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In Cantonese, we normally greet each other with "你食咗饭未呀?" (nei sik-zo faan mei aa?), in English it means "Have you eaten (rice) yet?". The reason being, back in history, there was a lot of widespread famine through out China, and Chinese would be very creative on how to make dinner from whatever food they find, including rice. So food is very important to Chinese people, that is why there are so many ways of just cooking chicken alone!
For most of the Chinese, rice is a regularly eaten with other dishes, I say most Chinese as other provinces might be regularly eat noodles instead of rice, for example. What I'm trying to say is that "食饭" (sik faan) basically means dinner. Even now that I reside in Dublin and I don't cook Chinese dinner that often, my mom would as me that question very early on in the phone conversation, and vice-versa.
What's worrying me is the cost of food going through the roof now, especially rice. Normally rice would be the most affordable, but with so much demand, will it going to be a luxury?
All the way in Israel that is. Asian restaurants were protesting on the plans of the government to cut the number of visa to foreign chefs, saying that their aim is to train locally. Sushi and noodles are up next in upcoming strikes. I'm so surprised how popular Asian food is:
"Customers say they are shocked and can't live without South Asian food. [...]
I got annoyed with how some people view that Asian food is easy to cook, well, it is, but I grew up watching, learning and eating family home cooked Chinese dinner, and also the restaurant was a big part of my life when I was young. This irked me a little:
Government lawyer Shoshana Strauss told the Reuters news agency that "everyone can make Chinese food, it's not impossible to learn [...]
There is something missing, the chef/cook also needs to know culturally how food is made, you cannot just learn it, you grew up with it, as mentioned at the end of that article.
It's just like the health inspections, there are different ways of preparing food, you annot assume it's all done the same. Sushi are dealt with differently, you cannot check the temperature when you serve that. What about steak that are done rare? Chow mein are actually noodles, but they come dried, so they need to be soaked in boiling water, and needs to be cooled down. Health inspectors could not get around their head that you cannot just put them straight into the fridge, as the texture will not be as supple. That's just one example. Of course, there are common sense to how things should be stored. But little attention to different cultural ways would ease tension.
I would like to present to all of you, IBC's first newsletter, which could be found at: http://kaykays.com/stuff/newsletter/2008/issue01.pdf
I am hoping to release these newsletters on a quarterly basis, kind of a recap on what's happening in IBC forums and blog.
Ideas and/or contribution to newsletter welcome, contact me via IBC Forum.
Check out the pictures shot by this guy.
But this one from the BBC News site is even better, see for yourself.
According to the census, it is. But what proportions are from Mainland China recently, arrived here for decades etc? It's not detailed enough. You cannot really lump all Chinese together.
My hubby mentioned that he saw this in The Irish Times a few days back, but forgot to tell me. Anyway, he found the link to the news story on RTE. Here it is anyway: RTE video clip - First Chinese graduate called to the bar
Interesting, check this out. What do people think of how the images perceive both cultures? Some maybe stereotypical, but some are true as well, in my opinion.
Really, tell me what you think when you see this quote?
Luo Lei's parents were able to help his campaign by taking the class for a trip on the modern monorail system - which is managed by his father's police department - and by giving him gifts to hand out after his final speech.
And...
Cheng Cheng ensured that his classmates shouted down Xu Xiaofei before she had even started to speak, and she found it difficult to recover.
All this for trying to get elected for class monitor in a Chinese school1. There was alot of underhandedness when I read how a class of 8 year olds go about their campaign.
I wonder how this differ from class reps/monitor being selected in Irish schools? This just reminds me of the Simpson's episode when Bart ran for class president against Lisa. Does that kind of dirty campaigning in schools really happen in US?
1 Please Vote For Me is part of the BBC's Why Democracy? season and will be broadcast on Sunday 7 October at 2000 BST on BBC Four. - Democracy in a Chinese classroom
Those Japanese think of everything! I've been thought a craze of making sushi at home, and it's so simple! Ok, it make take a few hours to prepare (more so for things to cool down), but they are so scrumptious as well. But back to the point of this post, a sushi maker to make life easier for all you budding sushi makers. Ok, as my cousin pointed out, it is a bit small, but I still like the idea. Heehee.
