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Voluntary simplicity is a countertrend to the complexity of modern life. The priority for people in this movement if to follow Thoreau’s famous suggestion: “Simplify, simplify.” These people focus on working less and spending less.
II. Choose one paragraph – B, C, or D.Give a short summary of it. Then compare your summary with those of other students who summarized the same paragraph.
III. In small groups, talk about your answers to these questions:
1. In your country, is there a countertrend toward simplicity? If so, what do people do to simplify their lives?
2. What “extreme sports” are popular these days? Have you tried any of these? Do you know anyone who has tried one? If so, tell your group about this sport. Why is it so thrilling – so exciting?
3. Are there any scents that cause you to experience a “sudden rush of memories”?
IV. Discuss the fads common in Korea:
The strong consumer economy in Korea may explain the bursts of fads – or are they trends? – at the turn of the twenty-first century. Here are some.
Among teenagers
- Computer game rooms were very popular. Students discovered that some computer games could be extremely addictive. Especially popular in the year 2000 was DDR –Dance Dance Revolution – an L-shaped machine with a computer that instructs the dancer where (and how fast) to move his or her feet.
- Photo machines allowed people to take their own picture (or a picture with friends) and choose a special background for it – for example, the cover of Vogue magazine. The machine made these photos into stickers, which people put in all sorts of different places.
Among Tired Working People
- At lunchtime, a person who had to stand all day could have a thirty-minute foot massage. A person who spent a lot of time on a computer could have a finger and arm massage. And for a person in the service field, there was a head and neck massage.
- For people who put in long hours at work, there was the “capsule” – a very small room in a new kind of inn. In these hotels, there were perhaps fifty capsules on each floor. Tired workers could take a short nap at a low price.
- There were also saunas that stayed open all night. A businessman could relax in the sauna and have his shirt washed and ironed while he did so.
V. People worldwide who don’t know much about another culture may have oversimplified ideas – stereotypes – about it. Some stereotypes are positive and some are negative, but all are somewhat dangerous – or untrue – because they are too general. Although stereotypical ideas are partly right, they are also partly wrong. A stereotype often begins with the word all: “All people from that country are poor.” People who believe a certain stereotype usually do so because they lack knowledge.
VI. Here are some common stereotypes of people in the Unites States:
· Most people are rich.
· It’s important to these people to be fashionable and “trendy.”
· They have big cars.
· They go to baseball games all the time.
· The diet in the United States consists of hamburgers and hot dogs.
· Everyone owns a gun.
· A lot of people are poor and homeless.
· A lot of people have psychological problems.
As with all stereotypes, these ideas are oversimplified. For example, most Americans are actually middle-class. The majority of people do not own a gun. Many people rarely eat hamburgers or hot dogs; in fact, the number of vegetarians is growing.
a) Make a list of stereotypes that people from other countries have about your culture.
b) Is there another culture that you know about? If so, make a list of common stereotypes of people from that culture.
c) For each stereotype, write a brief note about it. How, in your opinion, is this stereotype correct, incorrect, or both? If it is incorrect, in what way?
| Stereotypes | How These Are Correct or Incorrect | |
| My culture | ||
| Other culture |
Saving the Planet: Our Environment in Danger
Discussion point:
a) What does “environmentally friendly’ mean?
b)In what way do you try to be ‘environmentally friendly’?
II. Read the following statements and answer the questions given below:
1) Modern man has been around for 4 hours. During the last hour Man discovered agriculture. The industrial revolution began a minute ago.
2) During those sixty seconds of biological time, Modern Man has made a rubbish tip of Paradise.
1. What do you think of the future of life on Earth?
2. Do you find the comparison of the Earth to a person convincing? Why or why not?
3. What time span, in your opinion, has been most catastrophic for the Earth, and what has been the result?
Vocabulary Development:
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