User Comments - helzcurrah

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helzcurrah

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men
January 24, 2013 at 2:32 AM

Are gay couples allowed to adopt in China? And is an adopted child viewed equally by society as a child you actually gave birth to?

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men
January 24, 2013 at 2:28 AM

That probably would have worked, if we'd known the second meaning of "beards" in the first place. Until I read through all the comments, I was just confused!

Posted on: Making Soup
January 22, 2013 at 11:45 AM

Brits do it too.

Posted on: Making Soup
January 22, 2013 at 7:56 AM

I thought "tomar" meant "to have" rather than just meaning "to drink" (which would be "beber"). Therefore I didn't register it as being weird when I was learning Spanish. In English, you can "have" a drink or an ice cream, but only "drink" a drink!

Posted on: Making Soup
January 22, 2013 at 7:53 AM

Haha, one of the first questions I asked my colleagues was whether it's ok to blow on my food to cool it. They just gave me a weird look and told me no-one would ever do that, so I don't think it's explicitly rude in Chinese culture.

I only asked, because they were eating noodles and asked me if I minded them "making noises" while they ate.

Posted on: Making Soup
January 22, 2013 at 7:51 AM

I am British, and you're right. We do have public and private schools completely back to front!

I guess the soup I'm talking about "drinking" is an instant soup like Bovril, or Batchelors....

For "real" soup (I mean thick, creamy and with bits of meat and/or vegetable in it), we would always "eat" that.

Posted on: Making Soup
January 21, 2013 at 10:12 AM

For me, it depends how the soup is served. If it comes in a bowl with a spoon, then I "eat" it, but if it arrives in a cup then I "drink" it!

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men
January 18, 2013 at 9:33 AM

I was also not familiar with the term "beards" either, I assumed it was a translation of the Chinese.

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men
January 16, 2013 at 7:11 AM

Loving these controversial and topical lessons. Please keep them coming Chinesepod!

Posted on: No Tip?
January 16, 2013 at 4:33 AM

The amount of tip largely depends on which restaurant you work at and which shift. If you work in an expensive restaurant your tip will be much larger than if you work in a cheap place, but the amount of work required to serve the food is about the same. Equally, if you are working a slow shift, you won't get many tips. It seems incredibly unfair that a person's basic wage for doing a necessary job is subject to these kind of whims.

I used to work in a cheap food place, almost never got tips and it was before the days of minimum wage in the UK so only got paid 2 GBP per hour. Had that been my full time job, I would not have been able to survive. Even doing it as a student wasn't great.