Chapter9BritishWayofLife.doc

Chapter 9 British Way of Life

I. Leisure Activities
A recent survey showed that people in Britain spend about 45% of their free time watching TV, 24% of their free time socializing, 22-23% on sport and hobbies, and 10% on other activities. (America: a country on wheels)
The most common leisure activity in the UK is watching TV. Many TV programs are about wildlife, animals, holidays, cooking, and gardening.

The British are known as a nation of gardeners. Most people have a garden on their property. Saturday is traditionally the day for shopping and watching sports.

Sunday morning is usually for religious worships.
On Sunday afternoons, there might be some yard sales in the neighborhood.

For holidays abroad, the 10 countries to which UK residents made the most visits in 2005 were as follows: Spain, France, USA, Irish Republic, Italy, Greece, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium.
Most holiday trips were taken during the July to September quarter, which are the most popular months for holidays and many English school children are also on vacation in this period.
Seaside package holidays are the most popular type of holiday.
Relaxation
bar/club
theatre/ cinema
spa/ lounge/ tanning
foot massage
Yoga center
tea room
outdoor activities （canoe sailboat）
Living places for trips
grand hotel /hotel
express
inn
lodge/ motel
guest house
B&B
loft
flophouse
hostel
II. Holidays and Festivals
Valentine’s Day
February 14 is Valentine’s Day. It is celebrated as a lover’s holiday today, with the giving of candy, flowers or other gifts between couples in love.
The Origins of St’. Valentine’s Day:
Roman Emperor Claudius had determined that married men made poor soldiers. So he banned marriage from his empire. But Valentine would secretly marry young men that came to him. When Claudius found out about Valentine, he first tried to convert Valentine to paganism. But Valentine reversed the strategy, trying instead to convert Claudius. When Valentine failed, he was stoned and beheaded.
During the days that Valentine was imprisoned, he fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer. His love for her, and his great faith, managed to miraculously heal her from her blindness before his death. Before he was taken to his death, he signed a farewell message to her,“ From your Valentine.” The phrase has been used on his day ever since.
St. Patrick’s Day
The day is the national holiday of Ireland. In countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.
Traditionally, Northern Irish Catholics celebrate this day for Patrick is thought to bring Christianity to Ireland.
The shamrock (national flower of Ireland) is a popular symbol to wear. It is also considered very lucky to wear something green.
Easter
Most English holidays have a religious origin. Easter Day occurs on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox. It is originally the day to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians attend many church services over the Easter period.
But now for most people, Easter is a secular spring holiday, while for the children, it means, more than anything else, Easter eggs or chocolate eggs!
The symbol of Easter is the Easter egg, originally a Christian symbol of new life. People give each other chocolate or candy Easter Eggs.
Bunny shaped gifts are another symbol of Easter. Some experts say the Easter bunny was originally a hare as this animal represented fertility and growth in pagan mythology due to its capacity for reproduction. The Easter bunny has become an important symbol of Easter all over the world.

Halloween
Halloween celebrates people’s fear of supernatural powers. On Halloween, children dress up as ghosts, witches, and so on.
Children gather together and wander along from house to house asking for snacks and candies, saying “Trick or Treat”.
“Jack-o-lanterns” made with pumpkins are believed to keep the evil spirits away.

Christmas
Christmas Day is on December 25, which is the biggest and the most popular British holiday to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.
It is basically a home and family festival, and those who live away try to get back home. People buy presents for their friends and relatives.
People will decorate homes with evergreen plants. Christmas trees are usually decorated with shining ornaments and colored lights, and sometimes hanging with gifts.

In the evening, the family have a sumptuous dinner including poultry for the main course, for example, turkey, duck, goose or chicken, and Christmas pudding, and mince pies for the sweet.

Parents tell stories about Father Christmas, also called Santa Claus, who gives presents to children and knows what they want. Father Christmas is purely imaginary, but nearly all children believe in him. They think he is a merry old man with a long white beard and long coat trimmed with white fur. He comes from the cold Northern lands on a magic sleigh drawn by reindeer with bells. When children are asleep on Christmas Eve, he comes silently down the chimney and leaves the presents in a great sack near their beds. Actually parents fill the stockings and pillowcases with what they have bought.

Boxing Day
Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, which is a typical British tradition celebrated on the day after Christmas. People used to give gifts or money to their staff or servants. Now that most British people do not have servants, some people still refer to giving “Christmas boxes” to the postman and others who provide a regular service.
Thanksgiving Day VS Black Friday

III. Food and Drinks
British meals are an important element in family life. In the eyes of the British people, meals are rather formal affairs and are not usually shared with outsiders. Visits at meal time are impolite. If you do interrupt a family at meal time, you should apologize for intruding. They do not expect you to be invited to share the meal.
Breakfast is often a rather hurried and informal meal.
Traditional British breakfast include eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, mushrooms and baked beans all washed down with a cup of tea.
Nowadays, it covers a bowl of cereals, a slice of toast, muffin, pancakes, orange juice, and a cup of coffee.
Lunch time is from about 12:30-2:00. On weekdays, it is not big, sometimes very quick, either at the cafeteria or home-made sandwiches.
Britain is a tea-drinking nation. Most Britons like their tea strong and dark, with a lot of milk. Tea breaks are when tea and biscuits are served. The traditional afternoon tea time is about 4:00 pm, with cups of tea, slices of bread and butter, and sometimes cakes.
Dinner is usually with meat and two vegetables (one green vegetable and one root vegetable) usually served with gravy.
England’s traditional take-away food is fast food (fish and chips).
Typical formal Western dinner (five courses):
Appetizers
Soup (clear soup, thick soup)
Entrée
Dessert
Beverages
American Food
Typical food: Fast food
Ethnic food: Italian, Mexican; Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indian; Greece
America is coffee-drinking nation.
American coffee: Cappuccino (1/3 coffee,1/3 milk, 1/3 foam); Latte (more milk than coffee, almost no foam); Decaf coffee
IV. Sports
The British people are great lovers of competitive sports. It is natural for them to begin talking with a sports discussion even when they are neither playing nor watching games. They still have an admiration for sportsmanship, for playing with respect for the rules and the opponents and for winning with modesty and losing with good temper.

Cricket is invented in England and is regarded as the most English of all games. A liking for it seems to reflect the English character. Its comparative slowness and quietness is associated with its gentlemanly sportsmanship.
In recent years, it has become less popular than it was before. For the great majority of the British people, the eight months of the football season are more important than the four months of the cricket season.
The players wear white trousers and appear quite formally dressed. Matches do not last just a few hours and they can go on for days.
It is usually called “gentlemen’s game” and it is associated with a set of moral values, in particular the idea of “fair play”.
Rugby is more popular than association football in some regions like Wales. It is the traditional game of most public schools. It is played with an egg-shaped ball which may be carried and thrown. Each team has 15 players who try to stop the man with the ball by throwing him bodily to the ground.
Soccer claims the highest popular attendance in the country. But for most people, football is a professionals’ game to be watched on Saturday afternoons. Professional football is big business. Every large town has at least one professional football club.
The highlight of the English football year is the FA (Football Association ) Cup Final each May.
Horsemanship is skill in handling and riding horses.
Horse racing, which is divided into two kinds – flat-racing and hurdle racing, is chiefly a betting sport. The flat-racing season goes from the end of March to the end of November. Hurdle racing takes up the winter months.
Golf is probably the most attractive of British sports. Many men and women of all ages are professionally fond of it. Golf is played over an area of countryside in which there are 18 small holes. Each is indicated by a flag, and each one is several hundreds yards away from the next.
There are usually two players playing against each other. Each has a small ball which he has to hit towards and into each hole in turn, counting the number of strokes. The winner is the one who completes the course in the smallest number of strokes.
Tennis (a game for two people or two pairs who use rackets to hit a small soft ball backwards and forwards over a net)
Squash：a game played by two people who use rackets to hit a small rubber ball against the four walls of q square court
Billiards (a game played on a cloth-covered table in which balls are hit with a long stick against each other and into pockets at the edges of the table)
Baseball (an outdoor game between two teams of nine players, in which players try to get points by hitting a ball and running around four bases)
Hockey (a game played on grass by two teams of 11 players each, with sticks and a ball)
Curling (a winter sport played on ice by sliding flat heavy stones towards a marked point)

Museums
Many of the major national museums are in London. They have world-famous artistic, archaeological, scientific and historical collections. The British Museum was founded inn 1753, and much of the collection here is magnificent.
The British Museum Library
It is one of the largest and richest libraries in the world. There are many treasures and , in particular, many unique manuscripts.
VI. Mass Media
Newspapers
In the UK, there are 12 national daily newspapers, nine Sunday newspapers, more than 100 regional morning, evening and Sunday newspapers and nearly 1600 weekly paid-for and free distribution newspapers.
The British press is mainly divided into two types of national newspapers: the quality newspapers (broadsheets) and popular newspapers (tabloids).
The national quality newspapers, with more lengthy articles and bigger formats, were founded earlier and mainly contain political, industrial, financial and cultural news in the UK and international news as well. They include The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, and The independent.
Most of the tabloids are half the size of broadsheets. “Tabloid” is a pharmaceutical term, used for substances which were compressed into pills. They publish sensational stories to excite the reader and have enormous circulations. Daily Mail, the Sun and Daily Mirror are typical tabloids.
Radio and Television
British radio and television play an important part in daily life, social activities, cultural and educational causes. They are chiefly run by three companies: the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the Radio Authority, though there are many commercial companies.

There are five BBC radio channels during the day for sound broadcasting and they cater for different tastes. The BBC World Service operates extensive international short-wave services in 39 languages for about 700 hours per week.

New Agencies
There are several news agencies in Britain. Reuters, the Press Association Ltd, and Extel Financial are the main ones.
Reuters is one of the four major news agencies in the West. It is an important tool of the British government, though it is said to be a private or independent enterprise. It was founded in 1851 in London.