Horse and buggy: Amish in Ohio

Back in the early 1700s, when Europeans were seeking places to settle in the New World for economic, political, and religious reasons, some Amish people in the German-speaking regions of Switzerland were told to leave. These Amish came to Pennsylvania, which was a colony founded by William Penn, a British Quaker (another religious group which also believes in living humbly and in rejecting violence, even in self-defense). As the Amish population enlarged, some of the new arrivals moved westward, to what is now Ohio and Indiana. The Amish everywhere lived simply, growing as much of their own food as possible, making their own clothes and furniture, building their on houses. What characterized Amish life then is also how the Amish people live now. Keeping separate from the developing population in regions all around them, the Amish continue to live as a community with a distinctive difference to modernity.

Home is the center of Amish life: it is where weddings and funerals take place; it is where most relious services are held (leaders of their religious service are not trained but are instead local men); it is where food preservation like canning tomatoes or jelly take place over a gas-powered or wood-burning stove, depending on the family's definition of the religion's rationales. There is no tv, radio, computer or smart phone but book-reading and conversations are regular daily activity. More conservative family homes do not have indoor plumbing. Almost every Amish home is bilingual: German dialect and English for speaken communication; only English for reading and writing.

As late as the 1950s, Amish children attended public schools. However, Amish parents preferred small schools within walking distance because there are no cars or buses in their community. Curricula in health classes teach sex education, which Amish disapprove. Amish boys end schooling in the 8th grade, being considered old enough to work on the farm full-time. In some areas, parents paid fine rather than send their children to high school; in other places, especially in Ohio, they re-opened their one-room schools from the 19th c. as "private" schools. Various legal fights ign the Midwest about the Amish children and their education went all the way to the US Supreme Court and in 1972 in was ruled, unanimously, that Amish children could end their schooling in the 8th grade.

Some Amish split from their religion, becoming Mennonites, which allows them to dress plainly, but also to drive cars, use electricity, and go to college. They practice economic communalism but they also have more contact with consumer culture and so operate stores that sell Amish and Mennonites food and furniture. In Ohio, the towns of Berlin, New Philadelphia, Welcome, Nashville, and Charm and interesting for cheese, quilts, and other Amish products. Some stores there are not related to the Amish but may exploit the tourists with legal but imitation usage of the locale's heritage. Der Dutchman restaurant has good food but defines itself as "Amish-style." "Yoder's Amish Home" is open to tourists and belongs to a man who was Amish "until the age of 21," Guggisberg Cheese is a factory that makes excellent Swiss cheese, so it is related to --but also does not belong to - the Amish. Just know what is, and is not, Amish in Ohio. Drive carefully behind the horse and buggy.

**매주 참여하는 영어 모임 자료** 오타 있을 수 있음 ^^