How to talk about local customs and folklore?

You are excited about taking your tourist group to exotic locations and want to be their perfect guide. Tourists travel around the world to know about other customs, folklore apart from their native countries. Custom and folklore originate over centuries and are a defining aspect of any location. When you go about explaining the local customs and folklore, create captivating stories in English. The audience will appreciate your English command and knowledge.

Things to keep in mind:

 1. Create mystery

Tourists love mysterious places. Create an aura around your explanation and keep your listeners captivated. Use appropriate English words and phrases. Your vocabulary and speech tone should be modified according the location.

2. Use hand gestures

Suitable hand gestures should be given at the time of giving folklore detail. They show that you yourself are interested and excited to be a part of the description. A monotonous tone can be boring and may lead to a lack of interest. The audience should remember what you said till the reminder of their stay.

Sample Conversation:

Situation: You and your tourist batch are visiting Pallakad, a scenic place in Kerala that is famous for its bamboo sticks.

You: Welcome to Pallakad, the home of scenic natural beauty and bamboo sticks. This region is famous for its quality bamboo sticks.

Tourist 1: Wow, this place is quite beautiful, look at those awesome bamboos. It's truly a wonderful sight.

Tourist 2: I have heard some folklore stories of this place. Do you know it?

You: Of course, I will tell you all about it. As you can see, the place is filled with bamboos. They are the basis of a folklore and custom of this place. The story goes like this, once there was a bamboo winnow maker called Pakkanar. He used to earn money by selling winnows by going to the nearest forest, collecting bamboos, making the winnows, and selling them for a good price of Rs. 4. But when the time for payment came, he used to take only Re.1 and the rest Rs 3 went to different accounts from the customer .

Tourist 3: Why? Was he crazy?

You: No, he had a noble logic behind that. He used to believe that humans work only to satisfy their wants. His logic was that he needed only Re.1 for him and his wife to survive. Re.1 for paying back his indebtedness to his parents, Re. 1 for his future generation, Re. 1 as a donation to the poor and the needy. He didn’t want to lose sleep over money, which did not belong to him.

Tourist 4: Wow, that’s nice. Hey, why is there small bamboo winnow models hanging on the sticks?

You: Its part of the local custom to honor Pakkanar. His actions spread the message that it is foolishness to amass huge wealth and then lose sleep over it.

Tourist 5: That’s wonderful, this place has amazing stories.

The above sample conversation highlights how you should talk about the local customs and folklores. With the use of fluent English conversations, you can captivate your audience and take them on a memorable experience. You can take the assistance of free online English tutorials or better join a spoken English program to better your career as a guide.

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