Nancy Mitford's From The Water Beetle

s
Lesson Seven: Tourists
Nancy Mitford
From The Water Beetle, 1962
Warming-Up
ν Do you like travelling (making tour)? Why or why not? ν What is the purpose of a tourist? for knowledge or culture; for sightseeing pleasure; for relaxation; for seeking novelties; for showing-off of their having physically been to places; for no purpose. ν What are the advantages and disadvantages for a tourist attraction? Economy (hotel, restaurant, shop, entertainment, transportation); new idea; new life-style… pollution (air, sound, litter, spit); being materialistic (greedy for possession, cunning and dishonesty, turning tourist attractions into a stage setting for the mounting of cheap shows
ν Occupation: novelist, biographer. ν Life Experience ν Born and brough up in London. ν Moved to Paris at the end of the Second World War and later to Versailles in1967. ν A well-known public personality, invariably elegantly dressed,lived a busy social and literary life, had a huge number of friends and acquaintances in the English, French and Italian aristocracies, travelled frequently and established a pattern of visits to country houses in England, Ireland and France as well as annual visits to Venice. ν Mitford Sisters ν She was one of the noted Mitford Sisters and the first to publicise the extraordinary family life of her very English and very eccentric family, giving rise to a 'Mitford industry' which continues. ν Politically a moderate socialist, she somehow kept on good terms most of the time with her sisters, despite the extreme political views of Diana, Jessica and Unity, mainly by deploying her acerbic wit. Some of their letters are republished in The Mitfords: Letters between six sisters. ν
8.What is the author’s attitude towards the American, British and German tourists? ν Generally, he dislikes the American, British and German tourists. ν From the tone, we can see a little bit difference of his attitude. He shows a little bit neutral attitude to American tourists, negative to British and positive to German.
9.Why is Leader capitalized? Which adjectives would you like to use for the German tourists? ν Germans are used to having a leader in doing anything as was established by Hitler who was called “Fuhrer”, meaning “leader”. ν Tidy, disciplined, boring.
10.Translate the following sentence into Chinese. ν Many more visitors than it comfortably hold pour into it [Torcello], off the regular steamers, off chartered motor-boats, and off yachts (lines 13-15). ν 大批游客涌进托塞罗岛，人数远远超过它能应付裕如地接纳的限度。有的搭乘定时汽船，有的乘租赁的摩托艇，有的乘帆船。
11.Paraphrase the underlined part of the following