User Comments - yase
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Posted on: Dublin
March 17, 2008 at 2:50 AMManaged to track down a pint of Guinness last night in a Texan BBQ restaurant to anticipate your celebrations. Taste not too bad . Was once in New York for St Patrick's Day - incredible parades and goings-on. Especially around the St Patrick's Cathedral area etc.
Posted on: Going Dutch
March 13, 2008 at 8:23 AMFunnily enough, today I had lunch with a German friend. After some discussion during which I offered to pay the full bill, we ended up going AAzhi. No problem, and it felt perfectly alright and as Henning says, in the west you normally order your own personal meal and eat it . However, if it had been one of my Chinese friends, I would definitely have insisted on paying the full bill.
Posted on: Going Dutch
March 13, 2008 at 6:58 AMChangye - I have had frequent personal experience of high level Arithmetical (algebraic) Apportionment - not even averaging - when people calculate to the exact cent their share of the bill even working out the cost of their amount of wine drunk. Jenny's dad would really have been horrified. But this is all part of the traditions of different countries and makes it so much fun to live in different cultures and experience these at first hand.
Posted on: Going Dutch
March 13, 2008 at 2:04 AMAA - interesting indeed. I lived for over 20 years in the Netherlands and must admit to ever hearing the term AA being used. People did generally just split the bill naturally without much jockeying around as to who would pay. One person would just put his guilders (or euros now) on the table and the rest would naturally follow. Certainly, from my experience most Dutch people , and so too my friends, were pretty hard-nosed and direct, and although happy to pay for their own meals did not naturally volunteer to pay for someone else's consumption. Wallets were closely guarded. In fact, it might even have been permanent loss of face for yourself if you did pay for the entire table, as quite unlikely you would get reciprocity at a later date. I recall when we first moved to Den Haag in inviting the entire street round for a party and never got one invitation back in the entire 20 years. Perhaps our food and drink were not up to it ?
Posted on: Embrace your Fears! 怕 (pà)...Adj
March 10, 2008 at 9:39 AMTalking about inventing words, is there actually an official govermnent language academy body which authorises new words and officialises and publishes them, alongwith the corresponding Hanzi. A bit like the Oxford English dictionary equivalent from the UK. Or do words come up from the street and grow a life of their own like Clay's '怕冰头痛' ? If so, who ensures consistency for the characters ? Also, how about the words for example for the names of foreign companies - can these just be chosen and made up, or is government approval required for the name ?
Posted on: Insect Market and Having a Baby
March 9, 2008 at 1:43 AMGreat clip, Bazza. Do you also watch Paul Merton on 'Have I got news for you' on BBC ?
Posted on: Insect Market and Having a Baby
March 8, 2008 at 11:48 AMLovely lesson again, Amber. I so enjoylistening to them. Re the soccer, once the Chinese defensive players have eaten more red meat and pasta etc instead of a prior diet of rice and noodles, they should get better and build up more muscle and strength. Similarly, the forward players are generally a bit short in size. This is one of the main reasons why they are not so high up the world rankings. Bring on the Dongbei taller guys.
Posted on: Event Times
March 8, 2008 at 11:03 AMThe finals of the Bejing Olympics track and field events are actually held in the 7 pm - 11pm ticket slots. -
Posted on: Event Times
March 8, 2008 at 8:04 AMIt is bad enough running on the flat - the poor guy in the picture is running uphill ?
Posted on: Dublin
March 17, 2008 at 4:00 AMJennyzhu - could be the making of a new Irish joke ? 'An Irishman asks his friend, Paddy, if he can tell him the way to get from Dublin to Berlin . Paddy replies, , Oh it is an awful long way, and I can tell you how to get there, but I would not start from here....'.