Part 1 - Scotland Culture

            Scotland has a known reputation for sports that include tennis, golf and rugby.  Stick games such as curling and cricket are also popular, but soccer is the most popular sport of Scotland and Europe as well.  The Scottish Professional Football League (soccer)  contains four tiers with the Scottish Premiership placing in the highest tier.  The Rangers F.C and the Celtics F.C are the league’s biggest rivalry.  Scotland is also home to some of the world’s greatest golf courses including St. Andrews, Turnberry and Gleneagles.  Russell Knox and Martin Laird are current Scottish players on the PGA Tour.

            Scotland is known for its folk music that is most commonly played on the bagpipes.  The most common bagpipe that is played in modern Scottish music is the Great Highland Bagpipe.  Furthermore, bagpipe competitions are also fairly common in Scotland.  In addition, the accordion, fiddle, guitar and harp are instruments that are used in folk music.  However, another popular genre of the music of Scotland is jazz.  Among the jazz artists since the 1950s, Scotland has produced several musicians including Jimmy Deuchar, Bobby Wellins, Joe Temperley.

            The principal foods in the cuisine of Scotland include game, dairy, fish, fruits and vegetables. They do not add a lot of spices, but rely on simple methods of food preparations.  Most towns have Chinese and Indian carry-out restaurants, while the larger towns include cuisines that are representative of the Japanese, Mexican, Polish and Thai foods.  Cullen skink and partan bree are popular soups of the Scottish cuisine, arbroath smokies and herring are common fish, and clapshot and neeps are popular vegetables.

            The religion of Scotland includes all types of denominations and religions with Christianity representing the majority (53.8%) of the population.  43.6% of Scottish people are non-religious or did not state a religion as indicated by the 2011 census.  The remaining percentages account for individuals that are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhists and Hindus.

            The Scottish peoples celebrate many of the same holidays that us Americans celebrate such as New Years, Mother’s Day, Easter, Christmas and so on.  An important holiday is St. Andrew’s Day on November 30 because St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland.  Boxing Day, which occurs on December 26, is a holiday where servants receive gifts from their bosses.  This holiday takes place in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.  In addition to these generic Scottish holidays, the Scots have several days off that are declared as bank holidays as well.

            Several Scottish actors that were born in Scotland have positively impacted the world through cinemas.  The most notable is Sean Connery, who portrayed James Bond in seven of the earliest Bond movies.  Brian Cox is an Emmy Award winning actor that is best known for portraying Hannibal Lecter in the 1986 movie Manhunter.  Popular Scottish films include Gregory’s Girl and Whisky Galore.  Both of these movies are extremely old (Gregory’s Girl-1981, Whisky Galore-1949), but appear to be classics that are favorites by many of the Scots.

            There are numerous online news sources for Scotland.  The first is called the Scotsman: Scotland on Sunday (http://www.scotsman.com).  Another online newspaper is the British Broadcasting Corporation: News Scotland (http://www.bbc.com/news/scotland).  Others include the Daily Record and Sunday Mail (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk) and The Herald (http://www.heraldscotland.com).

            There are also several online forums for expatriates as well.  These include http://www.americanexpats.co.uk, http://www.expats.org.uk/links/, http://www.expatexchange.com/scotland/liveinscotland.html, and http://www.expatsblog.com/portal/american/in/scotland.

            The Scottish Government is the executive branch of the government that is accountable for the Scottish Parliament.  The responsibilities of the government must include monitoring the health, education, justice, rural affairs, housing and environment of Scotland.  The Scottish Government is led by the First Minister, who selects all the cabinet secretaries and junior ministers.  The First Minister of the cabinet secretary of Scotland is Alex Salmond.  He is the leader of the Scottish National Party and Member of the Scottish Parliament for Aberdeenshire East.