VILLAGE PEOPLE, ENGLAND

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Source: MAGANEWS

When people think of England, many automatically think of London. Here Andrew Fox takes a look at life in a typical English village

   There are many times when people ask me, an Englishman, why I came to Brazil. It is a reasonable question, but normally the way it is asked gives the impression that I did something either very adventurous, or just weird. The real question seems to be, “Why on earth did you want to leaveEngland?”

   I cannot answer that question here, but I can tell you that I did not leave a life of high-energy excitement in the center of London. Many people equate England with London, but this is like thinking that Brazil and the Amazon are one and the same.

    Last April I went back to England for the first time in over seven years. I stayed in Clarborough, a very small village a few miles outside a very small market town called Retford, in the north ofNottinghamshire County.  Let me tell you a bit about life in a place like this.

Things to do

Not much. Activities are limited to walking the dog, running around fields, or going to either the pub or church (or one, then the other). Churches and pubs are the main focal points of village life, often being found near to each other. Clarborough has the Chesterfield canal running through it, so you can sit next to that and feed the ducks and swans, and take in the air. Relaxation is an art that has to be practiced.

Traffic and Transport

Not a problem. Villages do not have very large populations – Clarborough is home to 1,100 people – so even in the rush hour, it does not get very busy. Having said that, cars are almost indispensable, as bus services tend to be irregular.  

Housing

You will not find any apartments in Clarborough, or any villages like it. England in general is not part of the apartment culture, and people live predominantly in houses of varying sizes and descriptions. A typical house will have 3 bedrooms and is 76 square meters in area. Of course, there are large variations.

 People

All village people are the same: cautiously friendly. Crime is not a huge problem, but it certainly does exist and the days of leaving front doors open and people being happily carefree about personal security are long-gone. There are “Neighborhood Watch” areas in which neighbors are constantly keeping their eyes open for strangers. This is the result of sparse police numbers in rural areas, making neighbors more reliant on each other for early signs of possible problems. One thing is for sure, if you are new in a village, it does not take long for the local residents to hear about you.

Article and Pictures – by *Andrew Fox -

www.maganews.com.br

(*Andrew nasceu na Inglaterra e vive no Brasil há mais de 12 anos, onde trabalha como professor, tradutor e também como redator, revisor e colaborador da Revista Maganews)

Vocabulary

1 reasonable - razoável
2 weird - estranho

3 to equate – aqui = igualar uma coisa com outra coisa

4 a few miles – a algumas milhas

5 county – região

6 pub – típico bar inglês

7 church – igreja

8 Chesterfield canal – rio

9 duck – pato

10 swan – cisne

11 to take in the air - respirar

12 housing – habitação / moradia

13 bedroom – quarto

14 square meter – metro quadro

15 cautiously friendly – cautelosamente amigável

16 front door – porta da frente

17 carefree – tranquilo / despreocupado

18 long-gone – exp.idiom. – há muito tempo (já é passado)

19 neighborhood watch – vigilância do bairro

20 sparse – escasso / pouca (o)

21 reliant - confiante

Life the Shaker Village

INTERVIEW


Source: www.speakup.com.br
Language level: Upper intermediate
Speaker Chuck Rolando
Standard: American accent



Source:  mainememory.net

THE QUIT LIFE

The Sabbath day Lake Shaker Village in Cumberland County, Maine, is the last active Shaker Village in the United States. Speak Up went there in order to find out more about this unusual religious community, which today has only four members. We were shown around by Leonard L Brooks, who is the Director of the Shaker Library and Museum:

Leonard Brooks

(Standard American accent):

The meeting house is still used for worship. They brothers still enter through that door, and male guests, and the sisters and female guests enter and sit on this side. The reason for that is an outward expression, if you will, of the celibate life of the Shakers. The Shakers live what they call the “Christ life” and, to them, it means a celibate life, a communal life, one where they practice confession life one where they practice confession of sin, and they’re pacifists. To reduce Shakerism to its most elemental terms: Christ did not marry, so the Shakers do not marry: Christ had no private wealth, he lived in common with the Apostles and that’s the way the Shakers live.  No individual Shaker has any individual riches6: the 17 buildings, the 1700 acres of land, are all held in common.

NOT FOR ME

Although he lives and works in Sabbath day Lake, Leonard Brooks is not himself a Shaker. We asked him whether the idea of joining the community had ever appealed to him:

Leonard Brooks:

Oh, it has in the past, but I think the sticking point for me –like it is for a lot of others –is…well, you have to give up your independence. You cannot just do whatever you want to do, and be a Shaker, or any religious community member. If you want to get out for the day and do A, but the community needs to have you do B, you do B. so that kind of tension becomes the stick in the mud for a lot of people. They do come here and try the life, but they leave. And I think – I don’t know, I can’t speak for other communities, and I’m not really speaking for the Shaker community –but I think that, if you talk to people, particularly who enter the religious life as adults, the change from independence to community member is tough.

ONLY IN AMERICA (No audio available)

LIFE IN THE Shake Village

The members of the world’s only active Shaker community live and work in 17 beautiful white clapboard buildings. Constructed from 1760 to 1950, they are typical of New England. Here, far off the tourist trail, the last Shakers pray and sing. They keep cows and sheep, grow apple trees, plant herbs, make beautiful oval boxes and welcome curious visitors.

The “United Society of Believers” was founded in 1747 in Manchester, England. The name “Shake Quakers” or “Shakers” came from their ecstatic worship. At meetings, Shakers danced and entered into a trance. A young dynamic woman called Ann Lee became their leader. Ann Lee was imprisoned for her religious convictions in 1770.  In prison, she had visions and decided to take the faith to America. In 1774 “Mother Ann” and eight other Shakers crossed the Atlantic. One of the communities they founded wa Sabbath day Lake Maine.

BELIEFS

So what do Shakes believe? The basic Shakers principles are Purity of Life, Peace, Justice and Love. Shakers want to reveal God to the World through their life. The Shaker God is pure spirit and has masculine and feminine attributes: strength, power, compassion and mercy.

Like most religious communities, Shakers live and work together and shar their possessions. Shakers are pacifists and live a celibate life. All are equal. The Shaker motto is. “Put our Hands to Work and Hearts to God.”

LOCAL COMMUNITY

Mother Ann died in 1784 at the age of 48, but the movement attracted a number of followers. In the mid-19^th century there were still about 5.000 Shakers living in 18 communities, mainly in the Eastern states. Today, there are only four Shakes left.

As Leonard Brooks explains in the interview, Shaker life is not for everybody. Yet the Shakers share with the local community. There are concerts of American and Shaker music. Workshops show how to make the oval Shaker boxes or to grow herbs. Apple fairs sell apple pies and local speciality apple butter. Visitors can see the complex and the museum with Shaker furniture and costume. They can also participate in a Sunday meeting or just buy some aromatic Shaker herbs –a fragrant souvenir from this remarkable place. 

Village People

    It's a wonderful and colourful magazine, I recommend it for Students and Teachers from Brazil, the content is bilingual Portuguese/English for more info please check it out http://www.maganews.com.br and take out the subscription, affordable price.

Source: MAGANEWS.  

Village People

When people think of England, many automatically think of London. Here Andrew Fox takes a look at life in a typical English village

   There are many times when people ask me, an Englishman, why I came to Brazil. It is a reasonable question, but normally the way it is asked gives the impression that I did something either very adventurous, or just weird. The real question seems to be, “Why on earth did you want to leaveEngland?”

   I cannot answer that question here, but I can tell you that I did not leave a life of high-energy excitement in the center of London. Many people equate England with London, but this is like thinking that Brazil and the Amazon are one and the same.

    Last April I went back to England for the first time in over seven years. I stayed in Clarborough, a very small village a few miles outside a very small market town called Retford, in the north ofNottinghamshire County.  Let me tell you a bit about life in a place like this.

Things to do

Not much. Activities are limited to walking the dog, running around fields, or going to either the pub or church (or one, then the other). Churches and pubs are the main focal points of village life, often being found near to each other. Clarborough has the Chesterfield canal running through it, so you can sit next to that and feed the ducks and swans, and take in the air. Relaxation is an art that has to be practiced.  

Traffic and Transport

Not a problem. Villages do not have very large populations – Clarborough is home to 1,100 people – so even in the rush hour, it does not get very busy. Having said that, cars are almost indispensable, as bus services tend to be irregular.  

Housing

You will not find any apartments in Clarborough, or any villages like it. England in general is not part of the apartment culture, and people live predominantly in houses of varying sizes and descriptions. A typical house will have 3 bedrooms and is 76 square meters in area. Of course, there are large variations.

 People

All village people are the same: cautiously friendly. Crime is not a huge problem, but it certainly does exist and the days of leaving front doors open and people being happily carefree about personal security are long-gone. There are “Neighborhood Watch” areas in which neighbors are constantly keeping their eyes open for strangers. This is the result of sparse police numbers in rural areas, making neighbors more reliant on each other for early signs of possible problems. One thing is for sure, if you are new in a village, it does not take long for the local residents to hear about you. 

Article and Pictures – by *Andrew Fox -

www.maganews.com.br

(*Andrew nasceu na Inglaterra e vive no Brasil há mais de 12 anos, onde trabalha como professor, tradutor e também como redator, revisor e colaborador da Revista Maganews)

Vocabulary

1 reasonable - razoável

2 weird - estranho

3 to equate – aqui = igualar uma coisa com outra coisa

4 a few miles – a algumas milhas

5 county – região

6 pub – típico bar inglês

7 church – igreja

8 Chesterfield canal – rio

9 duck – pato

10 swan – cisne

11 to take in the air - respirar

12 housing – habitação / moradia

13 bedroom – quarto

14 square meter – metro quadro

15 cautiously friendly – cautelosamente amigável

16 front door – porta da frente

17 carefree – tranquilo / despreocupado

18 long-gone – exp.idiom. – há muito tempo (já é passado)

19 neighborhood watch – vigilância do bairro

20 sparse – escasso / pouca (o)

21 reliant - confiante