 Hi, everyone. Welcome to a real conversation between two native English speakers. I'm Liz Wade and this is Adam Navas. Hi, Adam. Hello, Liz. And we are going to discuss our program, Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. And you can find that program on our website with a script that you can read along at www.spotlightenglish.com or you can find it on YouTube or anywhere that you get a podcast. So you can listen to it or you can watch it and follow along. And yeah, so we're going to discuss that program today. Did I forget anything, Adam? Where else can you find our programs? Wherever you get your podcast, YouTube and our website, I think you have all of them. Yeah, okay. Okay, I got them all. You see, Adam, I feel like I'm a little, here's an English word that is not common, discombobulated. Oh, that is a good word. It's a fun word, but it is, you're right. It is not a common word. No, but it means that I feel a little bit like my mind is here and there and a little bit of everywhere. A lot of different pieces, not a lot of order. Right, they don't, they aren't fitting together and they're not jiving together. Well, that's the beauty of this being a real conversation, right? Yes, exactly. People are experiencing us less put together, very real. Exactly. So are you feeling discombobulated, Adam, or are you feeling good? I am feeling, what would be, I'm trying to think of a word that's, because you're never, combobulated is not a word. Right. Yeah, that is true. I am feeling more put together than discombobulated. So I'm okay, and I mean that not in a trite way, not in a, just this is the answer I'm going to give you, but I feel good. I have a, when we're recording this, I don't know when you are watching this, but it's going to be my birthday soon, so I'm feeling good. Oh yeah. Yeah, happy early birthday. Thank you, thank you. Adam, that is a great lead-in to what I wanted to talk about next, which is YouTube memberships. Yes. If you want to find out more about YouTube memberships and getting more out of your spotlight English practice, you can hit that join button right underneath the video on YouTube and learn more about what it means to become a spotlight English member. And one of the perks, one of the cool things that you can get from spotlight English is a birthday shout-out. Yeah, just like this. Happy birthday, me. So if I... Yeah, maybe I'll make you a birthday shout-out. Yeah, as a demonstration. Yes, exactly. And so while you're down there, oh. I was just saying to the people who are members already, we've really enjoyed that little community that's starting to form. Yes. And so while you're down there checking out that join button, make sure that you like this video, subscribe. If you haven't already subscribed to this channel and then click the little bell to always get a notification. Because we are not a channel that says subscribe and gives you nothing more. We have a lot, a lot of content coming your way. Yes, that is true. Okay, well, let's get back to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. Hopefully everyone's had a chance to listen to that program or check it out on our website. I actually wrote this program and I wrote it because I read the book Things Fall Apart. So obviously Chinua Achebe is an author, a writer, and he is from Nigeria. And I think that I had read an article or read something about this book Things Fall Apart. And I had read it a long time ago, maybe in high school or something like that. And I remembered parts of it, but as I read this article and learned more, I really wanted to read it again. So I actually bought the book and read it. And I have it right here. Very nice. And I was looking through it yesterday to refresh my memory. And yeah, then I was thinking, I should read this again. But anyway, I read this book to write this program. And so the program really goes through the history of Chinua Achebe and why he started writing what things influenced him. He was a pretty amazing man, honestly. Yeah, I think it's a great program that talks about this person and their motivations for writing, which were pretty significant. Not just, oh, I want to tell a story, but I got really interested and excited in the program talking about his reaction to some of the ideas and literature that was already out there. I'm using quotes, Africa. Because Africa is, and that's one of the things we can talk about, right? Like when people say Africa, what do they even mean? Because it's such a big country. So I don't know if that's what was interesting to you about this Chinua, but that's one of the things for me that was like this is really an interesting book and author. Well, let's talk about that incident that you brought up. So he saw this very, it's a movie, right? It's a book and a movie. A book, yes. Okay. See, I studied a lot of film in college, and so that's my immediate go-to. But yeah, there's a book by Joseph Conrad called Heart of Darkness. So of course, we're already having a very problematic title about people, I don't know where it takes place, but it is in the continent of Africa. And I'm going to look at the script right now as I describe this so I don't get it wrong. So the book was written in 1902 and it tells of a European man and his travels in parts of Africa. And in those days, many Europeans called Africa the dark continent. They had a very poor view of Africans. So the book showed them as like not intelligent, not well-spoken. And so I'm going to just read this paragraph from the program. It's very good, I think. Achebe tells about the longest group of words said by an African character in Heart of Darkness. The character says only eight words and he's not very eloquent. So not very well-spoken or speaking nicely. The African man says, catch him, give him to us, eat him. So in a book about Africa, that is the longest group of words said by an African character, which is like a tragedy. And Achebe says that this is not his experience of Africa at all, but this was the sort of content that's going out around the world that's popular around the world, well, the Western world, which is just not representing his culture. So he started writing in response to that. It was an insult to his people. Right? And of course, that's something that continues to happen if not just about the country of Africa or the country of Nigeria, it happens if you don't see, if you don't have a means of telling your story, whether through books or movies or podcasts or YouTube, if you don't have that, if you can't put that out, someone else is going to tell your story. So when someone outside your culture, let's just say language, right? It's very easy to say to someone watching this, oh, you don't speak good English. When I experience you, you must not be very intelligent. Well, the truth is the people, spotlight people are learning a second or third language, they're probably much more intelligent than you or I are, let's be honest. And they're motivated and driven and ambitious. But because people in Europe and people in the United States control, let's talk about movies, like what's being shown, how characters are getting portrayed, not just in a book written in 1902, but right this year. Literature and films today. Exactly. And so I think when we say Africa, people say, oh, that means lions and safari, that means tribes, that means the Lion King basically. Even though the continent of Africa is, there's coastlands and there's deserts and there's jungle and there's all kinds of diversity. Yeah, it's actually to sort of emphasize how big this is. I always love seeing those maps where other countries are laid on top of a map of Africa and it is insanely huge. Africa covers so much land mass and so many people and so many countries. It's so difficult to, yeah, I mean, how could you ever think you were telling the story of Africa by... In one book or in one, it's, yeah. But we do it, right? And it's problematic and it's helpful in some ways, like if we're saying, hey, we try to explain to people who might be watching this video, life in the United States. And we suffer the same problem, right? Yeah. We talk about life in the United States, but what we're talking about is some kind of general, usual thing that probably isn't really accurate. Yeah. This is a funny example of this. We have a series of short videos about the differences between UK English and US English and you should check out that playlist. But a lot of people from the US will go on there and be like, we don't use this word or like, I live in England and I've never heard this word. Well, okay, yes, we cannot cover every single language difference, like, especially in England where there are like a hundred different accents in, you know, a span of six miles or whatever. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, I think, but I think it is important to recognize that that is something that happens and then seek out, be intentional about the stories that we engage with, whether it's through books or television or wherever to say, oh, I heard, you know, pick a country, Japan is, this is, this is what Japanese people like. Well, right. True. But we should maybe go and find a Japanese writer and maybe not just one, but two or three or, or in, because we want that diversity because even one person, even a Chebe, isn't, he, this person doesn't get to tell everyone's story. It gets to tell his story or the character in this fiction story. So I think that's so important because we want to hear the people's, I do, I want to hear people's stories from the, in their own words. Yes. This also reminds me of another writer, Chimamanda Adichie, who we also have a program about who talks about this as well, about telling your own story. And if you're not going to tell your story, then who is? Yeah. So, yeah, I think that, I think that we can, we can have a challenge to our listeners. Like, do you think you're telling your story or is there someone in your culture who you feel is telling your story? I would love to hear, to hear in the comments of this program that you let us know who is, who's telling the stories of your country well that, that Liz and I should, should know about, that we could maybe talk about. Put it in the comments. I love getting book recommendations from our listeners. It's really cool. Again, like, you know, you're talking about spotlight listeners, like, they're really engaged, like with the world. And I, I love that. I love that about the people who watch this channel and who listen to this podcast. And I think that is one of the real strengths of this community, is that we are all sort of doing this thing together, right? Like, practicing English, but also learning about the world and your place in it and how you can learn more about it and be a member of the community. Yeah. So, I want to throw out, I want to get the ball rolling with two authors that I like. They're not from, they're from different cultures. So, there's a Japanese writer called Haruki Murakami, who I really enjoy. So, if you haven't read any of his books. I have not. And then there's a, I believe it's Portuguese, José Saramago, which I think won the Summer Warden, you know, Nobel Prize or something in literature. So, those are, they're both pretty famous writers. So, a lot of you might have known about them. So, I really enjoy them. Yeah, they're doing very creative work and are outside my culture. So, I enjoy that aspect of it well. So, I'll get the ball rolling and let us know if there are writers or storytellers of various kinds that you enjoy. Yeah, that's awesome. And we'll put those authors and maybe a few books that you can recommend, Adam, into the description of this program. That would be really great. Again, thank you for watching or listening. However, you're taking this content in, we really encourage you to become a member of the spotlight community if you want to take your practicing and learning another step further. And you can learn more about that by clicking the join button underneath this video. You don't pay for anything until you decide to join. So, just clicking join just lets you learn a little bit more and then you can decide from there. Be sure to check out our website every Monday for a new program and that's www.spotlightenglish.com. We have an app for Android and Apple devices. So, if you prefer to take that in to do your English practicing that way, that's a way for you to do that. Check us out on YouTube, anywhere you get your podcasts. And I think that's it. So, we really encourage you to listen, watch, practice, and learn Spotlight Out.