全新版听说教程 4 听力原文 Unit 1 One World Part B Listening Tasks A Conv ersation Birthday Celebrations Around the World Ex ercise 1 Listen to the conversation and write down answers to the questions you hear. Chairman: Welcome to this special birthday edition of One World. Tonight we have a special program dedicated to birthday celebrations around the world. With us in the studio we have Shaheen Hag and Pat Cane, who have a weekly column on birthdays in the Toronto Daily Star. Shaheen: Good evening. Pat: Good evening. Chairman: Shaheen, perhaps we could begin with you. How are birthdays celebrated in India? Shaheen: Well, perhaps we're all assuming that everyone in the world celebrates their birthday. This just isn't the case. Low-income families in India, for instance, simply can't afford any festivities. And most Muslims don't celebrate their birthdays. Pat: I think Shaheen has raised an interesting point here. The Christian church, too, was actively against celebrating birthdays. Shaheen: Of course some Muslims do celebrate their birthdays. In Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia, for example, the rich people invite friends and families around. But not in small villages. Chairman: Here in England your twenty-first used to be the big one. But now it seems to have moved to eighteen. Is that true? Pat: Yes, in most parts of the West eighteen is now the most important birthday. In Finland, for example, eighteen is the age when you can vote, you know, or buy wines, drive a car and so on. But in Japan I think you have to wait till you're twenty before you can smoke or drink. Shaheen: I know in Senegal, which is another Muslim country, girls get to vote at sixteen and boys at eighteen. And in...
