The Corner Shop by Shyama Perera

475 Words2 Pages
The Corner shop by Shyama Perera 1. What is the topic of Pereras essay ? The Topic in Pereras text ”The corner shop” is globalization. Shyama Perera puts focus on how globalization is taken a thing considered as a unique specimen of a nation and changes it into something foreign. Today the corner shops stands as a daily reminder for us that we all live in a global world. Another topic she discusses in her essay is the way immigrants and the urbanisation kills the small tradesmen. 2. What role do Pereras personal experiences play in the essay? Shyama tells about her own experiences of the corner shops, she starts this part of with “In my local shop the most exiting thing on sale was a magazine called Men Only, which was kept in plain covers on a swivel stand between the Fruit Pastilles and the Mother’s Pride” She mentions that a bit down the road, there was an Indian corner shop, and it had some other exotic products. The bigger supermarkets followed and quickly they also began to offer a bigger variety of products, to keep their custumers. The local citizens didn’t like the way the immigrants run their shops, but they didn’t know that the immigrants actually were bringing back culture of the corner shops. By telling about her own experiences with the corner shop, Shyama Perera really gives us to sense the cultural importance of the corner shops, it is her local shop, she remembers some of the things that were for sale, she has memories from it. Since then the corner shop has developed to a global occurrence. 3. What does Perera want to tell us about British culture and British history ? She wants to tell us about the development of the corner shops. How a local and native British phenomenon changed to a global multi ethnic phenomenon. In the beginning of her essay she quote a line from the news paper “Sunday time”, which says: “If
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