Cultureshock

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Video transcript

A morning in Grainger Market. It was only few days that I have arrived in the city and I decided to prepare an Italian lunch to my husband. The place was crowded, fruits and vegetables were all around, a good smell of bread in the air,coloured flowers to donate. An old man was walking slowly with his shopping trolley through the stands. The morning was passing away. I was confused by all labels as the prices were reported only in pounds, while the weights were indicated both in kilos and pounds. I started doing some comparisons with my familiar prices and finally I decided to buy something.

First of all, I was looking for an alternative to southern Italian vegetables with yellow inflorescence and irregular, big leaves named “rape”. Strangely I discovered something very similar in a Chinese supermarket. In the supermarket there was a variety of exotic foods prepared with rice, spices, meat and different vegetables and I founded the "kai lan". But I astonished everyone asking if “kai lan” could be cooked with pasta. In fact, the cashier told me that the Chinese usually boiled and then fried it. Nevertheless, I went out of the shop confident of my purchase.

As a second course I was thinking to a roasted fish. I lined up at a fisherman stand casually choosing between several. When my turn arrived, I selected one big bass, asking the dealer to clean it from the inside. The man asked if he had to cut the fish head and I immediately answered: "no, thanks". He went away and after few minutes he returned...there was a mistake! The fish had lost his head. I exclaimed: “...I said you ...please, don’t cut me the head... and you cut it!”. I was annoyed, bored; I wanted to complain but I didn’t know how to do it. The dealer proposed me to replace the fish but I didn’t want to make things more difficult so I decided to go away with my fish without the head...paid with no discount.