The Off Topic Topic

[DGuller]

Anyone seen Kronn recently, he hasn't posted in a while?

I was just wondering about that myself.

[CountDeMoney]

From my fave-rave Beijing agitprop mouthpiece, the nuanced and ever-subtle ChinaDaily.com.cn--

6 cultural differences between China and the US

Editor's note: Living in a culture that is different from your own can be both an exciting and challenging experience. You have to learn different cultural practices and try to adapt to them. Our bloggers share the top six cultural differences between China and the US to help promote mutual understanding.

1. Privacy
Chinese people do not have the same concept of privacy as Americans do. They talk about topics such as ages, income or marital status, which Americans think is annoying and intrusive.

2. Family
In China, elders are traditionally treated with enormous respect and dignity while the young are cherished and nurtured. In America, the goal of the family is to encourage independence, particularly that of the children. Unlike the Chinese, older Americans seldom live with their children.

3. Friends
Chinese people have different meanings to define friends. Just hanging out together time to time is not friendship. Friendship means lifelong friends who feel deeply obligated to give each other whatever help might seem required. Americans always call people they meet friends, so the definition of friends is general and different. There are work friends, playing friends, school friends and drinking friends.

4. Money
As is well known, the Chinese like to save. They are always conservative when they are planning to spend money. It is different in the USA, where far fewer families are saving money for emergencies and education than their Chinese counterparts.

5. Education
Chinese people value education and career more than Americans, who in turn put more emphasis on good character and faith.

6. Collectivism vs. Individualism
Basically China values the community and the US values the individual. If you achieve something in the US, it's because you were great. While in China, if you achieve something in China it's because the team, or family, or company is great. Everything you do gets attributed to the greater whole, while in America individual merits are celebrated.

[Jaron]

7. Medicine

Chinese like to grind up body parts of endangered animals and brew them into overpriced wines as miracle cures. Americans prefer "medicine" based upon decades of scientific research and testing.

[HVC]

7. Medicine

Chinese like to grind up body parts of endangered animals and brew them into overpriced wines as miracle cures. Americans prefer "medicine" based upon decades of scientific research and testing.

counter point: Americans who go to homeopaths.

[Valmy]

counter point: Americans who go to homeopaths.

Homeopaths is more of a British thing. American quackery is chiropractic.

[Josquius]

Geneva to Zurich flight.....this has to be one of the stupidest things ever

The cabin attendant said bonjour with a  load of flem. As if clearing her throat. Not just to me though but to everyone. I have noticed one or two others in the past also doing this....is it a regional thing from somewhere?

[The Larch]

Greece and Albania are going to sign a peace treaty because apparently they were still technically at war since WWII. I wonder why that never came up in talks about forgotten conflicts and the like.

[lustindarkness]

So surfing google news, in between all the sad state of our world, there is a headline of some nut on a tree in Seattle. I guess for safety they have closed the street to traffic (he is breaking off tree limbs and throwing them down) and the police and fire department are trying to negotiate with him to come down. I know the guy is probably in some kind of mental/emotional breakdown, but why not just ignore him? He'll come down eventually, in some way.

[Valmy]

Greece and Albania are going to sign a peace treaty because apparently they were still technically at war since WWII. I wonder why that never came up in talks about forgotten conflicts and the like.

How is that possible? Albania was occupied by the Axis for the entirety of the conflict.

[alfred russel]

So surfing google news, in between all the sad state of our world, there is a headline of some nut on a tree in Seattle. I guess for safety they have closed the street to traffic (he is breaking off tree limbs and throwing them down) and the police and fire department are trying to negotiate with him to come down. I know the guy is probably in some kind of mental/emotional breakdown, but why not just ignore him? He'll come down eventually, in some way.

Maybe CYA? Someone calls 911 about the tree nut, and lord knows what the story would be if the authorities ignore him and he falls to his death, or throws a tree limb through a car windshield and into the driver's heart.

[The Larch]

Greece and Albania are going to sign a peace treaty because apparently they were still technically at war since WWII. I wonder why that never came up in talks about forgotten conflicts and the like.

How is that possible? Albania was occupied by the Axis for the entirety of the conflict.

Apparently Albania was never formally annexed by Italy during WWII, and was simply turned into a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy in personal union with it. After the fall of Italy the Kingdom of Albania continued to exist de jure under German ocupation as a nazi puppet. When communism was established in Albania diplomatic relationships were broken until the 70s, so I guess they didn't look into the formalities of diplomacy.

It was basically a technical thing as both countries have had pretty good relations since the fall of communism in Albania and collaborate in most stuff, even though there are apparently a couple of issues that are still unresolved (the maritime border between both countries and the fate of an Albanian minority, the Chams, who used to live in Northern Greece and was expelled/fled from there after WWII, because of their collaboration with the Germans).

[derspiess]

On a conference call.  Just had a co-worker say "eckcetra" and "nip it in the bucket" in the same sentence.  Thankfully she's the exception to the rule.  People are a bit smarter than they were in my old company.

[lustindarkness]

On a conference call.  Just had a co-worker say "eckcetra" and "nip it in the bucket" in the same sentence.  Thankfully she's the exception to the rule.  People are a bit smarter than they were in my old company.

Did she axe any questions?

[derspiess]

On a conference call.  Just had a co-worker say "eckcetra" and "nip it in the bucket" in the same sentence.  Thankfully she's the exception to the rule.  People are a bit smarter than they were in my old company.

Did she axe any questions?

No, but in her last sentence she said "supposably"

[Eddie Teach]

On a conference call.  Just had a co-worker say "eckcetra" and "nip it in the bucket" in the same sentence.

I'd like to know what that sentence was.