Now a construction company from the EU have been hired by the Derdian government to visit you and teach you the science of building bridges.. You will use cardboard paper, pens, scissors
Trang 1You live in a country called ‘Derdia.’ There is a deep canyon between your village and the market of the nearby
town This is a huge inconvenience, because if you want to do grocery shopping there, you have to walk for two
days to get around the canyon and reach the market If there was a bridge over the canyon, the trip
would take only 5 hours
Now a construction company from the EU have been hired by the Derdian government to visit you
and teach you the science of building bridges That means you are going
to be the first engineers in Derdia with a license to construct bridges all
across the country
You will use cardboard paper, pens, scissors and glue to make
the bridge You are familiar with the materials, but not with the
construction methods
YOUR SOCIAL RULES
1 Touching
Touching each other is very
important for the Derds It is
grossly improper and
tactless not to touch during
conversations However, you
do not have to touch each
other directly If you touch a
chain of people, you can
communicate with each
member in the chain
2 Introductions
It is also hugely important to greet visitors kindly A Derdian man may not make contact with another man until a woman introduces them to each other This woman can either be a Derd
or a foreigner
4 Saying yes/no
The Derds do not use the ’N’
word, that is the word ’no’,
because it is considered very
rude You say ’yes’ when
you mean ’yes’, and say
’yes’ while very markedly
nodding your heads when
you mean ’no’
Very important: You take your own cultural customs for granted (=you can’t imagine that others may have different customs), so you do not explain anything to the engineers!
5 Conduct during work
The Derds touch each other during work when they wish
to communicate
The tools all have a gender:
the paper and scissors are feminine, the pencil, pen, glue and ruler are masculine
The men must not touch a feminine tool, while the women must not touch masculine tools (I guess it has to do with their cultural traditions or religion)
6 Foreigners
The Derds are sociable people, who especially like meeting foreigners You are very proud of yourselves and your culture So while you highly appreciate the assistance in building bridges, you do not regard the foreigners superior You Derds expect the foreigners to accommodate to the Derdian culture and customs
3 Greetings
The traditional greeting is to greet each other with a kiss
on the other’s shoulder The first person to greet the other kisses the other’s right shoulder, and then the other one returns the same greeting Any other kinds of kisses are considered rudely impolite
The worst possible offense
in Derdia is to shake hands
as a greeting A Derd who was offended by not being greeted upon meeting or not being touched during conversations behaves rather indignantly
Trang 2You are engineers working for a multinational construction company in the European Union The
company has recently contracted with the Derdian government, and thereby offered to hold a training to teach a group of Derds how to construct bridges You will visit their village and build the first bridge
together You have to keep the deadline agreed upon, otherwise the contract will be terminated and you will lose your jobs
Derdia is a mountainous country (beyond the Operentsian Sea) with deep canyons and
valleys, but without any bridges There is a deep canyon between the Derdian village you are
visiting and the market of the nearby town This is a huge inconvenience, because if they want
to do grocery shopping there, they have to walk for two days to get around the canyon and
reach the market If there was a bridge over the canyon, the trip would take only 5 hours
It is important not simply to build the first bridge, but also to train the
first Derdian engineers and enable them to build bridges all across
Derdia.
PREPARATION FOR THE TRAINING
Construction
Decide together on which
contruction method to use in
building a bridge for the
Derds
In the meantime, two
members of the construction
team can make a quick,
3-minute visit to the Derdian
village where the first bridge
will be built, e.g to make
contact with the villagers,
discuss details of the contract,
confirm the forthcoming arrival
of the team, and gather
(=collect) information on the
natural and weather
conditions
Then you’ll have 10 minutes
to share the new information
with your team, and make the
necessary preparations
Finally, your whole team of
engineers travels to Derdia to
teach the Derds how to build
bridges.
The bridge
The bridge is symbolized by a paper bridge You will build the bridge out of cardboard paper, using pens, scissors and glue The bridge has to connect two chairs or desks standing about 80 cm from each other It has to be strong enough to bear (=hold) its own weight, and the scissors, pencils and other construction tools
You cannot assemble parts of the bridge in the EU to transport the parts to Derdia, because, on the one hand, it would not be cost-effective (=cheap), and on the other hand, the Derds could not master (=learn) the skill of bridge construction It is very important that they learn all the stages of construction
Each panel of the bridge has
to be drawn by a pen/pencil and a ruler, and cut out with scissors.
The time limit
30-40 minutes for preplanning the construction process and the visit to Derdia 25-30 minutes for teaching the Derds
to build bridges.