The Engrish site is a classic and I’m pretty sure it was around before the Cheezeburger sites. At least, I know I was looking at it in the very early 2000s or maybe even the late 90s.
Probably just add plain water after or before the espresso shot- if you carry on pouring water through used beans with an espresso machine, the coffee starts tasting bitter.
Incidentally, an Italian macchiato (unlike the Spanish or the Starbucks version) is an espresso shot with a teeny splash of milk froth to take the edge off. If ordering one in Europe, it’s a good idea to check which it is beforehand. In England it’s about 50/50.
I used to work in an airport coffee shop, with plenty of ‘Why’s my big milky coffee served in a cup for ants?!’ :mad: people.
My ex and I heard, when eating at an Indian restaurant, “Red River Valley”
On what sounded like a slide sitar
There’s a group called Twelve Girls Band who play a lot of western music on traditional Chinese instruments. They’re not bad, actually.
In a similar vein one of my favorite albums back in the vinyl days featured a squad of kotos playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
That’s the Italian version. A Spanish café has 200-250cc of liquid caffeine.
Yeah, this. You make the coffee as usual and water it down.
Off-topic, but this reminded me: for anyone (like me) who would almost rather hear any instrument than a violin, I highly recommend the version of the Four Seasons by the Canadian Brass. The Winter section, in particular, is gorgeous.
You know, I think I too browsed the Engrish site before it joined (then later left) Cheezburger.
But now the site is kind of all alone and feels obscure. But there’s a new post pretty much every day…
While I was an American tourist in Italy, I saw a cheerful Asian-looking tourist wearing a T-shirt boldly emblazoned, “TEXT GOES HERE.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Outback doesn’t serve traditional Australian food.
Maybe McDonald’s really does sell different types of food in different regions of the world, but their recent regional food campaign just seems like a PR gimmick.
The problem is that most of what they chose isn’t very interesting compared to their normal American menu. I was in need of some quick, cheap calories yesterday and wound up having what seemed like an eggs Benedict burger at a McDonalds at the Tokyo Skytree. (That tower wasn’t worth 3100 yen. My quick lunch, having sweated like crazy walking around Asakusa, was totally worth 700.)
A couple years ago there was someone repeatedly asking in a Facebook group if any of the bands who were members wanted to buy his shirt designs and he had examples: one was an amazing growling tiger on a black background but the sample text on it was “BAND NAME” and I wanted to ask if I could just buy a copy of that shirt as is, literally saying “BAND NAME”, because I could wear it ironically and the design was actually cool.
I still don’t know how the OP is in any way “cultural appropriation.” It is a misunderstanding or even a lack of interest, but they are not saying “kimonos are Western.”
I dunno, it depends on how you define “cultural appropriation.” As a Westerner heavily involved in teaching and promoting a traditional Indonesian art to other Westerners, I try to be mindful of this. To me, something becomes appropriation when it is adopted/adapted with no attempt to understand the significance, history, aesthetics, and possibly sacred connotations of something from another culture. Sincere attempts to learn and show respect are fine, even if they don’t succeed in reproducing the original. Even fusion is fine, if it demonstrates some attempt to understand the meaning of the practice/ food/clothing/whatever being integrated into some other context. (Hell, life would be much worse for us all if there were not continual instances of cultures influencing each other, producing wonderful new things).
What’s not okay, and what does smack of appropriation, is mindless adoption of a cultural practice when there has obviously been no attempt to understand proper use or context. Something smacks of stereotyping rather than honest appreciation, like “hey, the Japanese wear kimonos, look at me, I’m wearing a kimono, now I’m like a Japanese person!” - when it could have easily been done right with a little interest in authenticity, but instead it is carelessly done wrong. Imagine, for example, an American burger joint in Okinawa decorated with Christian crosses because the owner saw some pictures of a church in the US and thought the crosses looked pretty.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. We adopt and adapt Javanese stuff all the time in my group, but before we take a symbol like the “tree of life” which is such an iconic symbol of wayang (shadow puppetry), and incorporate it into a logo for our group, I read up and ask around whether we might be offensive/ignorant.
One day my father came home amused by a T-shirt on a pretty 15yo blonde saying “KISS ME, STUPID”. He said he hadn’t followed instructions because he didn’t want to get in trouble, but damn if he hadn’t wanted to say “vale, soy tonto” (ok, I’m stupid; the movie was called Bésame, tonto in Spain) and swoop in.
Ah, Japan, where about 90% of all telephone hold music is “Greensleeves”. I never liked the tune before I went to Japan, now I hate it.
True. Japan was full of them, now I see the same sort of things from China posted in the Net. Misspellings or clueless translations.
Most ethnic restaurants can be a hoot, especially if they dress up in original ethnic clothing - or some version of it. One of my favorite Indian restaurants in Duesseldorf sometimes kitted out its waiters in what looked like Rajputi (west Indian) garb. For quite a while there was a Spanish waiter there … dressed up like a Rajputi.
Kimonos: I bought a used wedding kimono for my sister - you can buy them quite cheaply from the department stores in Tokyo, unfortunately, the accessories such as the obi (sash) have to be bought new and they are expensive. Like the Chinese cheongsan, kimonos don’t suit the Western female figure, which is too, ah, bumpy. A Japanese restaurant with Westerners in kimonos would be fun. And yes, you should beware of the big-time faux pas of getting the direction wrong.
I guess Cisco is not in Japan.
It sounds like the coffee machine at my workplace, which is full of Europeans. It’s an expresso machine that uses pods. The brew options consist of little pictures of various size cups. This represents the coffee to water ratio and the big cup is the Americano.
I love stuff like this. Every now and then I see something in a discount store that cracks me up and I buy it. Some examples.
A lightweight baseball cap, blue. Instead of a logo,company name or team name, it’s simply emblazoned with the word SPORTS.
A beach bag with an embroidered beach scene. The scene depicts a small desert island under a vicious looking blazing sun. The final touch is sharks in the water. Makes me crave a day at the beach.
My “ice pants”. A pair of fleece pajama pants. I think the designer had seen prints celebrating snow and was going for a knockoff variant. The print features ice skating bears, ice crystals and big sheets of ice. And the words ICE ICE ICE!