Unit 7 Culture and Customs

1. Unit 7 Culture and Customs

2. New words and expressions for Reading One: • edible: If something is edible, it is safe to eat and not poisonous. • ...edible fungi. • ≠ inedible

3. nourishment: If something provides a person, animal, or plant with nourishment, it provides them with the food that is necessary for life, growth, and good health. • He was unable to take nourishment for several days. • taboo: vt. 禁忌,避讳, 禁制,禁止 • orthodox: believing in all the traditional beliefs, laws, and practices of a religion • an orthodox Jew

4. ritual: done in a fixed and expected way, but without real meaning or sincerity • The police issued the usual ritual apology. • cannibalism: If a group of people practise cannibalism, they eat the flesh of other people.

5. furor: A furore is a very angry or excited reaction by people to something. 暴怒；狂怒 • The disclosure has already caused a furore among MPs. • = uproar • domesticated: domesticated animals are able to work for people or live with them as pets

6. pastoralism: the use of land or a farm to keep or graze sheep, cattle, etc. 畜牧 • adaptation: Adaptation is the act of changing something or changing your behaviour to make it suitable for a new purpose or situation. • Most living creatures are capable of adaptation when compelled to do so.

7. caribou: a North American reindeer • reindeer: a large deer with long wide antlers (=horns), that lives in cold northern areas • horticulture: [uncountable] the practice or science of growing flowers, fruit and vegetables

8. millet: [uncountable] the small seeds of a plant similar to grass, used as food • marginal: If the land or area is marginal, it is around the periphery (edge) of used land. It generally cannot produce good crops. 贫瘠的边缘（土地）的 • detrimental: Something that is detrimental to something else has a harmful or damaging effect on it. • ...foods suspected of being detrimental to health... • = harmful

9. bullock: A bullock is a young male cow. • aversion: If you have an aversion to someone or something, you dislike them very much. • Many people have a natural and emotional aversion to insects. • lactase: An enzyme occurring in certain yeasts and in the intestinal juices of mammals that is capable of splitting lactose into glucose and galactose. • 乳糖酶：一种能将乳糖分解成葡萄糖和半乳糖的酶，它存在于某些酵母或哺乳动物的体液中。

10. lactose: Lactose is a type of sugar which is found in milk and which is sometimes added to food.

11. Check Your Comprehension AAnswer the following questions with the information from the text. • 1. How does culture influence the food people eat? Give some examples. What people eat, when they eat and how they eat are patterned by culture. Certain edibles are ignored, others are tabooed. The food taboos may be so strong that just the thought of eating forbidden foods can cause an individual to feel ill. For example, a Muslim or orthodox Jew would feel this way about eating pork, and an American about eating dogs.

12. Check Your Comprehension A • 2. Do people eat whatever is rich in protein or other nutrients? Why or why not? People don’t eat all the food with rich protein and nourishment. For example, human flesh is a source of protein, but it is not one that most humans are willing to take as food.

13. Check Your Comprehension A • 3. What are the stages human beings have gone through to obtain food? Human beings have gone through three stages to obtain food. Stage one: hunting and gathering. People rely on food that is naturally available in the environment. Stage two: pastorism. People raise domesticated herd such as goats, sheep, etc. for their meat. Stage three: agriculture. People plant, raise and harvest crops from the land.

14. Check Your Comprehension A • 4. Explain why the three groups mentioned — Kohistanis, Pathans, and Gujars— can live peacefully in the same mountainous area. Kohistanis, Pathans, and Gujars inhabit the same mountainous area. These three groups are able to coexist peacefully because each utilizes a different aspect of the land.

15. Check Your Comprehension A • 5. What is the reason given in the text for the Hindu taboo on eating beef? It’s a reflection of an ecological adaptation. Cows are important sources to provide Hindu farmers with farming help. If they are eaten, their life will be greatly affected. Therefore, killing cows for beef would endanger the Indian agricultural process. The taboo is directly caused, of course, by religious decree, but the previous logic is a possible explanation of why this decree came to be in the first place.

16. New words and expressions for Reading Two: • punctual: If you are punctual, you do something or arrive somewhere at the right time and are not late. • He’s always very punctual. I’ll see if he’s here yet. • scheduled: If something is scheduled to happen at a particular time, arrangements are made for it to happen at that time. • The space shuttle had been scheduled to blast off at 04:38... • A presidential election was scheduled for last December... • No new talks are scheduled.

17. respectively: in the same order as the items that you have just mentioned • Their sons, Ben and Jonathan, were three and six respectively...

18. Check Your Comprehension Answer the following questions with the information from the text. • 1. What did the professor find on the first day of class when teaching in a Brazilian university? He found that no student came on time for class.

19. Check Your Comprehension • 2. What and who did the professor decide to study? He decided to study the students’ behavior. He talked to American and Brazilian students and gave them an example and asked them how they would react if they had a lunch appointment.

20. Check Your Comprehension • 3. Do Brazilian students leave immediately when the class is finished? No, they don’t. Only a few students leave the class at noon and many remain past 12:30 to discuss the class and ask more questions.

21. Check Your Comprehension • 4. How is lateness viewed in American culture? And how is it viewed in Brazilian culture? They have different feelings about lateness. In Brazil, it is believed that a person who usually arrives late is probably more successful while in the United States, lateness is usually considered to be disrespectful and unacceptable.

22. Check Your Comprehension • 5. What did the professor learn as a result of his study? He learned that the Brazilian students were not being disrespectful to him. Instead they were simply behaving in the appropriate way a Brazilian student does in Brazil.

23. New words and expressions for Reading Three: • apprehensive: Someone who is apprehensive is afraid that something bad may happen. • People are still terribly apprehensive about the future.

24. wondrous: If you describe something as wondrous, you mean it is strange and beautiful or impressive. (LITERARY) • We were driven across this wondrous vast land of lakes and forests. • Cajun: Cajun means belonging or relating to a group of people who live mainly in Louisiana in the United States, and are descended from French people. Cajun is also used to refer to the language and culture of these people. 阿卡迪亚人的 • They played some Cajun music. • ...Cajun food.

25. spicy: food that is spicy has a pleasantly strong taste, and gives you a pleasant burning feeling in your mouth • a spicy tomato sauce辛辣的蕃茄酱 • pickled: Pickled food, such as vegetables, fruit, and fish, has been kept in vinegar or salt water to preserve it. • ...a jar of pickled fruit.

26. vegetarian: Someone who is vegetarian never eats meat or fish. • Yasmin sticks to a strict vegetarian diet... • TV dinner: A frozen prepared meal, usually packaged in a disposable serving tray, which needs only to be heated before serving. • 盒装电视便餐：一种速冻包装的食品，通常包装在一次性的食品盘中，吃前稍热即可。

27. cholesterol-clogged: If a vein or artery is cholesterol-clogged, it is partially blocked by cholesterol, a fatty chemical substance that animals, including humans, have inside them. When veins and arteries are clogged with cholesterol, the person suffers a condition called arteriosclerosis, which can kill when it becomes severe enough, as not enough blood can get through the veins and arteries due to the blockage.

28. obesity: [uncountable] when someone is very fat in a way that is unhealthy • unfounded: If you describe a rumour, belief, or feeling as unfounded, you mean that it is wrong and is not based on facts or evidence. • There were unfounded rumours of alcohol abuse... • The allegations were totally unfounded... • = groundless

29. Check Your Comprehension B • American English combines the influence of many other languages, mostly European but many of them from other languages around the world as well, while the Korean language was heavily influenced mainly by Chinese until about 400 years ago. Thus, the languages are quite different.

30. American food is relatively mild, heavy, and unhealthy, and unsuitable for vegetarians. Generally, Korean food is very spicy, light, and healthy, and suitable for vegetarians. • Young people in America are allowed the greatest freedom in choosing their partners and living together and marriage/divorce arrangements, while many Korean marriages are arranged by matchmakers and there is not so much freedom involved in living together, marriage, or divorce.

31. Check Your Vocabulary • The boy felt apprehensive of the day for him to return home. • The student was brought in front of the blackboard to account for his behavior. • Although they are brothers, they have little in common. • When he first came to America, he couldn’t adapt to the rapid pace of change.

32. They felt puzzled when they were doing the project, because the principles were alien to them. • Compared with other women of her age, she was indeed luckier.

33. New words and expressions for Reading Four: • stoically: not showing emotion or not complaining when bad things happen to you • She bore the pain stoically. • dissuade: If you dissuade someone from doing or believing something, you persuade them not to do or believe it. (FORMAL) • Doctors had tried to dissuade patients from smoking... • He considered emigrating, but his family managed to dissuade him.

34. defiant: If you say that someone is defiant, you mean they show aggression or independence by refusing to obey someone. • The players are in defiant mood as they prepare for tomorrow’s game... • sway: [intransitive] to move slowly from one side to another • The trees swayed gently in the breeze.

35. twitching: [intransitive and transitive] If a part of someone’s body twitches, or if they twitch it, it makes a small sudden movement. • His mouth twitched slightly, and then he smiled. • He twitched his eyebrows.

36. repressed: A repressed person is someone who does not allow themselves to have natural feelings and desires, especially sexual ones. • Some have charged that the Puritans were sexually repressed and inhibited. • maniacal: If you describe someone’s behaviour as maniacal, you mean that it is extreme, violent, or very determined, as if the person were insane. • He was almost maniacal in his pursuit of sporting records... • She is hunched forward over the wheel with a maniacal expression.

37. mustiness: n. 霉状，霉性，霉烂 • mothball: A mothball is a small ball made of a special chemical, which you can put among clothes or blankets in order to keep moths away. • crisp: bracing; invigorating 清爽的；充满活力的 • crisp mountain air清爽的山间空气

38. kowtow: To kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in expression of deep respect, worship, or submission, as formerly done in China. • 叩头：跪下并使前额触地，以表示高度尊敬、崇拜或臣服，以前曾用于中国。 • chant: If you chant something or if you chant, you repeat the same words over and over again. • Demonstrators chanted slogans... • The crowd chanted ‘We are with you.’... • Several thousand people chanted and demonstrated outside the building.

39. ideograph: n. 表意文字，表意符号 • blotch: A blotch is a small unpleasant-looking area of colour, for example on someone’s skin. 斑点，污点 • = mark • disassociate: If you disassociate yourself from something or someone, you say or show that you are not connected with them, usually in order to avoid trouble or blame. • I wish to disassociate myself from this very sad decision... • = distance ≠ associate

40. nagging: making you worry or feel pain slightly all the time • nagging feeling/doubt/suspicion etc • There was still a nagging doubt in the back of her mind. • Lee had a nagging pain in her back. • outshout: vt.喊声高于... • He outshouted all critics of his scheme. • 他驳倒所有批评他计划的人。

41. vendor: A vendor is someone who sells things such as newspapers, cigarettes, or food from a small stall or cart. • ...ice-cream vendors. • = seller • raunchy: If a film, a person, or the way that someone is dressed is raunchy, they are sexually exciting. (INFORMAL) • ...her raunchy new movie. • “[He] uses language so aggressively raunchy that he seems to be insisting his choice of vocabulary, at least, is no sin” (Wall Street Journal) • “[他]使用的语言都是令人震惊的下流，看来他至少并不认为自己的用词是什么罪恶” (华尔街期刊)

42. lilting: A lilting voice or song rises and falls in pitch in a pleasant way. • He had a pleasant, lilting northern accent. • pedestrian: ordinary and uninteresting and without any imagination: • a painting that is pedestrian and unimaginative • a rather pedestrian student

43. frenzied: Frenzied activities or actions are wild, excited, and uncontrolled. • ...the frenzied activity of the general election... • The man was stabbed to death in a frenzied attack. • gibberish:If you describe someone’s words or ideas as gibberish, you mean that they do not make any sense. • When he was talking to a girl he could hardly speak, and when he did speak he talked gibberish. • =nonsense

44. cluck: When a hen clucks, it makes short, low noises. • Chickens clucked in the garden. • fanatical: If you describe someone as fanatical, you disapprove of them because you consider their behaviour or opinions to be very extreme. • As a boy he was a fanatical patriot.

45. pidgin: Pidgin is a simple form of a language which speakers of a different language use to communicate. Pidgin is not anyone’s first language. • He’s at ease speaking pidgin with the factory workers and guys on the docks. • smattering: A smattering of something is a very small amount of it. • I had acquired a smattering of Greek.

46. chop suey: a Chinese-style dish that consists of meat and vegetables that have been stewed together • exasperation: [uncountable] When you feel annoyed because someone continues to do something that is upsetting you. • Carol sighed in exasperation.

47. corner: [transitive] to force a person or animal into a position from which they cannot easily escape: • Once the dog was cornered, he began to growl. • taco: A taco is a crispy Mexican pancake made from corn and eggs, which is folded and filled with meat, vegetables, and a spicy sauce.

48. Cinco de Mayo:May 5, observed by Mexican communities in Latin America and Mexican-American communities in the United States in commemoration of the 1862 defeat of French troops at the Battle of Puebla. • 五月五节：五月五日，拉丁美洲的墨西哥人居民团体和美国的墨西哥裔美国人居民团体，为纪念1862年在普埃布拉战役中击败法国军队而庆祝的节日。

49. Check Your ComprehensionAnswer the following questions with the information you get from the text. • What did the writer and her brother have to do every day at 5 p.m. ten years ago? Were they willing to do that? Why? The writer and her brother had to go to a Chinese school to learn Chinese, although they were unwilling to, because they didn’t want to learn Chinese.

50. How did the writer describe the principal of the Chinese school? He was tall and thin, swaying on his heels like a palm tree. He looked stern, like a crazy child killer. • What did the Chinese school teach? It taught children to speak, read, and write in the Chinese language. It also taught them Chinese culture, for instance, to show respect to their teacher.