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?

題目設定的是自己親身經歷的文化沖突，那么論述就要避開從戰爭、民族對抗等大格局的表現形式，最好通過描述自己生活經歷中遇到的小事，從見聞細節入手解答問題。如果能夠對文化沖擊產生的社會原因給予適當分析，則會使得答案顯得更有深度。文化禁忌和文化差異是兩個不同的概念。差異常常表現為現象，通常受生活習慣影響而產生；而禁忌往往與文化淵源有著密切聯系。考官希望考生在回答問題是能夠體現出對中國文化或其他地域文化深層次的把握和了解。因此在舉例說明的同時，如能對文化禁忌產生的歷史原因做進一步的解釋則更佳。

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以其親身經歷為例描繪了不同文化背景下人們對行為理解的差異，從側面展現出文化碰撞的一種表現形式。敘述中提到了在幫助處理行李和遞交時間表等方面，國外運動員更愿意自主自由地解決問題。若是能夠深層次提出一兩點解決文化差異或沖突的現實方法，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.

文化禁忌本身就是長期以來一個國家或民族在生活中約定俗成的慣例，有些甚至沒有可以考據的原因，有些只是心理上的暗示。Candidate 2基于對生活的觀察和理解，記錄了自己在生活中遇到的一些見聞感受，暫且不論從理論角度，言談內容禁忌等是否屬于實質意義上得文化禁忌范疇，僅從言語表達而言，用語簡練流暢，意思清晰，總體上是值得肯定的。

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