Back from Britain
By Chen Ben

读万卷书，不如行万里路。对于研习语言的人来说，亲身感受异国风情，体会东西方文化生活的差异，无疑是一种书本无法替代的全方位动感之旅。

“East or west, home is best.” This is normally true for those who travel far away from their homelands and experience a completely exotic life abroad. However, the results of my six-week stay in Britain are not complaints about the inconveniences of life there — quite the opposite.

With the host family
As a teacher of English and cross-cultural communication, I fully believed that I was pretty well stocked with lots of book knowledge of British society and culture, and would not meet any real excitements or difficulties during my stay in the UK. However, what happened while I was with my host family proved that I had been a little too naive and over confident.

My first problem was that my stomach just could not accept British food — mostly bread, chips (french fries) and fresh vegetables mixed up with different kinds of sauces. Even now, I can still remember my hostess’ stern caution of “when in Rome......” whenever she caught me frowning at the dining table. This was a good lesson for me on how hard it is just to change people’s eating habits, let alone the ideas and ways of life of people from completely different cultures and languages.

Another thing that we could not understand was that most host families tended to decline our help when we wanted to lend a hand with the housework. To Westerners, help should only be offered to the disabled or the weak. But Chinese people never hesitate to help when we think it necessary.
Although I felt a bit like a fish out of water staying with my host family, I did find that there were many conveniences to life in Britain. The drinkable tap water is extremely convenient in a hot summer, and the electronic timetable boards at bus stops save people a lot of time. Unlike China, where bus drivers turn on the lights only when passengers are getting on or off the bus, the lights on buses in Britain are kept on all the time during the evening. This makes it much harder for pickpockets to earn a living.

Trips in Britain
The Royal Pavilion in Brighton, the original “modest farmhouse” which George, Prince of Wales rented when he first began visiting Brighton in 1783, is one of the most extraordinary buildings in the British Isles. It is an exotic fantasy palace blending Indian architecture with lavish Chinese interiors. Tracing the footsteps of Geoffrey Chaucer, a great British literary figure before Shakespeare, we went to Canterbury Cathedral. This venerable church is more than 1400 years old. The maintenance costs of GBP 9,000 per day, met without any help from the state, reveals to visitors how religious the English people are, and how the cathedral attracts pilgrim-visitors from all over the world.

Cambridge and Oxford, with their world-class academic institutions, were very interesting. They are similar to cities like Suzhou and Wuxi, with rivers running through the town centre. Cambridge was a little more appealing to us Chinese visitors.

It was unbelievable for us to see so many precious Chinese antiques in the British Museum! We can’t turn back history, but I hope that this kind of pillage never occurs again in the history of mankind.

Everything I experienced in Britain was very different from China. I learned many good habits from the British: being trusting, disciplined and punctual. Above all, they have a very positive attitude toward work, no matter what kind of jobs they pick up.

I now feel more than ever that language is the key: it is the lack of a shared language that separates East from West, and it is through learning languages that people from different cultures and political systems can come to understand each other better.

Vocabulary
frown 皱眉
lend a hand 帮忙
pickpocket 小偷
disciplined 守纪律的
pillage 掠夺
punctual 准时的
antique 古董
pavilion 亭