7. Have you ever encountered an occasion when a cultural clash happened? Do you know any taboos related to Chinese culture or any other cultures?

题目设定的是自己亲身经历的文化冲突，那么论述就要避开从战争、民族对抗等大格局的表现形式，最好通过描述自己生活经历中遇到的小事，从见闻细节入手解答问题。如果能够对文化冲击产生的社会原因给予适当分析，则会使得答案显得更有深度。文化禁忌和文化差异是两个不同的概念。差异常常表现为现象，通常受生活习惯影响而产生；而禁忌往往与文化渊源有着密切联系。考官希望考生在回答问题是能够体现出对中国文化或其他地域文化深层次的把握和了解。因此在举例说明的同时，如能对文化禁忌产生的历史原因做进一步的解释则更佳。

Candidate 1: I worked as a volunteer at the airport this summer for the Beijing Olympics, and I did experience some cultural conflict. We Chinese are used to helping the foreigners with their luggage as a way of showing our hospitality, while as to some westerners; they are exposed to an independent culture so that they would feel uncomfortable when someone helped them with their personal things. Fortunately, they didn't show their uncomfortable too much and behaved gently. Besides, each team was allocated one or two volunteer assistants. But some people from South America or Oceania are fairly free and unrestrained, so they didn't want to rely on the assistants, which really caused many problems for us. The arrival and departure plan. As a result, we had to appoint someone to stay at the airport during the midnight until the last flight landed. There was even an athlete whose flight was due to leave at 10: 10, but he didn't appear until 9:40, and what was worse was that he didn't carry his ticket number so that it was hard for the airport to transmit his luggage correctly! I didn't think of cultural clash until I consider his question, but now I feel it is the source of most of my troubles.

Candidate 1以其亲身经历为例描绘了不同文化背景下人们对行为理解的差异，从侧面展现出文化碰撞的一种表现形式。叙述中提到了在帮助处理行李和递交时间表等方面，国外运动员更愿意自主自由地解决问题。若是能够深层次提出一两点解决文化差异或冲突的现实方法，就更能提升回答的立意了。

Candidate 2: There are many taboos whether in Chinese culture or in foreign culture. Here, I would like to share some with you. Chinese don't like to choose white or black gift for a wedding, though white means pure as lilies, because sometimes white reminds people of poverty or funeral, and black makes people unfortable. However, it is Spring Festival that has much more taboos. For example, you should only speak "good" words during this period, and when a kid carelessly speak out a wrong word, his parents would say kid's words are of no restrictions of any kind in a hurry. Also, you shouldn't eat fish's head or tail. On the first day of the New Year, people can't clean their houses, even not to say remove the rubbish.

There are many taboos in foreign countries as well. For instance, in England the bride couldn't see her groom on the morning before the wedding, and lighting three cigarettes from one match brings bad luck to the third party.

All the taboos may sound a little funny, but we should show our respect to them. After all, they are part of human culture.

文化禁忌本身就是长期以来一个国家或民族在生活中约定俗成的惯例，有些甚至没有可以考据的原因，有些只是心理上的暗示。Candidate 2基于对生活的观察和理解，记录了自己在生活中遇到的一些见闻感受，暂且不论从理论角度，言谈内容禁忌等是否属于实质意义上得文化禁忌范畴，仅从言语表达而言，用语简练流畅，意思清晰，总体上是值得肯定的。

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