...in the menu, that is. The Chinese government is tackling badly translated menus.
[...] the poor English translations "either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding of China's diet habits".
Two examples from the article:
* "virgin chicken" for a young chicken dish
* "burnt lion's head" for pork meatballs
Thing is, anything translated straight from Chinese, from kungfu styles to food dishes to meanings of paintings to people's nicknames etc., they can be confusing. That is why especially in martial arts movies, names are so funny.
But aside from bad translation, the Chinese government are tackling bad manners like spitting and just being plain rude. Hopefully this will last longer, and it's not just for the Olympics.
Just to let you know that there is a 10% discount. Did not know this was on at all. Not sure when this will end though. If you pass it and you do not see the big red poster, then it's finished. :)
Everyday I see news about more dangerous goods from China. The "Made in China" branding is now in serious danger. Manual labour is cheap in China, and I assume, some not above board, right? Quality not up to scratch, I read from some news site (can't remember which one), that the China brand is synonymous to Taiwan products nowadays, or to Japanese and Korean products back decades ago. China has blossomed with technological advances, and with a price... greed. Corruption can be found, and Chinese government has been trying to stamp it down. It's good that they have taken steps to increase quality assurances, but how long would this take? How will Chinese exports suffer, given dodgy exports is only a "fraction" of their exports. That's still alot to hurt and dent consumer confidence.
I don't want to criticise China for blunders and greed of a proportion of people, undermining market prices of goods with quality that would harm a small child, engulf a home in flames etc. But knowing that some of these goods get into Ireland as well, just makes me more aware. And it's not just cheap goods, mind you, big toy labels like Mattel has been doing millions of recalls the last few months.
China maybe the superpower for all Chinese to be proud of, but yet it has so far to go. Until then, I'm going to be cautious on these goods.
(It's a posting I've been putting off for awhile, but since I've been thinking all these thoughts, might as well put it into words. )
Found this article about Asian food changes to adapt to local tastes over time in the Bay Area.
Over time just about all these restaurants became more generic and homogeneous, which means the dishes end up sweeter and less spicy.
This is true everywhere, I know this as I was raised on 2 types of Chinese cooking, home cooked and style cooked for the restaurant patrons. The taste is definately milder, maybe sometimes boring. Okay, really boring. I asked my dad once, why don't we change our menus to more tastier dishes that I ate at home, or in London Chinatown or Hong Kong. But he simply says that the local palette for anything outside of our curry chicken (although our curry is our speciality, as it's our family recipe) and special fried rice, they are not that experimental and adventurous enough to try something like a whole steamed fish, tofu dishes etc.
Even in Dublin, people have moved forward in wanting to try new things, but in Limerick, and probably same for anywhere outside of Dublin, the toned down Asian food will not change for a long time. There are Chinese restaurants where there are two menus, one for locals, the other for the local Chinese. But due to more and more Chinese come to Ireland, and centred around Dublin, there are more ethnic Chinese restaurants. And yes, it does make a darn difference if the cook is Chinese or not in a Chinese restaurant/takeaway, even down to the waiting staff. It feels more authentic, and food tastes different. You hear me, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we need more Chinese chefs and cooks, give us a bit of leeway to hire these folks.
(From Irish Independent.ie)
Small Firms Association highlights the problem with the green card scheme, that its members are faced with poor customer service from Department of the Environment, such as long delays and excessive charges.
References
* SFA highlights problems with new green card scheme
Was watching the 9 o'clock news tonight and mentioned that Minister for Integration, Conor Lenihan, has announced a new taskforce on integration.
The Minister made the comments while announcing the setting up of a task force to look at the challenges facing foreign nationals integrating into society.
Other references mentioned in the news (that I remembered that is :) ):
* http://www.mrci.ie/
Just came across this, a new N. Wicklow support group set up by local Chinese residents to help Chinese and new immigrants from Far East to integrate into Irish society.
The society is known as "Southside Chinese Residents' Association".
A garda representative who was present at the event explained that Gardaí will be working closely with the Chinese community to help with issues such as language and crime prevention. They will also be supporting activities for children and holding information talks about certain aspects of life in Ireland.
The association hopes to help its members to have a broader knowledge of the important issues about the law, medicine, education, and business, which will impact on their quality of life in Ireland.
As you all know the annoyances of buying something for someone at a Duty Free shop outside of EU and getting it confiscated, regardless the fact that the item such as perfume, bottle of liquor was bought in a Duty-Free shop in the first place!
So the good news:
The European Commission said yesterday that it expects to announce this autumn which airports will be exempted from having the goods they sell confiscated.
But the bad news is:
Likely initial contenders are the US, Singapore and Russia.
This is just so stupid, isn't it?
(Read more - Indo: Airport liquid rules to be eased)
