ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK

ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI KHOA TIẾNG ANH - - BÀI THẢO LUẬN ĐỀ TÀI: HOUSING, FOOD AND DRINK Giảng viên : Đỗ Diệp Linh Nhóm thực hiện: Lớp học phần : Văn hoá Anh - 2384ENTI0411 Hà Nội, 2023 GROUP MEMBER’S TASKS No MEMBERS TASKS 30 Nguyễn Thuỳ Linh I (2.3, 2.4) + POWERPOINT 31 Phạm Thị Ngọc Linh II (2.1, 2.2) + POWERPOINT 32 Nguyễn Thị Lụa INTRODUCTION, I (1.1, 1.2, 1.3) + POWERPOINT 35 Nguyễn Lê Na II (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4) + WORD + POWERPOINT 36 Vũ Thị Kim Ngân CONCLUSION + I (3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4) + POWERPOINT 37 Bùi Thị Hồng Nhung I (2.1, 2.2) + WORD + POWERPOINT i TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION iii CONTENT I HOUSING 1 Characteristics of houses in England 1.1 Houses, not flats 1.2 Private & public property 1.3 Importance of home UK housing classification and reasons for choosing 2.1 Individuality & conformity 2.2 Interiors 2.3 Owning and renting .8 2.4 Homelessness Comparing between Vietnam and The UK 3.1 House and flats 3.2 Interiors .11 3.3 Owning and renting .12 3.4 Homelessness .12 II Food and drinks 13 Attitude and reference about british food and drinks .13 1.1 Attitudes to food 13 1.2 Eating out 15 1.3 Alcohol 16 1.4 Pubs 17 Comparing between Vietnam and The UK 19 2.1 Food .19 2.1.2 Festival meals 20 2.1.3 Street food 20 2.2 Drinks 21 CONCLUSION 23 ii INTRODUCTION In the trend of integration and development, English is considered as a global common language so that everyone in the world can share and exchange and learn Currently, there are more than 50 countries using English as the main language, up to 80 countries using English as a second language Culture and language have often been described as inseparable and the relationship between them is highly complex Language isn’t just the sum total of words, grammatical principles and sentence construction, but also unique cultural norms, social systems and cognitive processes Understanding these cultural-specific contexts along with linguistic principles of a particular culture is central to effective language acquisition In the discussion below, we will learn about the unique culture of British housing, food and drink Almost everybody in Britain dreams of living in a detached house; that is, a house which is a separate building The saying 'An English- man's home is his castle' is well-known It illustrates the desire for privacy and the importance attached to ownership which seem to be at the heart of the British attitude to housing iii CONTENTS I HOUSING Characteristics of houses in England 1.1 Houses, not flats A large, detached house not only ensures privacy It is also a status symbol At the extreme end of the scale there is the aristocratic 'stately home' set in acres of garden Of course, such a house is an unrealistic dream for most people But even a small detached house, surrounded by a garden, gives the required suggestion of rural life which is dear to the hearts of many British people Most people would be happy to live in a cottage, and if this is a thatched cottage, reminiscent of a pre-industrial age, so much the better Most people try to avoid living in blocks of flats (what the Americans call 'apartment blocks') Flats, they feel, provide the least amount of privacy With a few exceptions, mostly in certain locations in central London, flats are the cheapest kind of home The people who live in them are those who cannot afford to live anywhere else The dislike of living in flats is very strong In the 1950s millions of poorer people lived in old, cold, uncomfortable nineteenth century houses, often with only an outside toilet and no bathroom During the next twenty years many of them were given smart new 'high rise' blocks of flats to live in which, with central heating and bath- rooms, were much more comfortable and were surrounded by grassy open spaces But people hated their new homes They said they felt cut off from the world all those floors up They missed the neigh-bourliness They couldn't keep a watchful eye on their children playing down there in those lovely green spaces The new high-rise blocks quickly deteriorated The lifts broke down The lights in the corridors didn't work Windows got broken and were not repaired There was graffiti all over the walls In theory (and except for the difficulty with supervising children) There is no objective reason why these high-rise blocks (also known as 'tower blocks') could not have been a success In other countries millions of people live reasonably happily in flats But in Britain they were a failure because they not suit British attitudes The failure has been generally recognized for several years now No more high- rises are being built At the present time, only 4% of the population live in one Only 20% of the country's households live in flats of any kind  The most desirable home: a detached house  The “traditional” building materials of brick (the walls) and slate (the roof)  The irregular, “non-classical”, shape, with all those little corners, making the house feel “cosy” (see main text)  The suggestion of a large front garden with a tree and bushes, evoking not only the countryside but also giving greater privacy  That the front door is not even in the picture (the privacy criterion at work again)  Second best: a semi-detached Unless they are located in the remotest parts of the country, detached houses are too expensive for most people So this is what a very large proportion of people live in: one building with two separate households Each house is the mirror of the other, inside and out These houses can be found, street after street, in the suburbs of cities and the outskirts of towns all over Britain Notice the separate front garden for each house At the sides, there is access to the back, where there will also be two gardens The most common building material is brick The typical semi-detached has two floors and three bedrooms  Less desirable: a terraced house This kind of house usually has no way through to the back except through the house itself Each house in the row is joined to the next one (Houses at the end of the row are a bit more desirable - they are the most like a semi-detached) They usually have two floors, with two bedrooms upstairs Some have gardens back and front, others only at the back and others no garden at all Before the 1960s, Britain had millions of terraced houses, most with no inside toilet or bathroom Many of these were then knocked down, but in some areas those that have survived have become quite desirable-after repairs and building work have been carried out  An exception: the town house These houses, which can be found in the inner areas of most cities, are an exception to the general pattern There is great variety regarding both design and use They often have three or more floors, perhaps including a basement or semi-basement Although they are usually terraced, those that are well-preserved and in a 'good' area may be thought highly desirable Many have been broken up into flats or rooms for rent Most of the comparatively small number of people who rent from private owners live in flats of this kind Sometimes, these are “self-con- tained” flats (they have washing and cooking facilities and it is not necessary to walk through anybody else's flat to get to your own), sometimes, they are 'bedsits' (i.e bed-sitting rooms; residents have one room to themselves and share washing and cooking facilities with other residents)  The least desirable: a flat Not having a separate entrance to the outside world does not suit British tastes Although it is densely popu-lated, Britain has the second lowest proportion of flatdwellers in the EU (the lowest of all is in Ireland) 1.2 Private & public property The image of a home as a castle implies a clear demarcation between private property and the public domain This is very clear in the case of a detached house Flats, on the other hand, involve uncertainties You share the corridor outside your front door, but who with? The other residents on the same floor, or all the residents in the building? What about the foyer downstairs? Is this only for the use of the people who live in the block, or for the public in general? These uncertainties perhaps explain why the “communal” living expected of flat-dwellers has been unsuccessful in most of Britain Law and custom seem to support a clear separation between what is public and what is private For example, people have no general right to reserve the road directly outside their house for their own cars The castle puts limits on the domain of its owner as well as keeping out others It also limits responsibility It is comparatively rare, for example, for people to attempt to keep the bit of pavement outside their house clean and tidy That is not their job It is outside their domain To emphasize this clear division, people prefer to live in houses a little bit set back from the road This way, they can have a front garden or yard as a kind of buffer zone between them and the world These areas are not normally very big But they allow residents to have low fences, walls or hedges around them Usually, these barriers not physically prevent even a two-year old child from entering but they have psychological force They announce to the world exactly where the private property begins Even in the depths of the countryside, where there may be no road immediately outside, the same phenomenon can be seen 1.3 Importance of home Despite the reverence they tend to feel for “home”, British people have little deeprooted attachment to their house as an object, or to the land on which it stands It is the abstract idea of “home” which is important, not the building This will be sold when the time and price is right and its occupiers will move into some other house which they will then turn into “home” - a home which they will love just as much as they did the previous one But the houses themselves are just investments An illustration of this lack of attachment to mere houses (as opposed to homes) is that two-thirds of all inherited houses are immediately sold by the people who inherit them, even if these people have lived there themselves at some time in their lives Another is the fact that it is extremely rare for people to commission the building of their own houses (Most houses are commissioned either by local government authorities - for poorer people to live in-or, more frequently, by private compan-ies known as “property developers” who sell them on the open market) UK housing classification and reasons for choosing 2.1 Individuality & conformity The UK is trailing the continent in terms of living space, particularly when you take the fact that they tend to live in houses rather than flats into account Quality of life is not only about income and spending, comfort is a core component The lack of privacy does not explain why apartments are unpopular They not give individuals enough room to show their uniqueness, which is another reason Individuals enjoy having some control over their surroundings, including the color of their front door, window frames, and plans for any tiny amount of outside space Yet, not all aspects of housing in Britain exhibit uniqueness Houses are typically not constructed one at a time because most construction is done by organizations rather than individuals Instead, entire streets and even neighborhoods (commonly referred to occupiers and council renters increased in number The number of owner-occupiers then quickly increased in the 1980s Tenants in council housing were encouraged to buy them and were offered financial incentives to so The amount of money supported by property owners who wished to make improvements also increased As a result, there were fewer council tenants overall By the mid 1990s, the trends of the previous decade seemed to have halted Fewer council-house tenants were buying their houses and tax relief on mortgages was being phased out 2.4 Homelessness In 1993 it was estimated that there were half a million homeless people in Britain that's one of the highest proportions of the population in all the countries of Europe  Reason: Due to the sale of council housing and the lack of funding for the construction of new ones, the supply of council housing is limited and has been declining since the 1980s The supply of private housing for rent has decreased as a result of laws implemented in the 1970s to strengthen the security of renters renting from private landlords These laws made it less profitable for people to rent out their houses => Many individuals who are ineligible for council housing yet who cannot afford to rent a private home  Duty of local council: Local councils provide temporary housing in boarding houses to homeless families Housing homeless families is the responsibility of the local government Hostels for the homeless that are managed by nonprofit groups provide temporary housing for many singles people and families as well For political reasons, including poor public knowledge of the issue, the British government does not prioritize addressing the homelessness issue In many cases, the homeless are those with personal problems which make it impossible for them to settle down There may sometimes be individuals who simply not want to “settle down” and who not consider themselves to be homeless Comparing between Vietnam and The UK 3.1 House and flats In Britain a Houses, especially, detached houses, which is a separate building, is a dream of all British people It roots in their attitude British people are quite reserve They desire to have their own space For this reason, detached house is at the heart of the British It gives them privacy, makes them feel safe and relaxed since it separates completely from others Besides, it implies their social status As house price in the UK increases over time, they find it difficult for them to afford one, unless they are in middle or upper class In summary, even though not all of the British people are able to get a detached house, it is still an ideal one for them b Flats to the British is known as the least desirable kind of house Since British people appreciate their privacy, they assume that flats are not qualified Living in a flat means they have to share the same lifts, corridors with others which annoys them In addition, people in UK have a love of nature, they crave for going to nature while flats not give them a chance to so Blocks of flats make them feel cut off the world and the higher the blocks are, the stronger this feeling becomes Moreover, their children would not be kept an eye on when they are playing with their friends since there is no yard for them It is assumed that people who are living in flats can not afford to live anywhere else In conclusion, the British are totally opposed to flats In Vietnam a In the past, Vietnamese people had a strong passion for a house It proceeds from our culture, the Vietnamese strongly believe that one is capable of achieving their career only when they settle down For this reason, the house became a symbol of stability where all success begin They all agree that a house is cheaper, safer and more private than flats However, this conception seems to be less popular nowadays, especially among young people They suppose that having a house is unnecessary, with that amout of money, they can many other things It should be noted that, this idea is only common among the young, with the elderly, they still hold the opinion of having a house b Having said above, flats are more common among young people There are several reasons to explain First, building a house costs a fortune and time, they have to investigate from A-Z what and where to buy, who to hire, etc While a flat is ready for them to move in Second, they find apartments are more silent and more private since they not come across their neighbors regularly Third, there is guard in every 10 blocks, safety is guaranteed In this regard, people hold different views, others suppose that in case unexpected situation happens, people suffer the consequence together so it is not secure To sum up, the Vietnamese bring different perspective, but one thing for sure is flats are now a tendency in Vietnam 3.2 Interiors In Britain The British speak highly of cosiness even though their house is not really warm according to foreigners Why they have this contradiction? The cosiness relates to the decoration, they want their room look warm, yet, the atmosphere inside is not since there is no central heating installed (most houses are installed now) and windows are widely open all the time to get fresh air British people are said to have bad taste because they choose comfy over aestheticism It is true in all cases, both their clothes and their furnitures They rather buy cheap, mass-produced furnitures than a more beautiful item They also love decorating their houses with ornaments, and with the same conception, the more ornaments you have, the warmer your house becomes In other words, if you want your house look cozy, you should fill the room up Besides, the furnitures are chosen selectively Since people in UK are fairly conservative, all the ornaments should be old or, at least, they suggest age It is worth noticing that most of the British’s houses have not but living rooms, one is for formal visit and the other is for close acquaintance Obviously, comfy and privacy are prioritized, as always In Vietnam Vietnamese people tend to decorate their house minimally to make their house look larger and tidier It affects the way they choose their furnitures In recent years, there are two interior decoration trends in Vietnam which are assembled furnitures and smart furnitures They both can close or unfold when they are not used which optimize space using and change their room flexibly On top of that, furnitures or ornaments can show how wealthy the owners are For this reason, middle or upper class Vietnamese would rather buy pricy furnitures than cheap ones, they even order their own designs Moreover, Vietnamese people are keen on aestheticism so they usually hire an engineer to design their house if they can afford one 11 3.3 Owning and renting In Britian Before owning a house became a trend in Britain, people had rented house from private landlords Most of the tenants were working class By the end of 20th century, people were interested in buying their own house People in the UK love owning their house even though they would not root down for good This is because they want to have their own place and privacy However, buying a house in the UK costs an arm and a leg and not all of them can afford one Thanks to the mortgage system, the British’s dream of owning a house comes true It is common in the Britain that the owners are also the occupiers They mostly borrow money from mortgage institutions to get one for themselves and then pay month by month within 20-25 years In almost cases, houses to the British are just an investment, they are prepared to sell them whenever they feel it is high time It is because house price in the UK increase faster than living costs, they find it profitable to invest in a house In Vietnam As having said above, according to elder Vietnamese people, having a house yourself is the basis of success It is not rare in Vietnam that most of the people own a house Since the house price in Vietnam is various, people not find it challenging to get one, especially wealthy people Many people not only own but several houses in different regions They either move back and forth these places to change their environment or live at one specific house and others are for rent In contrast, young people assume that it is unnecessary to have a house They rather rent a flat which they find more affordable and convenient They can move to other apartment whenever they like, without any constraint Tenants are employers or students who leave their hometown to other city for work or study Those rented apartments are often equipped fully, they only have to move in It can be said that renting is a tendency in Vietnam in recent years 3.4 Homelessness In Britain Homeless British were not only people who did not have their own houses but also people had personal problems that made it challenging for them to settle down Besides, there were people who did not want to settle down and people did not see 12 themselves as the homeless There were several reasons led to homelessness in the U.K Since 1980s, the sale of council houses and the lack of money for building new ones were the causes of the council houses limitation As a consequence, many British people became homeless However, the British government did not take this problems into their account Council authorities and charitable organizations gave helps to homeless people during this time instead The local council provided temporary accommodation in boarding houses to homeless families While other families and single people found temporary shelters in hostels which belonged to charitable organizations Even so, hostels and local accommodations were insufficient for such a number of homeless British For this reason, many homeless people found to sleep on the street during 1980s Cardboard boxes were the homeless’s shelters This situation was the origin of the phrase “cardboard cities”- a popular phrase at this time In Vietnam In Vietnam, the homeless are orphans, alone elders, disabled people who not have their family Homelessness is a worth-considering problem which draws the attention of both the governments and local councils Urbanization is supposed to be the main cause of this circumstance Other reasons can be named: awareness of the officers, severe weather and poor social security In this regard, the Vietnamese government has taken lots of measures to settle the situation The homeless will be subsidized as approved decrees Subsidy packages include financial helps and shelters For details, orphans will be sent to orphanages in case they not have parents or relatives, alone elders can accommodate in social protection centers, the homeless in general are taken care of the local authorities in their hometown, disabled or mentally-ill people are sent to healthcare centers On top of that, there are many charitable organizations and social institutions which provide them meals, accommodations and money if they can call for donors’ helps It can be said that both the government and the community pay their attention towards this issue II Food and drinks Attitude and reference about british food and drinks 1.1 Attitudes to food The explanations above can only serve as a partial excuse for the unfortunate reputation of British cuisine Even in fast food restaurants and everyday café, the 13 quality seems to be lower than it is in equivalent places in other countries It seems that British people simply not care enough to bother The country has neither a widespread “restaurant culture” nor a “café society” In the middle of the day, people just want to eat up quickly and are not interested much in quality (the lunch break in an hour at most) Young people and families with children who eat at fast food places are similarly not interested in quality Little effort is made to make the hamburgers tasty because nobody expects them to be The coffee is horrible not because British people prefer it that way but because they don’t go to a café for a delicious, slow cup of coffee - they go there because they need the caffeine Even at home, food and drink is given relatively little attention The coffee is often just as bad as it is in the café British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than what the few people who drink it often call ‘real’ coffee Instant coffee is less trouble Meals tend to be eaten quickly and the table cleared Parties and celebrations are not normally centered around food For example, if a British person expresses a liking for barbecues, this does not necessarily mean that he or she likes barbecued food - it is understood to mean that he or she enjoys the typical barbecue atmosphere When the British pay attention to food, it is most frequently not to appreciate it but to notice what they don't like about it Food hits the headlines only in the context of its dangers: for example in 1993, when it was discovered that 100 tonnes of six-year-old beef had been allowed to go on sale; or when a government minister announced that the country's eggs were infected with salmonella In the early 1990s , everybody in the country knew about “mad cow disease” (a disease affecting the brains of infected cattle) There are quite a large number of vegetarians in Britain and an even larger number who are aware of the implications for their health of what they eat 'Health food shops' are as abundant in the country's high streets as delicatessens British people have been mostly urban, having little contact with 'the land’, for longer than the people of other countries Perhaps this is why the range of plants and animals which they will eat is rather narrow There are plenty of enthusiastic British carnivores who feel quite sick at the thought of eating horsemeat To most people, the idea of going out to pick wild plants for the table is exotic It is perhaps significant that when the British want to refer to the people of another country insultingly, they often allude to their eating habits Because of the strange things they with cabbage, for example, 14 the Germans are “krauts” Because of their outrageous taste for frog's legs, the French are “frogs” However, the picture is not entirely negative While the British are conservative about ingredients, they are no longer conservative about the way they are served In the 1960s, it was reported that the first British package tourists in Spain not only insisted on eating (traditionally British) fish and chips all the time but also on having them, as was traditional, wrapped up in specially imported British newspapers! By now, however, the British are extremely open to the cuisine of other countries The country's supermarket shelves are full of the spices and sauces needed for cooking dishes from all over the world (the increasingly multicultural nature of the population has helped in this respect) In addition, there is increasing interest in the pure enjoyment of eating and drinking 1.2 Eating out Although it is far less unusual than it used to be, going to a restaurant is still a comparatively rare event for most British people Regular restaurant-going is confined mostly to the richest section of society Partly for this reason, there is an element of snobbery associated with it Merely being in an expensive restaurant sometimes seems to be more important to people than the food eaten in it For example, in 1992 a survey by experts found that most of the caviar in top London restaurants was not what it claimed to be (the most prized beluga variety) and was often stale or going bad The experts commented that restaurants used the mystique of caviar to hide the low quality of what they served because the majority of people don't really know what they're eating Another expression of snobbery in the more expensive restaurants is in the menus In a country where few public notices appear in any language other than English, these are a unique phenomenon - all the dishes have non-English names, most commonly French (reflecting the high regard for French cuisine) It also makes the food sound more exotic and therefore more exciting Many customers of these restaurants have little idea of what actually goes into the dish they have chosen But when, in 1991, the government suggested that menus should give details of ingredients in dishes, all the country's chefs and restaurateurs were outraged They argued this would take the fun out of eating out The assumption behind this argument is that going to a restaurant is a 15 time to be adventurous This ‘adventure’ concept is undoubtedly widespread It helps to explain why so few restaurants in Britain are actually British Because they it so rarely, when people go out for a meal in the evening, they want to be served something they don't usually eat Every town in the country has at least one Indian restaurant and probably a Chinese one too Larger towns and cities have restaurants representing cuisine from all over the world Eating places which serve British food are used only for more everyday purposes Apart from pubs, there are two types, both of which are comparatively cheap One is used during the day, most typically by manual workers, and is therefore sometimes described as a “workman's café” (pronounced 'caff’) But it is also used by anybody else who wants a filling meal, likes the informal atmosphere and is not over-worried about cleanliness It offers mostly fried food of the 'English breakfast' type and for this reason, it is also sometimes jokingly called a 'greasy spoon' Many of them are 'transport cafes' at the sides of main roads In 1991 Prime Minister John Major deliberately and publicly ate at one of these in order to prove that he was a man of the people The other type is the fish-and-chip shop , used in the evening for “take-away” meals Again, the fish is (deep) fried Fast food outlets are now more common in Britain than they are in most other countries Cynics might claim this is because the British have no sense of taste However, their popularity is probably better explained sociologically Other types of eating places in Britain tend to have class associations As a result, large sections of society feel unable to relax in them But a fast food restaurant does not have such strong associations of this kind Although there are sometimes local middle-class protests when a new one appears in their area, people from almost any class background can feel comfortable in them 1.3 Alcohol The attitude to alcohol in Britain is ambivalent On the one hand, it is accepted and welcomed as an integral part of British culture: The local pub plays an important role in almost every neighborhood-and pubs, it should be noted, are predominantly for the drinking of beer and spirits The nearest pub is commonly referred to as 'the local' and people who go there often are known as 'regulars' The action in both the country's most popular television soaps revolves around a pub Even a certain level of 16 ... .12 3.4 Homelessness .12 II Food and drinks 13 Attitude and reference about british food and drinks .13 1.1 Attitudes to food 13 1.2 Eating out ... community pay their attention towards this issue II Food and drinks Attitude and reference about british food and drinks 1.1 Attitudes to food The explanations above can only serve as a partial... 17 Comparing between Vietnam and The UK 19 2.1 Food .19 2.1.2 Festival meals 20 2.1.3 Street food 20 2.2 Drinks 21 CONCLUSION