Assignment 3- Interview

I interviewed a man named Thiala. He is one of the guards at the barracks down the road and all he does all day is let people in and out of the barracks. He said he’s old and slow so that’s where they put him, although he really didn’t appear to be that old. He is an only child and is from Nepal. The reason he came to the UK is because it’s tradition there to come to the UK and join the army. He has one son named Sean, which at first he called him a kid but then changed his wording to a young man and said he’s 19, like around my age. The role of religion in his life is minor and he said that is the normal to most British families in his belief. He doesn’t attend church regularly or anything like that.

When talking about identity, he said to him being British means you are English. He said if you are English then you are British. He said one of the UK’s weaknesses is that teenagers aren’t controlled by their parents and they can cause some trouble. He thinks parents in the UK need to be tighter with their kids so that they will behave better in the long run. I asked him how he views the UK’s relationship with the US and he said it was good. He then went on and said a bunch of things he liked about the US and different places he’s been. His favorite parts of the US are the culture and the line dances. He really liked the line dances when he went to the states years ago. He really enjoyed Florida because it was warm and nice there. He also told me about when he was in the active army and they were in Canada and had to walk a lot in the cold. His hands and feet were always cold, and he was also there in the winter, so that doesn’t help the matter of being cold much.

He also talked about in the US how he believes if you can speak Spanish and English, you can communicate with almost anybody. His reasoning is that most of the countries to the south of the states are Spanish speaking, and he thinks a lot of them come up to the US so therefor, if you can speak Spanish as well, you’ll be able to communicate with almost everyone. I’m not so sure his logic is right, since there are different languages spoken throughout the United States, like there is here in London alone, where there are over 150 languages spoken alone. It probably isn’t to the same extent in the states as it is here, but there are still more languages spoken than just English and Spanish. It was interesting to hear his insight on things, particularly on the US and how he views it and what he likes about it.