Spain

西班牙

Introduction

简介

There is only one England or France, but there are several Spains. Castilians are in the majority and continue to dominate, but you would do well to check on a Spaniard’s origins when beginning to do business with him or her. Galicians are practical and melancholy, sharing some common ground with British, Dutch and Nordics. Aragonese stubbornness finds an echo in Finnish sisu. Basques have a talent for industry and commerce and, along with Finns, Hungarians and Estonians, stand apart from Indo-European ancestry. Northern Europeans and Americans share the cult of efficiency with Catalans, who face France rather than Spain. On the other hand, they have little in common with two other regions—Asturias, where the people are extremely haughty, and Andalusia, where everyone is an orator and timetables are for cats and dogs. At the time of writing, Spain’s regions are still somewhat restive. The Catalans have already achieved a large degree of autonomy and self-rule. Catalan is firmly established as a literary tongue and is in daily use. Galician and Andalusian regionalism is relatively passive. Only in the Basque country is unrest visible, with episodes of violence. The Islamic attack on a Madrid train in 2004 has temporarily overshadowed Basque activities of a similar nature, but the aspirations of certain elements in the Basque provinces of Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya and Alava remain the chief obstacle to Spanish unity in the twenty-first century.

世界上只有一个英国，一个法国，但是这世界上有许多个西班牙。如果你刚开始和西班牙人合作做生意，要研究西班牙历史，你会发现卡斯蒂利亚人口占了很大一部分而且会继续主导。加里西亚人和英国人、德国人以及北欧人有许多相似点，务实又思悲。阿拉贡人的固执和芬兰人有相似之处，巴斯克人有经商的天赋，与芬兰人、匈牙利人和爱沙尼亚人一同独立于印欧人的血统。他们面对法国而不是西班牙时，北欧人、美国人与加泰罗尼亚人都讲究效率。另一方面，他们与其他两个地区也有所不同：阿斯图里亚斯，那里人民非常傲慢；以及安达卢西亚，那里每个人都是为猫和狗有一套说辞和时间表。在文字时代，西班牙地区还是有点难以驯导。加泰罗尼亚人已经实现了很大程度的自治和自治。加泰罗尼亚语被确立为一种文学语言并在日常使用。加利西亚和安达卢西亚地区主义是相对被动的。只有在巴斯克地区仍不安宁，暴动盛行。 2004年伊斯兰袭击马德里火车暂时掩盖了类似性质的巴斯克活动，但是在巴斯克的吉普斯夸省、比斯卡亚和阿拉瓦省的部分因素仍然是影响西班牙在二十一世纪统一的主要障碍。