Job Discussion Forums

[ghost]

The same thing happened in Taiwan all the time, during the time ghost spent there...."have you eaten yet?" or "ni chifan le ma?" several times a day ......

It is a cultural thing with the Chinese....and yes, food, is one of the most important things in life for the Chinese....but all the more so in Chinese/Taiwanese culture...

If one has not eaten, then nothing will be done....and ghost noticed there were advantages to this.....for example, no Taiwanese in their right mind does exercise between noon to 2pm....and this was fine with ghost who had the local swimming pool (all 8 lanes) all to itself during those lunchtime hours.....Taiwanese colleagues would constantly ask ghost why it exercised during the lunch hour, and ghost would reply "why not?"...to the Taiwanese response....."noon time is for eating..." and then the same nonsense would repeat itself at 6pm, when 99.9% of the Taiwanese could be observed speeding throught their evening meal....no matter where they were located....

ghost, Montreal French school board substitute teacher

[Gauguin]

I'm a single Englishman (45+) who is always getting hit on by American but especially Australian ladies. I�m not sure whether it�s the accent or wot!

Let me put forward an alternative �Supermarket� scenario. (All in good fun)

A: A rather large American lady with three chins.
B: An English gent, no beer gut and breathing unaided.

English gent reaches the check out, says �Hi� to the cute check out girl and seeing that the slim pretty lady behind him who has only one or two items in her hand offers to let her through first. As she passes he comments, with a smile that he also uses that brand of coffee / shampoo / tampons.

Next, the American lady comes up to check out with a trolley full of diet coke, Hershey bars, micro wave meals and double buttered popcorn. There is a piece of fruit, a lone apple which she picks up, looks at confused and mumbles �How the heck did that get in there?� Tossing it onto the gum tray she pauses, her hand reaches back to the tray and comes away with a dozen packs of gum. Suddenly, she notices the Brit watching her, so she smiles coyly revealing a set of teeth normally seen on a horse.

Lady: �Hi! How are we today?�

Gent: �Married! very married. With five kids, invalided parents living with me and a huge mortgage�. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

gauguin

[veiledsentiments]

I have always wondered at how it is that the average male of all nationalities assumes that a casual greeting is being 'hit on.'

And if she said, "Hi, how are we today?" - she probably wasn't American... can't recall anyone here saying 'how are we?' when speaking to an individual.

And I don't think it qualifies as a pick-up line... (and which brand of tampons is it that you use? and what for, pray tell?)

VS

[Shakhbut]

[ghost]

Americans, often, are more friendly in the small talk department.....and ghost notices this every time it goes to the States from Canada, where the behaviour is more similar to British....reserved that is...and less talkative....(in Canada..)

In U.S. stores and restaurants the service people tend to lay it on thick with "and how are you today," "have a nice day," "will it be the same order as last time," and many other examples.

Nothing wrong with all that....it is cultural, even though Brits. and Aussies often interpret that type of behaviour as "overkill."

The comments on the food choices are very apt, and it is indeed interesting to spend time at checkout counters and observe people, their physiques and then the contents of their trolleys...and there is, indeed, usually a very strong correlation between those things......

Ghost, French Montreal school board substitute teacher

[redcliff]

let me intercede quickly so this doesn't digress into a Canadian vs American whose better at the "how's it hanging" thread.

off topic on Malaysia again...

Did any of the other posters (?) who have worked in Malaysia notice the tendancy of the people there to inexplicibly drop there T's so that restaurant was restauran ?

One unforgettable experience I had occurred when a female student of mine in social studies told me she wanted to do her project on the semen shortage in Malaysia.

Surprise was my first thought, that I could perhaps make a few easy bucks on the side the second.

It was only after I asked her to explain why she thought this was a problem did I realize she had dropped her T and she was infact talking about the cemenT shortage.

[veiledsentiments]

Now that was funny...

Perhaps there is no ending 't' in their language?

VS

[stoth1972]

I'm surprised it's not the opposite, that they're not trying to conceal it. You must look like an Emirates flight crew member! It's a bit contrary to some of the things I've seen in the UAE...in many cases men who send their wives and kids home to (country of origin) are subject to carry-on with another girlfriend in the country. Before any men slam me for stereotyping, I'm not saying you all do it, but it's not uncommon, either. The fact that they're telling you this may mean a) you're giving off some scent b) they're a bit overly sensitive (you can fill in your own reason why that is!)

[Cleopatra]

[dmb]

[Cleopatra]

[globalnomad2]

Cleo--Bravo. I noticed this to an appalling degree at the Raytheon compound in Jeddah. I was really disgusted by those compound housewives who thought anyone who would go back to the West and actually PAY TAXES was INSANE and why would anybody want to live and work back in the West when you could stay here on this compound with your servants and play tennis and swim all day and be mean to people you consider poorly dressed or low-status teachers instead of administrators...while saving all that money? Oh--and by the way, the most egregious of such Compound Cathys were Koreans and Latinas. The few American wives were not that bad.

[Cleopatra]

[globalnomad2]

Redcliff--Here's another little snippet of my Malaysia chapter, about just that topic:

As for accent and pronunciation, Paul Theroux describes the Singapore/Malaysian English dialect in his novel Saint Jack:

True [Singapore] Chinese is impossible to
reproduce without distraction� The �flied lice�
and �no tickee, no [laundlee]� variety is really
no closer to the real thing than the plain speech
I have just put in Big Hing�s mouth. Chinese
do more than transpose r and l, and v and b,
and s and sh. They swallow most of their
consonants and they seldom give a word an
ending: a glottal stop amputates every final
syllable. So what Big Hing really said was,
�Shi� duh�,� [for �sit down�] and �We go� a
pro�lu��; there is no point in being faithful to
this yammering.


The vocabulary is simplified, using a few catchall verbs and nouns to replace lexical complexity. You might be on business in KL and when it�s time to leave, your hosts will kindly announce �I�ll send you to the airpo�!� They really mean they�ll take you to the airport. This begs the question, what do they say when they�re actually sending you away, rather than �driving� or �taking� you? I am not sure, because fuzzy language leads to fuzzy thinking, such as Malaysian college students describing a country�s �standard� of living when they�re really discussing cost of living. They never mention the latter, so the former stands for both, and it�s confusing.

Some slight language barriers hinder my first feeble attempts at meeting local women. A Chinese hottie in the reception room of an automotive workshop turns me down because, she says, �You spea� with hayvy slang!�

[Iamherebecause]

I've noticed that not all married British men wear wedding rings. Given that in our multicultural workplaces the wearing of a wedding ring gives a fairly clear signal that one is married, maybe they are just trying to clarify.

I say fairly clear because I have also noticed that sometimes what we could call confirmed bachelors sport a ring on the appropriate finger at work, presumably to prevent any gossip.

Not a hand fetishist, just observant...