Restaurants
Firstly, Asians have a most disconcerting way of standing right next to you whilst you’re looking at a menu, deciding whether to go into the restaurant. Literally right next to you. And then if you do decide to sit down, they stand there whilst you contemplate the menu again. I’ve given to signalling “two minutes?”. I’m surprised they haven’t cottoned on, because all the other westerners I’ve spoken to about it say it unnerves them, too.
Secondly, there’s no concept of starter, mains and desert here. Well, on the menu there might be, but you order stuff and it comes out when it’s ready. And that usually means soup is last. Even if you order as a table, each person will get their dish when it’s ready, sometimes when the first person has finished eating (we’ve identified this and invite people to start eating when their dish arrives, else it’ll likely be cold if they wait).
Thirdly, once they’ve served your food, they leave you alone. If you signal you need something, they quickly respond, but there’s none of this mid-meal “is everything OK?” (always asked, I note, when you’ve just taken a mouthful, so end up embarrassingly nodding and gesticulating in the hope they’ll go away; I think the timing is part of their training).
Ticket checking
You buy a ticket. And then someone checks it. Only the person checking it is right next to the place you’ve bought it from. Most of the time, they’ve just watched you buy it. I’m assuming unemployment rates round here are really low.
Long fingernails
Yep, it’s a personal grooming thing (I asked a local). Appearance seems to be very important in the Asian culture. I’d fit right in, obviously 😉
Painful thumbs
After a few weeks of intensive thumb-typing on my mobile phone, my thumbs suddenly started to really hurt. Hence why posts stopped being so regular. I like blogging, but the health of my opposable digits trumps everything, so I made a decision to only type blogs on a proper keyboard. This has proved more difficult than expected – whilst many places have access to a computer, the keyboards are often really, really old, slow and sticky. Sometimes, they’re only marginally better than the phone. Sometimes, they’re in Vietnamese.
Swype helps – instead of punching each individual letter (staccato), you move your finger to each letter, keeping your finger in contact with the screen (legato). Not perfect, but much better.
Blogging
“Samantha, you are a blogger?”
An unforeseen benefit (which I’ve mentioned before) of having to use a hotel computer is that, as they’re often situated in the lobby, the staff see me blogging. Without running a test using a parallel universe, I won’t know for sure, but I just sense that they get a touch more helpful. But they’re very helpful anyway (mostly), so it’s difficult to tell.