MY HOMETOWN

How the culture is changing?

Nowadays, culture is changing a lot, because the world is more global, there are more people, more immigrants...
New technologies have made our lives easier and we have abandoned many customs, thoughts ... We have changed the way we talk, think, act ...
The crisis in the world has caused many people to abandon their culture and they go to another country to look for a better job, different customs, lifestyles ...
Now the mentality of people is more open than some years ago.

HOW THE CULTURE IS CHANGING:

In the past people worked in the market garden; however, nowadays this kind of job is disappearing in the name of the progress.
Currently, most of the people work and live in the city, and this change has made people's culture change too. One example of this is, on the one hand, the improvement in the access to school education and, on the other hand, the loss of a good familiar education in terms of social values because parents have to work.

HOW THE CULTURE IS CHANGING

I remember when I was a child, kids in my neighbourhood used to play all together in the street after they finished class, but ,unfortunately, nowadays they can’t do it because is more dangerous than before, so young people spend more time watching TV, playing at home and so on; in fact, they don’t socialize enough, and in my opinion it is bad.

RELIGION

Most of people in Murcia are catholic or they practise the Catholicism. In Catholicism there are several types of groups: Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox, Evangelists...
Nowadays, because of immigration we can see people with different religions like Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.
All commons religions have a unique God, and a book which contains his dogmas, recommendations, rules and life habits.

RELIGION

Here in Murcia the most of the population is traditionally catholic. But, nowadays, more and more people are living their lives apart from religion. Immigration also has brought other religions such as subdivisions of Christianity (Baptist, evangelistic, etc.) or Islam.

RELIGION

In Spain, the traditional religion is Christianity and we usually celebrate all the festivities related to his religion like Easter and Xmas.
In my opinion, nowadays, religion is less important (for some people) because it is possible that before, people had more free time than now to go to the church, for example.
I said that almost all people are catholic but there are more and more people with different cultures in Spain and therefore, also there are different religions like the Muslim one.

RELIGIOn

In Alcantarilla, almost all people are catholic, then they believe in "Virgen de la Salud", the patron-saint of the town.

Unfortunately, young people are interested in other things and they hardly-ever go to the church; God isn’t important in their lives. Also, there are people that practise other religions, for example, Jehovah Witnesses or Evangelists.

In conclusion, in Alcantarilla there are people with different religions, but the most important is that everybody respects the other people, in fact, we live and let live.

TRADITIONS

In Murcia people always go out to have a lunch on Sunday to relax or they do other funny activities with the family. Also, people take a snack on Friday after work. However, young people go out to parties or just go for a walk with friends at the weekend.

TRADITIONS

There is a variety of traditions in Murcia. One of them is about food. In Murcia it is typical eating meat cakes that, I think, are only made in our region and they are very good, but, unfortunately, it has a lot of calories. The fish rice (caldero) is very typical too.
Also, there are religious traditions like the processions at Easter, in which its members give sweets to the public that see them.
Another tradition is the “Romería” that consists of going with the Fuensanta Virgin to her house in the mountain. Every year, more and more people go with her when the Fair finishes.

SPECIAL OCCASIONS

Well, in my village there´re many special occasions, like The Easter Week, there´re many religious parades with the most important scenes from the life of Jesus and his saints.

The last weekend, we celebrate the parade in honour of (Nuestra Señora del Alba), with a group of people, called “auroros”, who sing and play music with traditional instruments. It´s nice.

The next weekend, it’s the same with The Rosario Virgin.

Another important occasion is the celebration of the festivities in honour of another Virgin, The Health (La Salud).
It´s also a pagan festivity, because people drink a lot and at the end a witch is burned. Oh, what a pity!

Finally, I think there are too many Virgins and too much alcohol.

TRADITIONS AND SPECIAL OCCASIONS IN MY REGION: MURCIA.

Murcia has a lot of traditions like its local dances where people wear traditional clothes or the processions with religious idols on the streets.
At Christmas you can see in a lot of figures where Jesus birth is shown / represented.
Another special occasion is in September with "La Romería", in this annual festival, people come from all over the villages to go with the local saint "La Fuensanta" to the mountain where she has her church.

SPECIAL OCCASIONS

There are many special occasions in which you can enjoy the people, the weather and the beautiful squares in Murcia.
At Christmas you can see a fantastic festival in "Santo Domingo" square, at Easter there are great figures of Salzillo in the street and, of course, in summer you can enjoy our fantastic beaches, some of which are still wild.
It is easy to find a special occasion to have a beer at the flowers square with good friends.

SPECIAL OCCASIONS

In Spain there are a lot of festivals, but people celebrate specially two of them.

- Easter. It is a Catholic celebration in which people commemorate Jesus death.
- Christmas. People celebrate when Jesus was born and when the Three Wise Men visited him in Belen.

LANGUAGE

In our city, the language is Spanish. But there are a lot of people from different countries here, so they also speak other languages, such as Chinese and Muslim. These days, people like learning languages too for studying, working or travelling reasons. The most commons are English and French. We have got another typical language which old people used to speak some years ago. It is called Panocho, but now it is dying out.

LANGUAGE

In Murcia, the official language is Spanish but there is a particular way of speaking the Spanish language named "panocho".
It consists of the omission of the last sound or syllable, for example: "todo" sounds "to". In Panocho dialect there area lot of own expressions like: "pico' squina", "ta too güeno" or "vente pacá". This is very strange for the people of the rest of Spain and it is very complicated for tourists to understand us.

Language in my country

In Spain there are five different languages: Galician, Euskera, Catalan, Valenciano and Spanish. The official language in all the country is Spanish; the other four languages are co-official languages in different places of Spain. Moreover, there are a lot of languages spoken by tourists and immigrants like English, Italian, French, Arabic, Germany, and many more. In addition, in Spain people try to learn English as second or third language both for work and as a hobby.

Alcantarilla (language/national costume)

In Alcantarilla there aren't different languages, everybody speaks Spanish but we speak with a special accent. There is a dialect called panocho that nowadays it is not spoken.
In Alcantarilla people is starting to wear brand clothes. In the past people wore comfortable clothes to work in the country.

LANGUAGE
In our region, called "Región de Murcia", the oficial language is Spanish, but we have also an old language, known as "Panocho" that was spoken years ago by local inhabitants.

NATIONAL COSTUME
We have our own typical costume, that is used on special events as "el Bando de la Huerta" and other local festivals.
It´s always worn by groups that play them and dance with typical music.

CULTURE CHANGE.

Nowadays, there is an only one difference between people who live in the city and people who live in the nearest villages: young people live in the city. This is because more people than in the past go to University and it is in the city. Another change that we can see is about Technology. Nowadays most of the citizens use gadgets such as I-Pods, mobiles phones, tablets or laptops, which are very popular among young people. We could conclude that nowadays young people is moving the world and leading the change.

TRADITIONAL COSTUME.

Here in Murcia we have a traditional costume. This costume is different if you are a man or a woman. If you are a man, you have to wear white special trousers called "Zaragüeles". If you are a woman, you have to wear a special skirt. This skirt, which is called "Refajo", is made of cotton, it is very heavy but very beautiful too. It has a fantastic design which is handmade.

NATIONAL COSTUME

In Spain every region, city and town has its costume. Actually, these costumes are a heritage of past centuries and nowadays there are people who work to recover these costumes. They look for them in old books and they ask the oldest person in the town about them. Thanks to them, we have been able to dress young people with traditional costumes in special occasion like local festivities.

National Costume

In Murcia, people use a traditional costume when the “Bando de la Huerta” takes place. For women it consists of a long skirt with handmade flowers and a white shirt with shorts sleeves. Over this shirt they usually wear a big “mantón”. On their head they usually wear traditional jewellery. On their feet they usually wear a pair of long white socks and a pair of special shoes called “esparteñas”.
For men it consists of a white pair of trousers called “zaragüeles” and a white shirt with long sleeves. Over this shirt they usually wear a vest, and round their waist they usually wear a “faja” of the same colour as the vest.
On their feet they use the same things as women.