[Sociology] Cultrural Podcast

All I know about Ukraine is it used to be a part of the Soviet Union. I had a chance to talk to a lady who came from Ukraine. Her name is Tatyana. It does seem like Ukraine practice the Western culture; men and women hold the equal power in the family. Also, she doesn’t live in the extended family. I realized that Russian and Greek food were similar. She and her family sometimes eat Greek dishes as an alternative option to Russian food. Dinner is the important meal of the day when family can gather around and have a chat after a long day of working or studying. Beside the dishes, she is successfully passing the Ukraine culture to her children; however, her grandchildren prefer American culture to Ukraine one. From her perspective, education is crucial, she encourages her family member to earn a college degree. She values knowledge as the only thing that sticks with you for a lifetime.

As I expected, she doesn’t follow any religion nor does her family. Holidays are the most interesting part to talk about. Like Western culture countries, Russians celebrate the New Years from Dec 31st to Jan 1st on the Russian calendar. The New Years is when family gather together, sing and have a good chat. They drink champagne and eat mandarin fruit. For more information about Russian calendar, Soviet Union used a different calendar that only have 5 days a week. In the result, instead of Jan 1st as on the Gregorian calendar, their New Years is celebrated on Jan 15th; same with Christmas, they celebrate it on Jan 7th. One different feature about Christmas is beside Santa Clause; he also has a grandchild named Snow Girls comes along with him. The next holiday is a big surprise for me. By the time she mentioned “The Woman’s Day”, I was both amazing and questioning. I immediately asked what the date was; the answer is beyond my expectation: March 8th. The reason why my reaction was fluctuating is in my country, we celebrate the same holiday in the same date. I never expect that we share any same holiday beside the New Years and Christmas. Similar to most whose mother tongue is not English, the biggest disadvantage about living in the America is language. In the contrast, her answer about the best thing of America is interesting; “I can buy anything I want especially some good deal during sale season”. I think she suffer from a command economy which people have to wait in a long line for a certain amount or choices. Moreover, everything is out of stock if you are late or stand at very end of the line. Ukraine and Minnesota have the same weather climate, that’s why she has no problem in dealing with the winter. Before she came to America, she had some ideas what is this country like from watching movies and plays. From the moment that I knew she from Ukraine when it was still a part of Soviet Union, I would like to ask her about the opinion about the different between communist and federal government. Instead of talking about political aspect, she told the story about the time when she worked at a hotel in America. The fact that “Employee of the week” is the same how Soviet Union workplace systems worked. I didn’t expect she would compare the workforce.

 I find that this is an amazing way to learn about different cultures, not by reading a book, but by interviewing the real person who actually born and grew up in that specific culture.