More pages from this project What the teacher, Yuliya Melnyk, says about this project. Professor Yuliya Melnyk's own web page   Collaborative Projects Integrating Technology Home Page

American Influence on Our Society Photo: Yuliya Melnyk One more sad thing is emigration. Many of our people do not want to create their happiness at home. They think that in any rich state they will be more happy. But East or West, Home is Best.   Liliya Vovk from Ukraine  Kirovohrad State Pedagogical University School of Ukrainian and Russian Languages The influence of America on our society has been very powerful. This fact was evoked by getting the independence and began to develop according to American sample and to the samples of other foreign countries. That’s why we use so many American words, things, food, habits. For example, there is much food imported from America. But we have our own food and when Americans arrive in Ukraine they are extremely fond of it and even try to bring samples home. It is prohibited to bring food in America from abroad, but many people try and often they are successful. Samples of our bread, some sorts of meat, etc. are brought by Americans home in order to give relatives an opportunity to taste. Last fall we had a professor from America and he was extremely fond of Ukrainian borshch, varenyky, tort, pyrih, etc. Our food is very tasty and more natural, because our technology, including biological one are not so advanced. Coming to Ukraine, people from Western Europe, America, Canada, etc. do not go McDonald’s (we have many nice ones here), they prefer our cuisine. I think our nation needn’t copy others. We have our own mentality, we do not need to change it in order to make it similar to other foreign mentalities. But I want my country to become more democratic, as America is. We can see many American soap-operas. These are not films of a really high artistic level, at least the majority of them. Many people become too obsessed by watching them. We see now on TV too many horror movies, cruel films. We haven’t had them before. Our teacher tells us that in the States such films are shown mostly on cable TV, but here they are available at any time by any child. Even if parents are against this, they cannot do anything. They are at work and the child switches on what he wants. It is allowed to leave children home alone here, it is normal, however sometimes accidents happen. Many people do not have baby-sitters and it is not common for us. People who can afford a baby-sitter do not hire such a person because it is not usual. The grandmothers often help, but if the granny works the child stays home alone. One more sad thing is emigration. Many of our people do not want to create their happiness at home. They think that in any rich state they will be more happy. But East or West, Home is Best. We should remember this. Now we experience a huge emigration and brain-drain. Our people are trying to escape from unemployment and lack of perspectives. Emigration is considered as a very good career. People go to Germany, Canada, USA and work there very hard, they have never worked so hard here. It is ridiculous to work anywhere, but not in your own home. We often use American words and, unfortunately, frequently it is profane language. These words are written on the desks at school and universities, on the walls. Neither American government, nor American people are guilty in this. These are our people writing this. And I am ashamed of such representatives of my nation. Americanization has brought many positive and negative things here, to Ukraine. It is a very complicated process and often unpredictable.  Read more pages from this project. What the teacher says about this project See Professor Yuliya Melnyks own web page Return to: Collaborative Projects Integrating Technology | Home Page TOPICS Online Magazine - ©1997-2007 topics.mag@gmail.com Published by Sandy and Thomas Peters