Ziling Liang - May 8th - Blog Four

Today I had a great conversation with my host family and had a chance to know more about them. My host family mom named Leonor, who has two sons, and the one who lives with us is called Bernardo. Leonor is 74 years old, and she is a house wife who takes care of people live in her house. And she likes playing card games. Bernardo, 36 years old, works in a commercial and trading company. There is another student from Alma College living in our host family named Warren Elmer, who is 20 years old and majors in Spanish. During these days living in the host family, since my roommate Meng and I do not speak any Spanish, we can only use English to communicate with Warren and Bernardo who speak English, too. When I have to communicate with our host mom Leonor, I will ask them to translate if they are available, or I use gestures and facial expressions to explain what I mean. 

 I did not see that much that whether Ecuadorians are more individualism or collectivism. However, according to the conversation with Bernardo, I do not think he is a individualistic person. Also, my host mom takes care of every thing in my daily life. For example, even though I do not ask for cleaning, she cleans my bedroom everyday immediately after I leave the house. Because she is willing to do things she believe is good and necessary without requesting, I would believe Ecuadorians are more like collectivism. I searched online after we finished the dinner, and the result shows that Ecuador is collectivism. 

 Since I have noticed that in the US, people will have their own meal individually instead of sharing dishes together, I was wondering how it would be in Ecuador. According to meals I had in my host family and restaurants, Ecuadorian also eats in their own plates. However, some fast food like KFC, which is cheap in US, is very expensive in Ecuador.
Today, I went to one of the biggest shopping malls in Quito, Quicentro, and this was the first time I visited a shopping mall here. The mall is quite big and has different kinds stores that either sells cheap or high end products. I compared the prices of products with the prices in the US and China, and I realized that products like clothes or shoes are much more expensive, but the food here is not. I asked Bernardo for its reason, and he told me that because of policy, imported products have very high tax and also the government tax merchandises a lot. After I came back from the shopping mall, Meng and I prepared a dinner for our host family which had two kinds of Chinese noodles. For Meng and me, they actually did not taste very good, but, fortunately, our host family love them. Therefore, I still feel happy not because of food but we all had a enjoyable time together, as a family.



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