Re: Death Race 兩千

1

People really are horrible.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 2:22 PM
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If you take the right gun safety class in this country (as far as I know it's pretty common, but I haven't taken a gun safety class, so I don't want to, like, tar them all unfairly) they will teach you that, if you decide you have to shoot somebody, always shoot to kill, because you don't want the trouble that comes with shooting somebody and then having them still be alive to sue you or testify against you or god knows what.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 2:27 PM
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Also if you shoot someone at your door drag the body inside before you call the police, right?


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 2:37 PM
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Re: 2, isn't it "Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6"?


Posted by: Klug | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 2:54 PM
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They say you're not supposed to do that if there are cameras on you.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 3:03 PM
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Also, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work with a toddler.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 3:41 PM
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It's pretty bigoted to call the Chinese a "death race", ogged.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 3:46 PM
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Also, among the heathen chinee the usual response to an injury occurring in public is to gather around and idly gawk in large numbers. I've heard it explained that rendering aid can be taken as an admission of guilt, (the expression is a "Nanjing Judge") but I have no idea if it is so. Nonetheless I have personally witnessed this behavior after seeing someone get hit by a car. It's quite disturbing.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:09 PM
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The article talks about it being a matter of incentives, but it seems the real explanatory power is the lower penalties for vehicular manslaughter and that our legal system is more difficult to bribe.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:21 PM
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That is horrible.

I just finished reading "patterns of culture" and was somewhat surprised to find out that the original idea behind cultural relativism was that studying what was obviously shitty about other cultures helps you better see what is subtly shitty about your own culture which you can then fix.


Posted by: Lemmy caution | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:26 PM
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It happens, and it is a kind of horrifying case of perverse incentives,* but it's not as widespread as Slate makes it out to be. X% of any population will consist of assholes and sociopaths, so again China has a larger total number of assholes, because they have a larger total population. Most Chinese drivers really actively try to avoid harming anyone, something that is actually really challenging if you've seen the way helmetless Chinese scooter drivers drive.**

Reading between the lines, you'll find that most of the sociopaths are wealthy, and most of the people being killed are not. There is a cultural problem of "fu'er dai," the "wealthy second generation," who tend to be entitled to a pathological extreme and feel themselves above the law. There's also a problem that reimbursement often depends on the social status of the dead person, so a wealth person killing a poor person is fined much less than vice versa. Discrepancies in compensation is a growing issue among the dissatisfied lumpen proletariat/peasantry. My prediction is there will be way more instances of vigilante justice as more jerks with Audis get caught murdering toddlers.

*Just like sex ratios are most skewed in provinces where the one-child policy is enforced with 1st daughter exemption, rather than in areas where it's strictly enforced (Northern China) or very laxly enforced (Western China). Cultural factors are somewhat in play (son preference is probably greatest in Southern/Central China), but allowing people to have a second child if the first one is a girl somehow results in overall 40% more men than women in the population. This is another case of government incentives producing the opposite of what was intended.
**Scooters drive like insane people with active death wishes, and you also have a problem that like, 90% of Chinese drivers go their licenses in the past 5 years. There's a lot of just simple incompetence that gets interpreted as malice or carelessness.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:27 PM
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I whapped my briefcase into the car of a Chinese guy (East Asian, at least) for not stopping before making a right on red (which also meant not yielding to me crossing the street in a crosswalk with the light). He was in a German car, but I'm not sure it was an Audi.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:31 PM
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As an example of horrific incompetence, I read a horrible news story about a Chinese woman who managed to kill both herself and her husband while backing into a parking spot in a mall parking garage. The husband had gotten out of the car to help her reverse into the spot without hitting the wall, and she put it in reverse and then accidentally floored the gas, crushing him against the wall. She panicked when she heard him scream, and kept hitting the gas instead of the brake. She then stuck her head out the window, got it in drive, and then floored the gas in the other direction, bashing her own head against a pillar and killing herself. The couple's two young daughters were in the backseat when this happened. Driver's ed is mandatory in China and licenses cost several hundred dollars, but corruption (bribing driver examiners) and lack of a driving culture or much general familiarity with cars means you get people on the road who really shouldn't be there, and horrific stuff happens.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:33 PM
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My real fear is seeing New Jersey plates. They may as well be a sign reading, "Will Not Yield To Pedestrians."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:36 PM
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Isn't this more about corruption than about incentives taken in the abstract? Presumably if the actual law were applied as intended, this behavior would be subject to the death penalty.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:39 PM
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Recent immigrants seem to either 1) drive gaily hell bent for leather without regard for lanes, lights, other cars, pedestrians, those motorized things to shift pallets of produce, the dudes with half a pig slung over each shoulder, etc, or 2) creep forward anxiously at a steady 3.5 miles per hour, without regard for lanes, lights, other cars, pedestrians, those motorized things used to shift pallets of produce, the dudes with half a pig slung over each shoulder, etc.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:40 PM
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15: That's what I was saying before I started just insulting drivers based on stereotypes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:42 PM
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12

I've read about some cases of insane Chinese drivers in the US, most of whom are wealthy assholes who get shipped to US universities. There was a case in WA where a dude in some expensive car (Porsche maybe?) was speeding, ran a stop sign, and killed a pedestrian. He was deemed a flight risk, so his passport was confiscated and his bail was set at 2 million USD. Within 48 hours, his parents had shown up with a new Chinese passport and posted bail. Anyways, balancing out the gene pool you find a lot of single car fatal accidents, almost always involving Italian sports cars.*

*The best one was a dude who crashed his Ferrari on the side of a Beijing freeway at 3 am. The police found the driver dead, naked, surrounded by empty booze bottles, and two injured topless prostitutes, one Uighur, one Tibetan. The identity of the driver was covered up, but eventually it came out that he was the son of the then PM's protege, named something like Li. The problem with the cover up is the police named the dead guy "Jia," a common Chinese surname which also means "fake." Unfortunately, Jia was the surname of the former PM's protege and rival of the current PM, and so Chinese media reported that it was Jia's son. Mr Jia was outraged and insisted on a full open investigation. The real identity of the dead son and the subsequent cover up came out, and heads rolled. Mr. Li went from being 2nd or 3rd in line to be leader of China to shuffling papers in outer Mongolia or something similar.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:43 PM
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I want to go to Mongolia someday, for the yurts.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:46 PM
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And the Chinese driving test is multiple choice, SAT style legalistic bullshit. And Chinese driving culture is just batshit in general. I swear to God, there are two things the USA does better than anyone else in the world: vehicular etiquette and breakfast.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:48 PM
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Are pork buns breakfast in China? Those are pretty good.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:50 PM
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16: I have to admit that while I'm almost certainly racist in that general-background-white-guy-american way there's nothing that has had a stronger influence on that then Somali women driving around Minneapolis. Holy god they're a hazard. I mean, I've been in parts of Africa around there and I get the vague-sense-of-traffic-laws involved, but usually that comes along with a commitment of some sort of looking in front of you or something.

It doesn't help that they all seem to assume that the main purpose of the hijab is to hold your cellphone when you're driving right through those mysterious bits where another road seems to cross the one you're on, whatever those are.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:51 PM
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I was impressed with how drivers in China simultaneously a) completely disregarded almost all signs, signals and traffic instructions, and b) managed to rarely hit anyone. It's a miracle.

The biggest incident I saw was when a biker nearly hit a pedestrian. The pedestrian then came at the biker with a poorly-executed flying kick, took off his own shoe and started beating the biker with it.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:53 PM
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Oops, I should have written Inner Mongolia. It'll probably be at least a decade before China can assign disgraced officials to govt posts in Outer Mongolia.

15

Yeah, the problem is that fines + corruption lead to perverse incentives. The problem also exists in Taiwan, so it's not simply a corruption problem, it's true it's more usually expensive to pay for ongoing care than a lump sum, even if it's huge. In the PRC, you have the problem of corruption making the incentives even more perverse. Lives of poor people are worth less, and my guess is it's easier to bribe a judge than in Taiwan. You also do have an attitude that and "there are too many Chinese people," (zhongguo ren tai duo le), which means that there's not a lot of cultural value placed on a human life in the abstract (vs. the lives of those you know and care about, which are valued tremendously.)

I would say that valuing abstract human life as an end in itself is actually pretty culturally specific. We find Chinese attitudes towards strangers to be morally bankrupt, but Chinese people find the Western ideal of treating our friends and family the same was we treat strangers to be inhumanly cold and also morally perverse.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:55 PM
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... two injured topless prostitutes, one Uighur, one Tibetan.

It saddens me that the Chinese have apparently been as effective as our honky selves in turning their oppressed minorities to prostitution, crime, etc., etc.

We now return you to your normally scheduled sarcasm.

OT: Is Slate still paying Reihan Salam, or does he just show up at their office stinking drunk and waving a copy of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs, compelling them to give him 1,000 words to make him go away?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:56 PM
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I'm nowhere near that nice to strangers.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:57 PM
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Isn't that a thing in Germany, suspending all traffic rules regs markings lights etc and letting everyone get on with it? Supposedly leads to greater safety? Perhaps only works in a high trust setting.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:57 PM
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25.4: Wait, are those different things now? Has Slate's business model changed since the last time I read something there?


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 4:58 PM
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I swear to God, there are two things the USA does better than anyone else in the world: vehicular etiquette and breakfast.

Once upon a time I might have said that, but in enlightened Adidas Stan Smith-wearing* Denmark, TWYRCL found a place that serves porridge with rhubarb compote, sea buckthorn** and caramel.

* Everybody! Old ladies, little kids, people I think may have been Central Asian immigrants, etc.

** Next year's hot new ingredient in Brooklyn, I hope.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:00 PM
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27: I think that was somewhere in the Benelux, and only for really central pedestrianized areas.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:01 PM
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31

Is Brooklyn the one with the airports or is it a different one?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:02 PM
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32

I'm a stranger here myself.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:05 PM
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33

A-travelling through this wearisome land?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:11 PM
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34

32: That was a good book.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:12 PM
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35

Breakfast in my part of china was rice slop with fucking pickles in it.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:13 PM
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36

I'm sorry, I'm excitable on the topic of breakfast.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:15 PM
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35

That was the breakfast where I was too! Which part of China were you in? I've complained ad nauseum, but where I lived the food was probably the worst in China. Locals would complain that outsiders liked Sichuanese and Cantonese and even Beijing food, but "didn't appreciate the deliciousness of the local cuisine" and I had to try really hard to tell them their cuisine sucked monkey balls and everyone else in China agreed with me.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:17 PM
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Is that missing a "not"? Because, if not, that's great. More people should be told their cuisine is horrible.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:18 PM
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there's nothing that has had a stronger influence on that then Somali women driving around Minneapolis

Ha, we've got a number of Somali and Sudanese refugees out here as well and yes, a thousand times yes. And I say that as someone who grew up where the high school was majority east Asians.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:19 PM
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38
Oh yeah. I didn't tell anyone their cuisine sucked. Professional ethics and all.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:22 PM
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35: Objectively just as delicious as waffles with maple syrup and pork-sage sausage. If you say otherwise, 1.2 billion Chinese prove you wrong.

Nothing I've seen in Germany makes me question the stereotype that they're much better drivers than we are. I love driving over there, because you can actually trust the other drivers to be aggressive, attentive, and competent.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:22 PM
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35: From what I know of Chinese cooking I suspect that that's a pretty common breakfast everywhere. I've always wished I could enjoy congee because everyone who likes it talks about it in a way that sounds wonderful (and totally believable), but the stuff turns my stomach all the same. I suspect that really good Chinese breakfasts are a lot like really good breakfasts in most non-northern-european contexts (including obviously the British Isles and colonies), which is to say, the same thing they eat for lunch (which is amazing).


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:31 PM
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37: A town called Xing'an, in Guangxi near the border of Hunan. Guilin would be the closest real city. The food was pretty great if I could choose it myself, but everyone was always buying me snails and such.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:44 PM
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42

In the wheat belt and other parts of Northern China they also eat corn porridge sweetened with sugar, which is delicious. Also, giant man tou, or flavorless steamed buns with pickles or leftovers. As a Certified China Expert (tm), I will pronounce Northern Chinese breakfasts to be awesome and Southern Chinese breakfasts to be meh.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:46 PM
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兴安, to be more specific.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:47 PM
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The Worst Breakfast Ever is pidan zhou, which is the same congee stuff, but with bits of thousand year egg cooked in. It tastes like the vomit of plague victims.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:51 PM
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Maybe somebody could bring Bob Evans to China.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:54 PM
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43

Ah, I was most recently in Southern Anhui, on the border with Jiangxi. I had that problem too, where I had to eat furry tofu (the local delicacy) at every meal. The food in the area as a general rule wasn't great, but there was plenty that was ok if I could order my own food. Unfortunately, the more disgusting the food, the more the locals loved it. It took me a long time to admit that I just had a completely different palate than everyone there.*

*The lightbulb moment was when a woman came back from a trip to Thailand and said the food was so inedible she had to eat dried tofu and instant noodles the whole time, and even then the smell of Thai food made her nauseous.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 5:55 PM
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46

Oh yeah that's a bad one. I also had a breakfast once of plain congee with leftover cold chicken feet, which was up there as a pretty terrible breakfast.

OT, is it possible to be too anal retentive for the IRS? I'm submitting my 1098T form along with a kind of confusing itemized record of all tuition related charges, and I want to highlight the relevant stuff with color coded highlighters and include a little key. I don't want them to think I'm being condescending though.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:00 PM
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43

Also, what were you doing in Xing'an?


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:00 PM
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44

Which is weird because it violates my theory that food generally gets better as you go south. Though I think this is only true in east Asia, Europe and the US.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:04 PM
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Wow, furry tofu. No. Extremely no.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:05 PM
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53

50: Opening a Bob Evans.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:12 PM
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A few years back, I spent about a month around Tunxi on the one side of the border and Wuyuan on the other. Beautiful area . I didn't find the food objectionable, exactly. Nothing wrong with hairy doufu. I seem to recall some restaurants making a big deal about underground something? My Chinese wasn't so hot back then. Still isn't.

50:Teaching English/studying Chinese.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:18 PM
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51: Sounds like someone hasn't experienced the culinary delights of the Minnesota State Fair...


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:47 PM
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Speaking of Chinese food, I can now eat pan-fried noodles with chopsticks. I hope in the next year I can learn to do it without getting my shirt dirty.

I just refuse to eat tofu. I tried twice. It wasn't worth it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 6:51 PM
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You clearly are using "tofu" to refer to some other food than most people do, because I cannot imagine why any reasonable person would use the word to mean what it normally does in that sentence.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:06 PM
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It was white chunks of smushed up soy. It was in soup once and fried another time.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:09 PM
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Tofu has its place, but as traditional processed vegetarian proteins go, it's no tempeh, seitan, mock duck or TVP.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:11 PM
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which was up there as a pretty terrible breakfast

Ahimsub, I was once forced to breakfast upon cold tabouli served over cold spaghetti. It wasn't exactly nauseating -- you could choke it down pretty easily -- but it was so far from anyone's idea of proper food that it was ridiculous.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:14 PM
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There's ways to make tofu taste fine, I'm sure. I just think they're all going to be inferior to pork.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:30 PM
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There may be a slight over-representation of bad drivers among young Somali women, but they never seem to get in fatal accidents -- that's all 47 year old barflies from Deepest Blaine cruising the wrong way down 94 at 3 a.m.

I'll put up the young Somali women drivers in my neighborhood against any group of subroban white kids on their way to B-Dubs.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:31 PM
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I dunno, tempeh/seitan/etc. all have their virtues but I've never had a dish using them that genuinely blew my mind and I've had tofu do that multiple times. Before being cooked in a dish* they're more appealing, maybe, but as an ingredient not so much.

*Except when you've got plain (warm) soft tofu with chilli oil, dark soy sauce, pickled vegetables, green onions, etc. just poured over it like a dressing. Then tofu still wins.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:33 PM
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64

No young Somali woman ever called me "faggot"


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:34 PM
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65

...and now I'm hungry. Damnit.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:34 PM
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64: I'm sure language fluency will come with time.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:36 PM
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65 to 64


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:36 PM
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Yeah, 65 to 64 is the OTP of this thread.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:42 PM
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Goddammit, now I really want some sambusas!


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 7:45 PM
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Do those have tofu in them?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 8:37 PM
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Because I'm pretty sure that trying tofu at two completely different Chinese restaurants in Ohio is enough for me to have a handle on that.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 8:42 PM
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Before swearing off tofu, try a dish with Xiang Gan in it. It's usually translated as dry bean curd, and it tastes smoky, kind of like southern style ham hocks. There's a million kinds of tofu which are very poorly represented by the quivering white stuff.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 9:08 PM
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71: I'm not sure rest stop food is ever a good way to evaluate the general tastiness of ingredients.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 9:17 PM
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There may be a slight over-representation of bad drivers among young Somali women,

COME ON MF, SLIGHT?

That said, yeah, not involved in the fatal accidents much because none if them go over 35mph.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 9:58 PM
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You might like mapo tofu, Moby.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 11:18 PM
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Also, I definitely prefer northern Chinese breakfast foods. But rice mixed with what I think is a dry shredded pork seasoning can be pretty good.

I don't think I've ever had the rice and pickles thing.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09- 4-15 11:31 PM
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Worst breakfast I ever had was at a Colombian truck stop. Some kind of soup with a mammal bone in it. Among the very best are good Scandinavian hotel breakfast buffets. These are not to be confused with what real people eat there or with what bad hotels will serve you.


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 1:17 AM
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Which is weird because it violates my theory that food generally gets better as you go south. Though I think this is only true in east Asia, Europe and the US.

If you exclude Korea, Scandinavia and probably New England.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 2:07 AM
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best breakfast ever: grits my dad makes from this one mill in Charleston, that you have to cook for like 45 minutes; home-smoked bacon; and eggs fried in the bacon grease; peaches. shrimp and grits also. or else cold sweet potato pie and coffee. best not-at-my-house-breakfast: breakfast buffet at the hotel metropole in hanoi. they have this tilted wooden frame full of honeycomb, with jungle honey pooling in a dish. I like congee if it's good, and it can be amazing (I like it with ground pork, and no you tiao--that long savoury doughnut thing). I now live far from my fave congee place and have to find a new one. that said, when I was in china briefly I was served terrible food for breakfast, with repulsive barley water ladled out from a huge scummy vessel being the only thing to drink. no coffee. fml.

78: you seriously think north korean food is better? I demand evidence for this extraordinary claim, other than an official state publication showing that the great leader's grandson cooked a meal worthy of a 14-star michelin guide rating the first time he tried to boil an egg at 18 months.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 2:43 AM
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...they have this tilted wooden frame full of honeycomb, with jungle honey pooling in a dish

That sounds like one of the best things ever. Want now.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 3:37 AM
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79.2 No, but South Korea is a long way up in the north of what is conventionally referred to by westeners as east Asia, and their food is not significantly inferior, imo, to the cuisines at the southern end of that geographical pseudo-entity.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 3:41 AM
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73: I was in the nice part of Ohio (Columbus).


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 4:35 AM
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Korean food isn't bad but there sure is a bunch of pickled cabbage involved.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 4:44 AM
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Also, unless you are into herring, Scandinavian food is in no way better than Italian food.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 5:09 AM
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Outside of a herring, it's too bright to eat.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 5:12 AM
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Good mapo tofu is one of the very best dishes. Bad mapo tofu is bad.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 6:52 AM
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Also, the szechuan peppercorns I buy have aroma and some flavor, but don't make my lips tingly numb like the stuff I get at better Chinese restaurants. How does one get the good stuff, and is there a trick to preparing it?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 6:54 AM
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The good stuff has been through the digestive tract of a herring.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 7:03 AM
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A CHERRY herring


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 7:30 AM
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Ok, I am realizing why there are so many congee fans. The English word congee applies to two very different foods in China, zhou and xifan. Zhou, which is a thick rice porridge that is eaten for generally lunch or dinner, is generally delicious, and more a long the lines of a rice based cream of wheat. It can be sweet or savory, and have all sorts of tasty toppings. Xifan, which is what people in China eat for breakfast, is made by simmering leftover rice in water and is so watery and bland it sucks the flavor out (in a bad way) of anything you eat it with. It is normally eaten with pickles, salty canned fish, and/or hard boiled eggs. I love zhou, and I cannot stomach xifan.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:19 AM
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FWIW I have seen a few zhou restaurants in the US, but I have never seen xifan on the menu. It's not something you'd really eat outside the house. IME hole-in-the-wall breakfast places in China may offer xifan, but they generally tend to serve noodle soup, youtiao (the savory donut thing mentioned above) with warm soy milk, hard boiled eggs, and buns.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:22 AM
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87: You may just have bad ones if the numbing effect is what's missing. But also they're sort of like cumin in that quickly roasting them before grinding and sprinkling them on top of dishes makes a really, really big difference to how strong the flavor seems.

If that's not it then I think the answer is probably either (1) find somewhere where they're more expensive, (2) find somewhere where they're a lot cheaper, or (3) try to bribe one of the people at the restaurants into selling you some under the table.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:31 AM
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I had what must have been xifan in a hole-in-the-wall breakfast place in Chingdao, and you're right, it was almost inedible. But my Hong Kong-born sister-in-law's father makes a wonderful version of jook, rice porridge with chicken, which I could eat for ever. Is that similar to zhou?


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:32 AM
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I believe xifan is what I grew up with and what my sister and I called "soupy rice". I've never seen it in restaurants and wouldn't order it anyway. I actually like it - but still never had it with pickles, mostly I've mixed it with a lot of this this, which is what I was referring to above - but it feels so thrown together it's hard to imagine why you'd order it when you could order something you couldn't easily make.

I don't think I've had much zhou. If I have youtiao, it's with soy milk.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:34 AM
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Isn't rice cereal what you feed babies when they can't eat actual food?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:39 AM
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Qingdao, not Chingdao.


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 8:40 AM
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The food in Southern Anhui isn't inedible, it's just...really meh. Like, if you compare it to the food in other parts of China, it's really uninspiring, and if you didn't grow up eating it, eating it every day 2 meals a day for 2 years gets hard, and it gets worse as time goes on. Hairy tofu is better than stinky tofu, and I *can* eat it two meals a day, I just would prefer not to. Other famous dishes, like cabbage with salty ham, tofu with salty ham, bamboo shoots with salty ham, turnip with salty ham, winter melon with salty ham, sweet potato shoots with salty ham, unidentifiable plant roots with salty ham etc...it's like if every meal were church basement St. Patrick's day fare. Yeah yeah, eating it once a year, oily cabbage and corned beef are fine. Eating it two meals a day gets really unbearable.

In this particular region, there are no spices in the cuisine beyond salt and chili pepper flakes, so the food is really spicy and salty but also strangely bland, and everything tastes the same. Things that are staples in other Chinese cuisine--garlic, vinegar, cilantro, green onion, sugar, five spice--all are used sparingly or not at all, and a lot of people don't like the taste. Crispiness is not a virtue, so meat and vegetables are all cooked to be soft. In Northern China if you get a lamb kebab, it's cooked on a grill and seasoned with celery powder, garlic, and chili, and it's crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside. In South Central China, meat on a stick is pork or chicken, and it's cooked at a very low temperature in a vat of oil, so it's soft and oily.

There were good parts. Food was all locally grown by small farmers and the raw ingredients tasted better. Once or twice I had chicken soup with ginger that was amazing. There was some really delicious artisanal tofu. Lots of meals were meatless, which was nice. There was a pork and tofu wonton that was served in a broth with pork belly which was good.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:00 AM
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But my Hong Kong-born sister-in-law's father makes a wonderful version of jook, rice porridge with chicken, which I could eat for ever. Is that similar to zhou?

Same character, at least.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:01 AM
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In Northern China if you get a lamb kebab, it's cooked on a grill and seasoned with celery powder, garlic, and chili, and it's crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside.

Celery powder would never have occurred to me for lamb, but it sounds great. i want it.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:04 AM
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98: That makes sense. It's kayu in Japanese.


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:05 AM
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In Northern China if you get a lamb kebab, it's cooked on a grill and seasoned with celery powder, garlic, and chili, and it's crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside.

I had the best lamb I've ever had in China. It didn't taste like Chinese food to me, it tasted like really unusually well-prepared and spiced Middle Eastern food of some sort (and I was told the style comes from western China where there's a big Uighur influence), but it was amazing.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:06 AM
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93

Yeah, I bet that is zhou. From my pretty nonexistent knowledge of Cantonese, jook is most likely the Cantonese pronunciation of zhou.

94

Yeah. I can see how if you grew up eating it you'd like it. Same with meat floss, because to me encountering it as an adult it just seems so odd (for everyone else, it's like meat cotton candy). I grew up eating rice with butter and sometimes shredded cheese, which makes my Chinese friends want to hurl.

I have a half-baked theory that breakfast and dessert are the most culturally ingrained meals/foods, and the least successful crossovers. Breakfast makes sense, but I'm more at a loss as to why sweets seem to be so ingrained.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:12 AM
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102.2 last Yes, there's something about the combination of rice and dairy products that simply does.not.compute for a lot of East Asians. My brother and I were brought up on rice pudding as a comfort food, but neither his Chinese-heritage wife and children nor my Japanese ex and kids will touch it with a barge pole.


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:19 AM
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How does one get the good stuff, and is there a trick to preparing it?

Use more. Also I believe it's more effective if you cook the peppercorns in oil before adding anything else, because then the oils in the pepper and the oil in the oils commingle and that. Maybe you already are doing that.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:20 AM
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Re: Sichuan pepper: bite down on one, and either it makes your lips numb or it doesn't. There's no trick to it.

97: They don't have proper shaokao in Anhui? What do drunk people eat?


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:30 AM
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One of the best things about being an unfogged lurker is getting to witness how seamlessly a thread about the darkest side of humanity turns into a light-hearted exchange about breakfast.


Posted by: carrotflowers | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:31 AM
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I'm eating a Dutch baby for breakfast; decide for yourself if that's lighthearted or dark.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:33 AM
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I love 106.

for everyone else, it's like meat cotton candy

Will someone please check in with Halford? I'm afraid he may have passed out.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:50 AM
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An Israeli guy I knew described lung in similar-ish terms. Like a meat sponge, maybe? Except I think the word couldn't have been "sponge" because it wasn't immediately unappetizing.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 9:53 AM
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Same with meat floss, because to me encountering it as an adult it just seems so odd

Well, when you call it "meat floss" it does sound weird. Also makes me think of prosciutto, or a few moments after eating prosciutto.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:12 AM
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In Shanghai when I was being nutritionally reckless I had absolutely delicious breakfasts from the little cluster of breakfast vendors - jian bing, shumai, baozi, those things that are sort of like flat you tiao. But Shanghai has certain elements of earthly paradise about it.

I also had to bribe a taxi driver who hit me because he was yelling and threatening me with the cops and obviously viewed me as someone to shake down. His taxi was undamaged - and after all, he had hit me! - but I had to give him all the money in my wallet, which was about 150 yuan.

From a cyclist's standpoint in a part of town where there are lots of Somali women drivers, I do not find them any worse than anyone else, and indeed, would rather have them than, for example, the two white ladies in expensive cars who passed me on the left as I was making a signaled left turn in the left lane. This has happened several times, it's totally illegal and really dangerous and one of the was all laughing while she did it, because she had totally put one over on the cyclist who thought they could turn from the left lane. I have never seen a Somali lady do that, and those were easily the most dangerous driver interactions I've had in the past couple of years.


Posted by: Frowner | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:17 AM
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I forgot this thread was about the awfulness of humanity until I read about rice with butter and cheese.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:17 AM
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Oh, I loved the jianbing.

Dessert taste varies wildly depending on whether a) you are lactose tolerant, b) you like/accept starchy flavors in your dessert (rice/bread) and c) whether you think dessert should taste like i) fruit, ii) chocolate or iii) plain sugar.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:52 AM
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Here's a notional link to that article again where the Chinese chefs eat at the French Laundry.

I think I just have stale peppercorns. Probably you have to get them from your Chinese aunt, or from a white guy. (Going to try The Spice House this afternoon.)


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:56 AM
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Anyway, this thread was never about the awfulness of humanity; it's always been about the wacky customs of people "over there." Don't judge.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:58 AM
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The awfulness of humanity is a given. It's the details that differ.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 11:09 AM
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114: Spice House has a 20% off sale today. (I get mine there and they are usually pretty good. The giant cheap bags of them at the Chinese grocery less so.)


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 1:25 PM
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Unlooked for benefit of giving up the front seat to the very tall young man: surprisingly easier to paint the toenails in the back seat. And hideous traffic to get onto the bridge so all went reasonably well!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 1:58 PM
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117: Oh I lied. The sale is tomorrow.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 2:48 PM
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How does one get the good stuff, and is there a trick to preparing it?

I don't know about everyone else, but I make the one person I know who works in China regularly bring it back for me. I highly recommend this strategy, because it's free and tasty.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 3:02 PM
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And at best questionably legal!


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 3:15 PM
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I'd hate to go down on a pepper offense. That's not going to command much respect in prison.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 4:29 PM
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Rice with butter tastes good, haters.


Posted by: R. rubrum | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 4:42 PM
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"rice with butter and cheese" is not a great description of risotto, but it's not an inaccurate description.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 4:47 PM
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Went to Spice House, mouth currently tingling madly.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 5:06 PM
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CREAM OF RICE MADE WITH HALF-MILK-HALF-WATER WITH BUTTER AND HONEY IS DELISH DON'T JUDGE ME. I'm having some for lunch, actually. bob's red mill cream of brown rice. also, kheer?!1/1! milk and rice go together like sham like wow. reading upthread, I got the bad rice porridge for breakfast in china, which indignity was compounded by the barley water (it being of similar consistency) and the good, thick type of rice porridge...elsewhere. here in narnia they sell it *only* as a lunch food or possibly dinner food. not like nasi lemak or something that's available at breakfast. mmm. nasi lemak.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:21 PM
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dammit am I flying to jakarta tomorrow or what the fuck?


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 10:21 PM
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nope. I'm glad I didn't just already buy that ticket, since I had entered my cc details and was on the final confirmation page.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 11:19 PM
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Um, what?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 11:25 PM
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Since I happen to be visiting my parents this weekend, I mentioned that having what you all hate as the bad type of congee with pickles sounded kind of gross and my mom seemed shocked that I would say something so offensive. It seems that we would have had it with pickles when I was a kid, but it was harder to find the right kinds of ingredients back then before the age of Chinese/East Asian supermarkets in the US. I guess American-style pickles weren't an adequate substitute. Or maybe I just ignored the pickles and forgot they were supposed to be part of my dish.

My Dad, not Chinese or from any part of Asia, likes the "bad" congee but also his most hated food dish, and he eats almost anything, is cream of wheat (which I like).


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09- 5-15 11:28 PM
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129: I thought I had to go but my factotum failed to get the paperwork ready...


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 6:06 AM
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Your amanuensis told you to get a proper dogsbody!


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 6:56 AM
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132: I know, he did; I should have listened. but my guy's a likely chap!


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 8:11 AM
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And at best questionably legal!

How so? It's not like he steals them. And I don't live in the US, so rules on food entering are different.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 10:57 AM
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(Or in other words, I don't think the UK's citrus industry is being put at risk.)


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 11:01 AM
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Somebody like you probably already destroyed it. At least I didn't see any orange trees.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 11:05 AM
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Importing foods is pretty much always a mess no matter where you live, unless the UK is somehow a lot more sensible than the US.* Since sichuan pepper is known to carry a particular pathogen it's probably a lot more liable to worries about that.

*Which has a history not only of vaguely enforcing rules but not really, or enforcing them at random, or enforcing them for decades and then suddenly releasing statements saying "uh... oops that wasn't a violation of any rules after all"**.

**FDA BANNING ABSINTHE I AM LOOKING AT YOU.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 11:55 AM
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You can bring anything from the EU that you want into the UK, and the only things you can't bring from non-EU countries are meat, dairy, and potatoes. They....really don't seem to care at all, beyond that. (They DO care if you've been tromping about in fields with hoof and mouth disease, and that's about it, as far as I can tell.) Oh and of course there are limits on alcohol & tobacco, but that's about taxation.

The US is like, the least sensible country ever in regards to what it bans (English chocolate, raw milk cheese, etc.), so it's sort of a poor measuring stick for what other countries do. Australia and New Zealand are very strict about produce for very sensible reasons, but I mean, US customs agents once confiscated OXO bouillon cubes from a friend bringing them to her expat sister. I mean, there is like, nothing more processed than those things. What did they think was lurking in there?


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:06 PM
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Please excuse my questionable punctuation above. It's been a rough night.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:07 PM
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138: SOCIALISM!


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:28 PM
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Socialists make you turn over your hard currency, but capitalists demand your bouillon.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:31 PM
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A US border agent when we were coming back from Canada got totally freaked about some cheap gems and minerals we had bought for the kids at a rock show, because he was convinced they might have come from a stream or the woods or something- he started chanting "Wood and water!" when searching our car after I said we had some minerals we had purchased at a show.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:42 PM
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I had family members returning from abroad get stopped at customs because they had a decent sized (still sealed) package of beef jerky with them (I think it might have been as much as a pound). The customs agent, probably not entirely unreasonably, told them they couldn't carry it through for whatever reason but had a hungry enough look on his face that they absolutely refused to hand it over and stood there in front of him and ate the entire package, which took some time. I think more people should resolve problems with customs agents this way. The amusement value from people getting caught carrying too many liquor bottles alone would make it worth it.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:48 PM
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Oh, this is making me giggle. Or maybe that's the whisky, I'm not sure.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:49 PM
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I will say that my husband got the best US customs agent ever when he came to visit me when I was still in California; he had brought a bunch of cheese (mainly because he always travels with his own personal supply; he must be related to Wallace) and got nervous even thought it was all pasteurised and tried to hand it over. Customs agent refused to take it, but I think if they had gone to confiscate it he'd have eaten the whole lot.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 1:51 PM
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143 last: That does actually happen.


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 2:06 PM
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I'm not sure how stubborn I'd be generally, but I probably would drink the entire thing too if the bottle was worth £120.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 2:27 PM
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I'm pretty sure they were glaring at the customs agent the entire time, too. And it takes a while to eat that much beef jerky, even if you are motivated, so it must have been a hilarious scene.

I don't know what they did afterward they got through, but I'm guessing it involved running straight to the nearest water fountain.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 2:29 PM
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141 is fantastic.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 2:35 PM
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AIPMHALOB, when we were going into a restaurant, the hostess told my aunt that she couldn't take in her drink (which she had with her because she never, ever worried about the open container law), she downed it in one. I think she picked up heavy drinking from her husband and he picked it up while bombing Germans.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 3:11 PM
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Also, 149 is right.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 3:12 PM
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I, too, applaud 141.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 3:26 PM
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141: Très bon.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 3:28 PM
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141
har har

I find flirting with the customs agents works pretty well. I've brought smelly unpasteurized cheese from France, and vegemite from Australia, with no problems but only with male customs agents. Acting slightly clueless goes along way. I've also gotten in 20 oz shampoo bottles and full sized moisturizers, but not on any consistent basis. My mother tried to declare wine in China, actively seeking out customs agents, and was waived through with a look of incredulity that anyone would be that rule abiding.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 9:23 PM
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You can mail wine from California to Pennsylvania if you say it's olive oil.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 6-15 10:21 PM
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enlightened Adidas Stan Smith-wearing

This is totally a thing both in the UK and France at the moment. I nearly got a pair (having worn no other trainers for years in the early 2000s) but respected the opinionated academic's ban on all-white trainers and went with a pair of these:

http://www.schuh.co.uk/mens/puma-brasil-navy-and-white-trainers/3401775920/


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 4:19 AM
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Student gets drunk, passes out, wakes up next morning with no memory of designing an ekranoplan the night before.
Btock style ekranoplan designs! This man is a hero.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 5:00 AM
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http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/07/michigan-tech-student-drunk-designed-plane-twitter-viral-mark-keith


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 5:02 AM
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Last night I was drunkenly designing a valve. Not as much fun as an ekranoplan to design. This morning I'm reviewing my design for errors and not finding any. I should do more hammered design, I think.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 5:40 AM
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re: 156

I wear:

http://www.size.co.uk/product/adidas-originals-gazelle-indoor/136511

as I prefer the less-white sole.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 6:47 AM
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Maybe you hit the Ballmer Peak.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 6:50 AM
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All my non-formal shoes are Gazelles. A mix of black-and-white and green-and-gold.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 7:02 AM
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That might have been better phrased as: "I have two pairs of non-formal shoes, both of which are Gazelles."


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 7:04 AM
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160, 162: Fashion really has come full-circle in the last 20 years. They were huge in 1995 in France, too. (There's a picture of me from my semester abroad that, apart from the wash of the jeans I was wearing and the amount of hair on my head, could have been taken last week.)


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 7:52 AM
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: Fashion really has come full-circle in the last 20 years.

I don't purport to be fashionable. I just like the design. I've been wearing Gazelles non-stop since about 2000.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 8:11 AM
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Fashion has changed less in the past twenty years than ever before, I heard.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 8:14 AM
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158 Chances are original Russian ekranoplan designed by drunk engineer too.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09- 7-15 8:31 AM
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