{"id":1168,"date":"2020-06-08T08:57:20","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T08:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/?p=1168"},"modified":"2020-04-17T09:03:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T09:03:21","slug":"cultural-lessons-year-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/cultural-lessons-year-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural lessons from my year abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Rhiannon Thefaut, BA International Business Management<\/em><\/p>\n

I went to Rennes, France for my year abroad. In weather, it is the same as the south of England. However, everything else about it is very much French. As my University had people from over 100 countries and 50 languages, I didn\u2019t just learn about the French culture, I got to learn about many other cultures. This will be some of the most interesting things I experienced and learnt whilst abroad. Hopefully, if you go abroad or work abroad in the future, some of these facts will be helpful for you or just make you laugh.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the French have baguette machines. The French value their bread over all else, so for when boulangeries are shut on a Sunday \"\"<\/a>or at 1am after a night out, you can still get your bread. You go to the supermarkets, and they will have a bakery in, constantly with fresh bread. Honestly, the bread is amazing \u2013 it tastes so much better than baguettes in England and you can get so many different types of bread, that you never even knew existed. So, if you don\u2019t like bread, maybe don\u2019t go to France!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Not just to mention their love for bread, they also definitely love their cheese. On my first night out in Rennes, we pre\u2019d at one of the French guys homes and he provided us with a baguette and cheese board. I can\u2019t eat cheese but I definitely enjoyed having the bread! To make it better, on a different night out, whilst walking home (French buses stop running at midnight so we had to walk home over an hour most days), we found a slab of camembert cheese on the floor!<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t just learn about the French culture, I learnt about other cultures too. I learnt the super interesting fact that prawn crackers are not Chinese and if you ask a Chinese person about them, they won\u2019t have a clue what they are. Also, Chinese food made my Chinese people is so much better than Chinese from a takeaway in England. My best friend would bring me food to my lecture and it was great.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thai people are honestly so polite and friendly \u2013 they will literally do anything for you. They\u2019re happy people and honestly some of the best friends you can have, as they are so caring and so willing to help you if you have a problem. My Thai friends are constantly messaging me, a year on, asking me how I am and offering me their home to stay at when I come visit. I love them and miss their kind personalities a lot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>German\u2019s value being on time, so if you walk late into class, they will glare at you profusely \u2013 which is made worse by the fact there was only around 20 people in my class! The German\u2019s are also a British person\u2019s best friend \u2013 honestly, if you\u2019re sarcastic, they\u2019ll match that sarcasm with a stoic face and sarcastic banter back. It\u2019s brilliant and made for some hilarious conversations. However, do be warned that some countries aren\u2019t sarcastic, so you need to be aware of this and gage who it\u2019s okay to be sarcastic with before you bring out the British humour.<\/p>\n

If you can, do a year abroad \u2013 the cultural lessons and the memories you get are so worth it. I would give anything back to do another year abroad and I\u2019m very jealous of all of you who are about to embark on yours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rhiannon Thefaut, BA International Business Management I went to Rennes, France for my year abroad. In weather, it is the same as the south of England. However, everything else about it is very much French. As my University had people from over 100 countries and 50 languages, I didn\u2019t just learn about the French … Continue reading “Cultural lessons from my year abroad”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,7,74],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1174,"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mgt.dept.shef.ac.uk\/undergraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}