[NEWS] Five cultural links: astronauts learning Chinese, hitchhiking, Catalonia, Croatia, Georgia

[rfmcdonald]

• The BBC reports on how astronauts from Europe are starting to learn Chinese, the better to interacting with future fellow travelers.


• MacLean's takes a look at the practical disappearance of hitchhiking as a mode of travel in Canada, from its heights in the 1970s. (No surprise, I think, on safety grounds alone.)


• PRI notes the practical disappearance of the quintessentially Spanish bullfight in Catalonia, driven by national identity and by animal-rights sentiment.


• Transitions Online notes how the strong performance of Croatia at the World Cup, making it to the finals, was welcomed by most people in the former Yugoslavia.


• Open Democracy notes how tensions between liberal and conservative views on popular culture and public life are becoming political in post-Soviet Georgia.