Gandoor National Q&A [READ OP]

[Gandoor]

Does anyone have any further questions for our Prime Minister?

[Zitravgrad]

"Good day, sirs. I am calling from Zitravgradian Ministry of Science, Technology and Education. We are arranging a set of foreign literature for teaching and further reading in our schools and university. Do you have any famous works (in any language) you would like to recommend to us? But even so, I will have to admit that Russian, English, French and German are the more preferred languages. Italian and other Auropian (European) languages come as secondary. For Oriental languages, we only have experts in Chinese, Korean and Japanese."
- Dr. Ivan Feodorovich Belinsky, Minister of Science, Technology and Education

[Australian rePublic]

What is the ethnic, and religious make-up of your country?

[Gandoor]

"Good day, sirs. I am calling from Zitravgradian Ministry of Science, Technology and Education. We are arranging a set of foreign literature for teaching and further reading in our schools and university. Do you have any famous works (in any language) you would like to recommend to us? But even so, I will have to admit that Russian, English, French and German are the more preferred languages. Italian and other Auropian (European) languages come as secondary. For Oriental languages, we only have experts in Chinese, Korean and Japanese."
- Dr. Ivan Feodorovich Belinsky, Minister of Science, Technology and Education

Of course, although considering the nature of this, I will be recommending a few famous works from Gandoor, of course.

A Tale of the Town of Brockton in the Land of Gondur - Published in 1576 and written by James Neiwode (be aware that his surname has variations in spelling and some modern reprints may alternatively spell it as 'Neywood', 'Neewould', 'Neighwod', 'Naywode', among other variants), A Tale of the Town of Brockton in the Land of Gondur (commonly shortened to just A Tale of Brockton is one of the earliest pieces of Gandoorese literature and is a collection of stories of the lives of citizens of the Brockton, a fictional town that researchers agree was loosely based upon the town of Rocktown, where Neiwode lived. Some of the stories include: the daily life of the farmer, Peters, who is struggling with bad crops that season, the local priest and how he helps the townsfolk who come to him, and some comedic stories about children who care not for what adults are doing.

The Daily Life and Trials of James Robertson - Published in 1827 and written by Johnathan Franklin, The Daily Life and Trials of James Robertson is a novel set in 1819 and is written from the POV of the titular character, James Robertson, who travels from his hometown of Kruthers to the capital Rulookia, where he joins the Royal Army and goes off to fight in the Gandoor-Native Wars against the Ganba.

15歳で (15-sai de)/When We Were 15 (official English title)/At the Age of 15 (direct translation of Japanese title) - Published in 1937 and written by Takashi Morita, When We Were 15 is a Japanese-language novel that is considered the most famous novel in Gandoor. The novel focuses on two girls, Miyako Honda and Yuriko Sakaguchi, who attend an all-girls boarding school who find themselves growing romantically close as they also find themselves surrounded by people who do not approve of their relationship.

ESPIONAGE - Published in 1985 and written by Vladimir Kulov, ESPIONAGE is a Russian-language spy novel about covert ops by the Soviet Union to rise support for their country among Russian-speaking Gandoorese citizens in order for them to elect leaders who will ally Gandoor with the USSR once more. The novel is famous for at least partially being based upon truth, as after the Cold War, declassified materials revealed that the USSR did attempt to create pro-Soviet movements amongst Russo-Gandoorese citizens, primarily during the 1960s and 1970s, but officially continuing until the end of the Cold War. Author Kulov also worked as a spy during the 1950s and 1960s and was involved in counter-ops aimed at quelling pro-Soviet support in Gandoor.

What is the ethnic, and religious make-up of your country?

At least according to the census records, Gandoor is: 34.3% Japanese, 29.4% English, 21.7% Russian, 11.2% Korean, 1.3% Native Gandoorese, and 2.1% from other ethnic groups.

Care must be taken, however, as the census here only allows the selection of one ethnic group per person and this may not accurately reflect persons of mixed ethnic background

For the religious make-up, again taken from census records: 68.5% have no religious affiliation, 11.4% are Buddhist, 9.6% are Shintoist, 5.9% follow native religions, 1.3% are Christian, and 3.5% are other religions.

Once again, be aware that, much like in Japan, in Gandoor the term 'religious' has come to mean 'organized religion', so the non-religious category lumps together atheists, agnostics, deists, followers of non-organized Shinto, followers of non-organized native religions, and any other followers of non-organized religions in our nation.

[Australian rePublic]

Thank You?

Was Grandoor ever a colony and/or coloniser?

[Gandoor]

Thank You?

Was Grandoor ever a colony and/or coloniser?

Historians will say that no, Gandoor was never a colony. While it is true that we were settled by the English starting in 1550, they were exiled who were forever banished from their mother country and the settlements were not part of England.

We have never colonized any other lands, all territory controlled by Gandoor is our main landmass and the surrounding islands considered part of that landmass.

[Gandoor]

Does anyone have any further questions for our Prime Minister?

[Australian rePublic]

If your country has so many Russians, then why are there so few Christians (and more specifically, Orthodox Christians)

[Gandoor]

If your country has so many Russians, then why are there so few Christians (and more specifically, Orthodox Christians)

That's something that's considered a mystery to historians here, especially considering our nation went from 89% Christian in 1900 to only 7% Christian in 2000.

While there was a period of religious oppression that lasted from 1942 until 1951, which saw Christianity (and all other religions) officially outlawed, that isn't considered to be a major factor in the decline, as in the 1955 census, 78% still reported being Christian.

It's typically thought that the low amount of Christians in our nation in the modern day is simply due to the overall secular nature of our society.

[Australian rePublic]

If your country has so many Russians, then why are there so few Christians (and more specifically, Orthodox Christians)

That's something that's considered a mystery to historians here, especially considering our nation went from 89% Christian in 1900 to only 7% Christian in 2000.

While there was a period of religious oppression that lasted from 1942 until 1951, which saw Christianity (and all other religions) officially outlawed, that isn't considered to be a major factor in the decline, as in the 1955 census, 78% still reported being Christian.

It's typically thought that the low amount of Christians in our nation in the modern day is simply due to the overall secular nature of our society.

Then how have followers of other religions remained religious

[Valentine Z]

This is probably the most mundane things to ask about, but I ask: Who is the tallest person in your nation, living or dead?
- Valkyrie General Valentijn Samantha Maxwell “De Sierlijke Angelus” Delta Weston Tracey Mitchell Constantine Sein Lin Zaw Naing

[Gandoor]

That's something that's considered a mystery to historians here, especially considering our nation went from 89% Christian in 1900 to only 7% Christian in 2000.

While there was a period of religious oppression that lasted from 1942 until 1951, which saw Christianity (and all other religions) officially outlawed, that isn't considered to be a major factor in the decline, as in the 1955 census, 78% still reported being Christian.

It's typically thought that the low amount of Christians in our nation in the modern day is simply due to the overall secular nature of our society.

Then how have followers of other religions remained religious

Are you forgetting that almost 70% of the population is not religious whatsoever? The largest individual religion only comprises 11% of the total population.

This is probably the most mundane things to ask about, but I ask: Who is the tallest person in your nation, living or dead?
- Valkyrie General Valentijn Samantha Maxwell “De Sierlijke Angelus” Delta Weston Tracey Mitchell Constantine Sein Lin Zaw Naing

The tallest person to ever live in Gandoor was Sergei Valentinch, who lived from 1903 until 1956, he was 255 cm tall. The tallest currently living person is Peter Jacobs, born in 1972, who is 247 cm tall.

[Australian rePublic]

Then how have followers of other religions remained religious

Are you forgetting that almost 70% of the population is not religious whatsoever? The largest individual religion only comprises 11% of the total population.

This is probably the most mundane things to ask about, but I ask: Who is the tallest person in your nation, living or dead?
- Valkyrie General Valentijn Samantha Maxwell “De Sierlijke Angelus” Delta Weston Tracey Mitchell Constantine Sein Lin Zaw Naing

The tallest person to ever live in Gandoor was Sergei Valentinch, who lived from 1903 until 1956, he was 255 cm tall. The tallest currently living person is Peter Jacobs, born in 1972, who is 247 cm tall.

My mistake

[Australian rePublic]

What is Grandoo's position on same sex marriage?

[Australian rePublic]

What are your nation's languages? If I were to walk down the street in Grandoor and wanted to communicate with the locals, which language would I speak?

What is your nation's stance on English?

[Gandoor]

What is Grandoo's position on same sex marriage?

[first a quick little OOC comment - our nation name is Gandoor, not Grandoor]

Same-sex marriage has been legal in our nation since 1988, when the High Court ruled that limiting marriage to a man and a woman violated our constitution, which defines marriage as 'a consenting union between any two persons of legal age'. In later years, it has been admitted that the High Court didn't necessarily need to declare the de facto ban unconstitutional, they could have ruled it in violation of our nation's anti-discrimination laws, which have included sexuality since 1967.

In modern Gandoor, outside of a few fringe movements, same-sex marriage is widely supported amongst our citizens and political parties. Even the Gandoor Freedom Group, the only socially conservative political party in our nation, has included support for marriage equality in their party platform since 2000.

What are your nation's languages? If I were to walk down the street in Grandoor and wanted to communicate with the locals, which language would I speak?

What is your nation's stance on English?

1. Our nation's official languages are English, Japanese, and Russian. In most parts of Gandoor, you can use English and be completely fine, as 79% of the population speaks it and it is the most widely spoken language here. Japanese is also widely spoken, with 73% of the population reporting fluency, and 60% reports fluency in both English and Japanese. (Understandably, due to our close cultural ties to Japan, Japanese language education typically starts during primary school and continues through secondary)

Russian, on the other hand, is a bit different. Similar to how French is predominantly spoken in the Canadian province of Québec, Russian is mostly predominantly spoken in Freena Yon, which contains 60% of all Russian-speakers in our nation and is effectively exclusively Russian-speaking (out of the 44 million people living in Freena Yon, only 5 million report speaking a language other than Russian at home) Uniquely, however, Nzardgrad, the capital of Freena Yon, is mostly English-speaking.

One non-official language that is also widely spoken in our nation is Korean, which is understood by 19% of the population.

2. English is one of our official languages and, as stated above, the one most likely to be used in most regions of Gandoor outside of Freena Yon.

[Gandoor]

Does anyone have any further questions for our Prime Minister?

[Luziyca]

Where is the poorest region of your country, and what are you doing to improve their situation?

[Gandoor]

Where is the poorest region of your country, and what are you doing to improve their situation?

The poorest region of Gandoor is in northeastern Yontan Yon, so-called the Hook Region because it includes the Hook Peninsula. In the following map, the Hook Region is highlighted in red:

The average household income in the Hook Region is only 7061 GDY (US$12,178.04), compared to the national average household income of 23,334 GDY (US$40,243.92).

When it comes to improving their situation, I will be the first to admit that it has proven difficult, primarily because large parts of the Hook Region are either swampland or various small towns and villages without a base to support any industries (the total population of the Hook Region is only around 750,000). I hate to say it, but another aspect that makes improving the situation for them difficult is the lack of education, less the 60% of all adults living in the Hook Region have a secondary school diploma and less than 25% have a college education.

That being said, however, some of the things we are attempting in order to improve the lives of people living in the Hook Region include: Genki Electronics, the partially state-owned and largest electronics manufacturer in our nation, will be constructing several factories and distribution centres within the region, on 1 January 2024 (that is this upcoming January, in case your calendar differs from ours), the minimum wage will increase from 9.23 GDY/hour to 11.06 GDY/hour, the tourism industry in the region has been growing at a slow, but steady, pace and the local tourism board has plans to increase tourism to the region 100-fold, and several private corporations have announced plans to build manufacturing facilities within the region, with discussion to allow for certain tax breaks to be granted in order for more places of employment to begin operations in the Hook Region.

[Gandoor]

Does anyone have any further questions for our Prime Minister?

[Badiyah]

What is the attitude of your government and society towards Arabs and Islam? Are there any Arabs or Muslims in your country?

[Gandoor]

What is the attitude of your government and society towards Arabs and Islam? Are there any Arabs or Muslims in your country?

As far as the government goes, its attitude towards Arabs is the same as its attitude towards all ethnic groups: treat members of the group equally under the eyes of the law. The government's view in regards to Islam is similar and, as with all religions, the right to practice Islam is protected under the constitution, so long as those religious practices do not interfere with any laws of Gandoor.

As far as Gandoorese society, we are a fairly tolerant and accepting culture, although I will openly admit that most citizens have not had any direct interactions with either an Arab (there are only around 800 Gandoorese citizens and permanent residents of Arab ancestry) or a Muslim in general (Islam is the smallest major religion in our nation, with only around 7500 followers. Ironic, I will admit, considering that one of our neighbouring countries is Indonesia) and most citizens will be critical of Islam's views towards women, LGBT, and non-believers, although care is to be made to distinguish these with hatred of Islam or hatred of Muslims, we are merely an extremely secular and non-religious society.

As has been stated, there is an extremely small Arab population in our nation, with only around 800 citizens or permanent residents declaring themselves to be of Arab ancestry (for reference, our nation has a total population of 236 million). The Muslim population is larger, but still extremely small, with only 7500 practitioners nationwide. One notable Muslim from our nation is Kajen Kusumo. Kusumo, who is of Indonesian ancestry and a member of the centre-left New Democratic Party, is a follower of Sunni Islam and has been a Member of the Forum since 2020. He is the first Member of the Forum to be a Muslim.

[Natishna]

Greetings! What are some popular television programs in your nation? What are they about, are you a fan of them, or anything else you might want to tell us? I want to learn more about your nation's pop culture and I figure that television is a good place to ask about.

[Las Palmeras]

"Does your military make use of thermobaric munitions and/or ordnance?"
-Military factbook compiler

[Gandoor]

Greetings! What are some popular television programs in your nation? What are they about, are you a fan of them, or anything else you might want to tell us? I want to learn more about your nation's pop culture and I figure that television is a good place to ask about.

It's a bit of an unusual question, I suppose, but I did say you could ask about our nation's culture, so why not?

Some of these might be a bit long, so I shall spoiler them for convenience:

One popular TV show from here is The Professor, an extremely long-running science-fiction series produced by the GBC. To show how long the series has been on the air: when I was born in 1962, the series had already been airing for four years.

Now, as to what the series is about, well that might take a bit longer, as the program has evolved throughout its decades on the air. When the series began in 1958, it was about the titular character, The Professor, and a young girl named Jo, who claimed to be the survivors of a destroyed alien civilization with no place to call home and an escape shuttle that didn't work anymore. The series was set on contemporary Earth due to budgetary reasons, which enabled them to reuse existing sets and use most of the budget that was specifically for the show to create costumes for aliens and other monsters.

For the first decade or so of the program, the general format was The Professor, Jo, and their assistant (a term used to refer to human allies who joined up with the two main characters, who typically would stay on the show for a few programmes [programme being the Gandoorese term for what you would call a season in US English or a series in UK English]) would fight various aliens and other monsters threatening Earth.

From 1969 until 1973 (Programme 13 through Programme 17), the format of the series was altered in that The Professor and Jo were now working for the Alien Defence Ministry, alongside their assistant Alexis Kabyka, who had been travelling with The Professor since Programme 8 in 1964. This change coincided with the series switching to colour broadcasting.

After Kabyka departed the series, the concept of the assistant was dropped and the show just became The Professor and Jo travelling alone, with any allies only being for a few episodes. (Of course, many previous assistants, especially Kabyka, would continue to make recurring appearances during the series) The Professor and Jo's shuttle would become fully repaired during the mid-70s, enabling them to travel to other worlds (helped, of course, by increased budgets from the GBC). With the exception of minor changes, such as the series switching to 45 minute episodes starting in 1981 instead of 25 minute ones, this would become the format of the series for the rest of its run.

Unfortunately, The Professor ended in 1997 after airing 834 episodes across 41 programmes.

That wasn't the end of the show, however, and in 2010, the series resumed production and began airing again in 2011. The revival, much like the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, is a continuation of the original series and also reintroduced the assistant concept that had been dropped in the 1970s.

The most dramatic change to the series, however, occurred during the 9th programme of the revival (50th overall), in which The Professor died and passed his title on to Jo. (Tom Williamson, who played The Professor since 1958, decided to retire from the role due to being nearly 80 years old)

Now am I fan of the series? Of course I am, most people here are, but for me specifically, I will admit that I actually have considered The Professor to be my personal hero ever since I first watched the show as a child. Even as Prime Minister, I always make sure to take time out to watch a new episode when it airs.

Rose is an EXTREMELY long-running drama series that began as a radio drama in 1924 and moved to television in 1950. Including both radio and television episodes, there have been over 5000 episodes of Rose aired.

The series is a family drama that focuses on the lives of the Appleday family, who live on 72 Count Road in the fictional town of Heisburg. It originally focused on the matriarch of the family, Rose Appleday, who was a young first-time mother when the program began on the radio. Over time, the series expanded to focus on the entire family, especially as Rose grew older before her character passed away at the age of 83 in 1983. (Rose's actress, Estelle Weather, would pass away in 1991 at the age of 93)

A bit of interesting trivia about the show is it originally aired on ATV, the television arm of Alimore, from 1950 until 1957, when the rights to the series were sold to the GBC, who have aired and produced it since.

Am I a fan of Rose? Honestly, not really. The series never interested me as child (understandably, it was mostly aimed at women when I was young) and even as I've gotten older and the series has expanded its audience to include the whole family, I just never got any interest.

Life and Death is a political satire and sitcom set in the Ministry of Important Business and has been broadcast since 1989 on National Network (then-called RTV)

There's not really much to say about the program itself, it spoofs Gandoorese politics and is well-known for changing its cast regularly and is divided into generations based upon the cast. It's also known for deliberately avoiding mentioning the political party affiliation of the characters, although it will still make jokes about the various parties here.

Myself? Oh yes do I love the show, especially since getting into national politics, it very much is a surprisingly accurate example of what goes on in the political machine here, although it's much less funny in real life than on TV.

Dr. Reiko Miyamoto, PhD is a medical drama that's aired on GBN since 2003.

The series focuses on the titular character, a doctor, who must both manage both the trials of saving her patients and her own family life. The actual character of Reiko Miyamoto debuted back in 1989 in the series Down the Street and Dr. Reiko Miyamoto, PhDwas preceded by the series Nurse Reiko, which was more of a comedy-drama than a straight drama, and aired from 1998 until 2003.

The show is part of The Boardersverse, which refers to various shows that all trace their origins to a 1970s sitcom titled The Boarders.

In all honesty, while I'm not normally into medical dramas, this show is one that I do enjoy, it's extremely well-written, can surprise you, and is just enjoyable. Some of it may be because I did watch the predecessor shows when I was younger so there's just something about having watched the character of Reiko Miyamoto grow up and become a successful doctor, albeit a fictional one.

There are, of course, many other popular and successful TV series from Gandoor, but if I added every single popular show, then this would go on forever and ever.

"Does your military make use of thermobaric munitions and/or ordnance?"
-Military factbook compiler

We do not utilize thermobaric munitions in our military and they are, in fact, banned due to a 2000 report from the Human Rights Watch regarding the kill-mechanisms of them.