The multicultural evening took place in one of the castle’s
larger rooms (N.B. I think I’ve neglected
to mention that summer school takes place in a castle. It’s quite cool.).
Including the UK, there were thirteen countries giving presentations.
The couple from Argentina went first, and mostly talked in
English as they were beginners at the start of Summer School and speak even
less Czech than I do. They didn’t mention to Falklands (haha) and handed round
this really nice chocolate biscuit. The French followed them. Unfortunately,
they all speak really good Czech, so I didn’t understand much, but they did
have beautiful slides of French towns on their presentation, which is fairly
typical. I don’t think I’ve seen a French town centre looking anything less
than postcard pretty. Even in the rain. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s
forbidden in their constitution. The Latvians were up next up, explaining in
three languages (English, Czech and Russian
– impressive or what?) that their country was divided into five regions, each
with its own dress, dialect, dance and food. They also kept reiterating that
they were not Lithuanian. I sense they have been asked what it’s like to live
in Lithuania one too many times. I can sympathise, if someone ever calls me American, even once, I think I’ll flip.
The Poles showed an amazing animated film about the history
of Poland and Ildiko, who comes from Hungary, gave us a quick lesson in the
Hungarian alphabet and pronunciation. She was followed by our very own Misha
(aka German!Mike) who gave us a quiz about the differences between Germany and
the Czech Republic. They have a lot t in common, and the answers to his
questions surprised a lot of people, even the Czechs in the room. Since there
are so many Russian people on the summer school, they decided to split their
presentation into two, so more people got a chance to take part. For their
first one, they sang a Russian folk song, and handed out soup. I took one sip,
and then it “accidently” fell into the bin. However, the fish and garlicky hors
d’oeuvres made by the French were really nice. And I think Team GB, as I
nicknamed us in honour of the Olympics, drank a bit too much of the sect that
was going during the break. Sect is Czech champagne. It’s really, really good.
The trouble is, it gets you drunk quite quickly…
After the break, the Swedes took the stage and to the dulcet
tones of ABBA did a sort of lottery, giving everyone a number and then giving
out prizes when numbers appeared on certain slides. Jones won a plastic Viking helmet,
whilst someone else in our class won an “Absolut Sweden” t-shirt. The Slovenian
team (including T, S’s roomie) followed, and told us quite a lot about their
country, including some famous poets who lived there. What I found most
interesting about the presentation was the origins of Slovenia. Despite only
being founded in 1991, it has evidence of human habitation over 250,000 years
ago. Next on where was Ukraine, who showed some absolutely stunning pictures of
Ukraine in both winter and summer, and then the last team before us, Taiwan,
hit the stage. Both Taiwanese girls are tiny, so it was a shock to find out
that one of them, who is also Sheffield!Nic’s roomie, teaches Kung-Fu! Then it
was us! Our presentation went well, with people enjoying the strawberries and
cream, and laughing at the videos of our “weird” sports.
Afterwards several people said they had enjoyed it, including
our teacher Zusanna. We were not the last presentation though. The presentation
from Saudi Arabia was delivered by one guy (which must have been
nerve-wracking) in English, since he was a beginner. It was fascinating to find out so much about a
country that also seemed so shrouded in mystery, and it cleared up a few things
for me, such as the fact that it’s not just the women who have to cover up in
Saudi, the men have to wear long, white robes as well. However, given Saudi’s
not exactly amazing record with women’s lib, especially in regard to driving
and letting them take part in the Olympics, the guy was given a bit of a
grilling in the Q & A section following. The Russians gave the second half
of their presentation after Saudi Arabia, handing out vodka and gherkins, which
were surprisingly more popular than the soup, and then dancing to this year’s
Eurovision entry from Russia. The Russian!roomie was involved – she danced
amazingly!
After the evening was over, we headed to the corner shop, to
grab some dinner (I avoided the microwave meals and grabbed a pot noodle
instead – Yeah I know, not exactly healthy, but it was late and I was hungry).
We headed back to the kolej, and sat in the corridor talking until the lights
got officially turned off by the woman on duty and we decided to call it a
night. It was an amazing night!
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