The second interview

Interview preparation

There are a lot of students from Saudi Arabia, so I want to interview a student from Saudi Arabia. I decide to interview a Saudi Arabia student who still study in IEC. I find a friend who are still study in IEC, to let him to help me to find a student who is from Saudi Arabia.

I let my friend help me to ask his classmate it he has time to accept my interview. He is pleasure to help me to do this interview. I decide to invite he to go to china star—an chinese restaurant. This saturday, my friend, his classmate and me went to china star. His name is Hamed. He has been there for two years.

I organize my question from several main parts: holiday, education, policy and food. Through the first interview, I find that I have a deep interested in these three parts.

Interview report

Because my friend tells me that Hamed likes chinese food very much, so I decide to invite him to go to eat chinese food with me, when we finish our lunch, I can interview him.。

During this interview, I ask Hamed many questions which I want to understand Saudi Arabia. When I studied at IEC, I heard that there is a policy in Saudi Arabia, the man in Saudi Arabia is allowed to marry with four women. It is amazing for me, so I asked Hamed this question. I found that the policy I heard is ture. But Hamed told me even though the men in his country can be allowed to marry with four women, most of the men in his country always just marry with one woman. Even though I have heard this policy before, I still felt amazing when I heard this new again. I think it is a huge different culture with my country.

Country report

The map of Saudi Arabia

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. Its borders the north, Jordan, North and Northeast Pro Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE in its Oriental, Oman in the south and south-east of Yemen in the south of it, the Persian Gulf in the northeast, the Red Sea in its Western. It is called the "where" of the two holy shrines, Mecca and Medina is the two most sacred places of Islam.

Saudi Arabia's 2005 population of about 26 million, including about 6.5 million foreign residents. The majority of Saudis are Arabs. Some is a mixture of ethnic minorities, including the descendants of the Turks, Iranians, Malaysian, and other ethnic groups, most people as pilgrims moved to and live in the Hejaz region of the Red Sea coast. Many neighboring countries of the Arab Kingdom of employment. A considerable number of immigrants in South and Southeast Asia, mostly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. Less than 100,000 Westerners in Saudi Arabia.

The capital of Saudi Arabia: Riyadh

The national emblem：

 

Interview transcription

Course：english 191

Interviewer：lian ll, chinese

Interviewee: Hamed, Saudi Arabia

Time: 6:00 pm, March 24^th at China Star.

Because we do this interview at a restaurant, it is noisy, I do not record what he said by video, I just record the point that he says, I can summary this interview from next four parts.

Holiday

Maybe many workers and staffs in China are very toilsome. In China, the additional work in weekend is very common. Weekend and holiday are just an opportunity to make more money to many Chinese. But we have a few three days holidays like International Labor Day and Tomb-sweeping Day, but New Year’s Day is one day holiday. National Day is the longest holiday except Spring Festival, it is a seven days holiday. The most important holiday to Chinese is Spring Festival, it is Chinese New Year, and the date of Spring Festival is uncertain every year, because it depends on the traditional Chinese calendar. In Arabia, they have only three important holidays one year. Eid al-Fitr is after Ramadan, and Ramadan will last one month. During this month, people in Arabia will not eat in daytime, it is called fasting. After the sunset, they can eat and drink. So Eid al-Fitr is to celebrate the successful Ramadan. Eid al-Adha is another important holiday. During these days, people will kill sheep in the morning, and separate it to three parts, one is given to pool people, one is given to neighbor, the last one store at home. The third holiday is just National Day in September 23th.

Education

Chinese students may are the most toilsome in the world. Our study task is very heavy. The primary school students start class at 8:00am, and end at 3:00pm. But the students in middle school and high school have to study for more than ten hours every day. We needn’t to pay for our primary and middle education, just need to buy the textbooks. The parents and teachers in China think entering a good university or a good college is the success of students. So we have to study hard. In Saudi Arabia, there are government school and private school. The government schools are all free, they needn’t to pay any tuition. Their classes usually begin at 7:00am and end at 1:00pm. During Ramadan, the time is shorter, from 9:00am to 1:00pm. The universities in Arabia are also different. The private are more expensive, but they can get more courses in private schools.

Food

In China, the most common food maybe white rice. Many people like eating rice as their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But as I know, some people in the north of China like noodles or dumplings and other floury food better. Rice is more popular in south of China. We drink boiling water or hot water usually, but we don’t like cold water, and we also like drinking tea. In young peoples’ opinion, the soft drink is more popular. Hamed told me, Arabs liked drinking cold water and the soft drink was very popular in his country. Saudi Arabia is also an Asian country, so it has many similar cultures with China. They also like eating rice and drinking regular tea, but they always cook rice with many other materials just like vegetable, meat and chicken. The most popular food in Arabia is called Cabsah, it include chicken, meat, fish and shrimp. I think it must be very delicious. Arabs never eat the chicken paw and pork, and they will not drink anything with alcohol, even if the food cooked with alcohol, it’s really different from Chinese.

Culture

All women, regardless of age, are required to have a male guardian. Women cannot vote or be elected to high political positions. Cultural norms impose restrictions on women when in public, and these are enforced by the religious police. They include requiring women to sit in separate specially designated family sections in restaurants, to wear an abaya and to conceal their hair. There is also efectively a ban on women driving. And Saudi Arabia men are allowed to marry with four women at the same time, it is unlegal in China. And all of people in Saudi Arabia are Islam.