With the Indian girl, I managed for her to eat cow meat. Just a little bit at first, but by the end of the course she was eating Brazilian food with us. The Iranian girl got a cocker spaniel to live with her and her fiancé. They were migrants, of course, fresh off the plane, and not atheists but muslims. The Korean, Chinese and Japanese girls learned how to hug and be hugged as part of saying goodbye, and how to kiss in the cheek and shake hands as part of saying hello. My Japanese girl also learnt how to burp, but that’s because I’m such a devil. It’s odd at times how N Jie, the Korean girl, switched from not allowing anybody to be near her to kiss and hug everyone in just two months. She was a nice gal and I envy the guy who will marry her. Yes, another one I lose. But that’s because I, like all the greatest lovers in History, don’t count the women I had, but the women I hadn’t had.

In Mexico this kind of salute is ok only between a man and a girl or a girl to another girl, not men to men, as it may be considered queer, but in italy is pretty common even between men.

I guess it all depends on the tolerance of the person, first they have to realize that they are speaking to a foreigner that might not know that such and such is actually a sensitive subject for them, they have to adjust their reaction according to that.

Religion is actually kind of a taboo topic everywhere, although i have many friends, specially muslim that don’t get upset at my atheist rants and are actually willing to have a conversation about it. none of us can convince each other, but we can talk about it openly.

yeah, surprisingly are catholics and christians who get more freaky about this topic, or at least that has been my personal experience.

Germans, they pretend that WWII never existed. so don’t talk to them about such thing, they’ll think you are trying to blame them.

Chinese and Taiwanese, most taiwanese i know will really get upset if you call them chinese, the situation is very complicated, and everyone has their own opinion and chooses sides accordingly. but as a general rule, taiwan is another country. chinese citizens are almost all of them deluded by their governments propaganda and are convinced that taiwanese don’t actually want to separate but is all an evil plot by the U.S. , which is to some degree, also true, but it seems to be that is actually the taiwanese themselves who claim their independence. this is actually a lot more complicated.

Very interesting topic, ill try think about more taboos.

I have finally achieved a sufficient level to read kanjis and i’m starting to crawl in the japanese WWW, which is incredibly weird, and the layout of the websites is awful… for instance: http://www.2ch.net/ … this is the single most influential forum in Japan, every japanese who owns a computer has an account here, yet the page looks like it was made with yahoo pagebuilder or worst. frontpage…

Well, I think that mead, like sake, is a beer-type beverage. Of course it’s just an opinion, and there are lot’s of opinions. I even have contradictoy opinions. I’ve heard that, at least for Japanese people, sake is rice wine. Of course it’s not a wine: it’s main ingedient is rice and the process of making sake looks more like beer than wine or other spirits. And for me, at least, mead is more closer to beers than wines or spirits because of the way it’s brewed.

But, truth be told, I don’t care.

Why? Because, after all, I wrote this piece as a kind of exercise, just to practice my English skills. I wrote this from memory, and if the mead reference is my worst offence, then I’ve passed the test and learned three new words in the process.

So I thank you for your time. See you later.

Generally however, it is a much closer cousin to wine than beer.

Beer requires grains. Mead does not. Wine requires grapes…mead does not.

You can mix and match mead with other ingredients. Grains + honey = braggot. Grape + honey = pyment. But no matter how you slice it, mead is it’s own animal. It will mix nicely with others including other fruits (honey + pear = melomel) or spices. But at the end of the day if honey is in the mix it is not a beer, nor is it a wine.

Cheers.

CL

Not much to see on the telly lately, the writers strike really affected my tv schedule.

I used to watch Veronica Mars, but unfortunately it was canceled after its third season… Dr. House of course, Dexter, i used to watch Bones, but the last season was terrible, i usually finish watching the series i start, but Bones was the exception…

I got a hold of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, all 13 episodes and i’ve been watching those lately. on anime i think ill start with popotan, after the caramel dansen swept the web i’m curious to know more about those dancing girls.. lol … and the new futurama movie came out last week! also with a lost episode that was only on the game (yes, there was a videogame), it was good, but the next one seems even better