Katie CP#7

                Zach and I found out that we both were planning to go to CIES on Tuesday during lunch to meet our conversation partners. We met with Zach’s conversation partner first while waiting for Yasuko to arrive.  We sat inside a classroom to talk because of this I had to get up and check the lounge if Yasuko has arrived yet.  While just talking to Rashed, we found out that after this CIES session he will be going back to Kuwait.  He is going to be study English more while Kuwait and figuring out where he wants to go to college.  He asked us about colleges and differences between UF and FSU. We explained that UF is better for students is in math, science, or engineering majors compared to FSU that is more well known for being a liberal arts college which has top rating film and music programs.  Shortly after this I went to check if Yasuko arrived yet and found out that she was there. I explained to her the situation and that we could have group conversation, and she agreed.  We actually found out that Rashed and Yasuko are in the same speaking class.  This was great to find out! Our group conservation moved towards talking about fast food restaurants and how they change across the world to accommodate the various cultures. Rashed said in Kuwait, they do not sell pork products. Also, he said that fast food in America taste better than in Kuwait but he was not sure why. However, he commented that KFC tasted very bad.  Yasuko chimed in by saying in Japan that KFC is important restaurant and that it is what Japanese people usually get for Christmas dinner.  I think this shows how globalization can truly impact other cultures and become integrated into holiday traditions.  She explained a story about how in 1985, a bunch of baseball fan threw a statue of Colonel Sanders into a river and they did not find the statue until 2009.  According to the internet that story is related to the “Curse of the Colonel”.  Also, Rashed asked us to explain the school mascot, Osceola because there was “GO Seminoles!” on the wall.  We found it a little difficult to explain the background of the mascot because there is controversy around the choice of the mascot for some people.  We explained about the “Tomahawk Chop” and explained what a tomahawk was through drawing.  In addition, I explained about each college does stuff like this and how UF has the gator as the mascot and how they do the chomp at the football game. Overall, I enjoyed the group experience and hearing everyone’s diverse opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Colonel