influenced by teachings of Buddhism and reinforced by Confucianism which uphold by Thai Chinese that emigrate to Thailand several centuries ago.

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  16. A popular product in Thailand that comes from another country is MAC. Because of its high quality, a lot of thai people are interested in their products. Mac has different kinds of cosmetics and also has a lot of beautiful packages to choose. I think these are other factors that result in the popularity of this brand in Thailand. In addition, there is a trend in thailand that it is better to use cosmetics that come from another country.

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  17. I think one of the most import customs in Thailand is to respect the elder. Not only Thai people think this practice polite, but also as a way to get a job or become successful in business. However, I don't like the latter thought at all. To get a job or success in business, in my opinion is all about your qualification, experiences and skills. It won't be a problem if you get a job by your relationship to your boss and can do your job very well, but if you get a job but don't know anything at all about your job, in my opinion, this is unacceptable.

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