Trick or TREAT? ;P

Do you remember what exciting day is coming? Yes, that's Halloween! Actually I'm not really keen on those horrible things or ghosts. But I always look forward to 31/10 because I love playing "Trick or Treats?' game! Every year, I buy different types of candies or chocolates and exchange them with my classmates or even teachers. After a school day, it's so excited to have new types of sweets that you have never tried before.

There is a survey conducted in America to find out American's favourite Halloween Candy (America’s Favorite Halloween Candy). Snickers, Tootsie Pops, Bazooka, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Skittles are on the top five list. I like Snickers also but in Halloween, I love eating Kisses more! How about you? Are your favourites on the list?

Happy Halloween and Trick or TREAT? :)

Fusion food on food trucks

Have you ever watched a TV programme named "Eat Street"? It is a TV programme intorducing food trucks which serve different tasty food. I would like to introduce to you food trucks which serve fusion food. Let's watch the video!!

You would see that there are loads of transnational elements in the food served. For example, there are use of ingredients like Sriracha Hot Sauce ศรีราชา and Tomato Salsa for the food served by the first truck. These names involve transliteration, which meanings are not comprehended by people who are unfamiliar with their cultures. However, if one know the meaning behind their names, they would somehow realize more about their cultures. Sriracha is a place in Thainland. It is famous for producing serfood dishes. Using the place name Sriracha with "hot sauce" may implies Thai's love for spicy seafood. Salsa is a word for sauce in Spain. However, it is commonly seen in Mexican food. This may imply that culture is always under influence. One's culture would be affected by another culture. Since Salsa would appear in Mexican cuisine, it may imply that Spain and Mexico have strong relations.
In the video, Chana Dal and Sev are intorduced. Chana Dal means Fried Lentils, while Sev means Chickpea Flour Noodle, as explained by the video. They are connected to Indian cuisine. These cases, once again, are related to transliteration. If Western words can be used to explain both terms, why their original langugae is represented through transliteation? It maybe related to the theme of the programme. Since it is to bring different kinds of delicious food which are served on food trucks to audience, and this episode is to intorduce food which have different cultural elements, preserving original language maybe a good way for audince to approach to cultural diversity.
What are your opinions?

Tod Man Pla: Thai Fish Cake

Have you ever tried Tod Man Pla  (Thai Fish Cake ทอดมันปลา)? It is a delicious Thai dish which worth trying! It taste especially good when it is dips into the some sort of spicy sauce (that is my personal experience). From the website's mentioning of Thai-English transliteration, I realise that Tod Man ทอดมัน means something fried, while pla ปลา means fish. If it is not using the name "Thai Fish Cake", non-Thai persons probably do not know what the words Tod Man Pla means just by hearing the sounds or reading the transliterated words. It shows transliteration as a merit of approaching a culture since we would know how a word in a language sounds. However, it do not benefit foreigners' comprehension much because they still do not know how to decode the words they receive into a message. But, when they know the meaning behind the transliteration, they can experience a culture on language level, not only in the form of sound, but also in the form of decoded meassge.
If you like to watch a video of the Thai Fish Cake in order to feel its glamour in a more "lively" way, you can watch the following video. Do you feel they are really yummy after watching?

Sweet Childhood - Gummy Bear!

I'm sure no matter which countries you come from, you certainly know Gummy Bear because this type of candy has accompanied many generations since 1922. But, do you know Haribo? If not, it's a pity and you really should read the following news: The father of Gummy Bear, Haribo died this week.

- Haribo Head Dies: Germany Says Goodbye to Gummy Bear Magnate
- 德國Haribo「小熊糖之父」去世　享壽90歲

I love having Gummy Bear candy while doing my revision as it does not taste too sweet but it can give me energy to keep my work on at night. I feel so sad after hearing the death of this amazing creator. It's Haribo, who makes our childhood that lovely and memorable. Do you agree? Which colour or favour of Gummy Bear candy do you like? For me, I love pineapple, but I always find this favour is the less in every packages!!! :(

    

The Literature, the Candy and the Translation

Have you ever heard of Turkish Delight? If you do, I bet you learnt that from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis! What exactly is a Turkish Delight though?

 

It is probably hard to tell from the text and picture, but it is a VERY sweet piece of candy, as if it were a solid cube of sugar.

In Lewis's words, it becomes delicious for any young (or hungry) readers:

"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating," said the Queen presently. "What would you like best to eat?"

"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.

The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.

If looking at English doesn't make you hungry, look at the Chinese translation:

「亞當的兒子，只飲不吃是傻瓜，」女王過了一會兒說，「你最喜歡吃什麼東西呀？」
「土耳其軟糖，陛下。」愛德蒙說。
於是，女王又從瓶子裡倒出一滴東西滴到雪地上，地上立即出現了一個圓盒子，用綠絲帶紮著，把它一打開，裡面裝著好幾磅最好的土耳其軟糖。每一塊又甜又軟，愛德蒙從沒有吃過比它還要好吃的東西。他現在感到非常暖和，非常舒適。 

The most interesting note to make from a translator's perspective, of course, is the translation of the candy itself. It is almost impossible to tell from the English name that Turkish Delight is edible, because "Delight", as a noun, only means pleasure or something that gives pleasure. Literally, "Turkish Delight" is best defined as something from Turkey that gives pleasure, which can be anything actually. To be honest, when I first read Edmund's request, I was not sure what he is asking for. For a term that sounds problematic enough in English, how can the Chinese translators handle it?

土耳其軟糖, literally Turkish Soft Candy/Sweet, is less confusing than its English counterpart, because we can at least tell that it is a piece of candy. However, it can still be criticized for omitting the "delight", because soft candy does not always give pleasure.

CLASS REVISION TIME: Is the Chinese translation of Turkish Delight an attempt in localization or foreignization? Feel free to let us know by commenting here!

In the piece of reading which might have brought nightmares to you, discourse studies is mentioned. If you do not study English Linguistics, it may be another term that you don't want to know about. For those who are still interested, here is a bit information on what critical discourse analysts would do to the extracts we have just read:

Notice the words Lewis used to describe the Turkish Delight summoned by the White Witch:
i) several pounds of the best Turkish Delight
ii) Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre
iii) never tasted anything more delicious

and the effects on Edmund - quite warm now, and very comfortable

Know that it is the discourse that is making you feel hungry as you read. Do you think you would be interested on the candy if those words are deleted or replaced by something else?

The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of Turkish Delight. Each piece was white and cubic and Edmund ate them. He was less cold now, and less uncomfortable.

茶碗蒸しChawanmushi: "Tea Cup Steam"

Now, I want to introduce to you guys Chawanmushi(茶碗蒸し), which is a Japanese egg custard dish that placed inisde a tea-like container. Click here if you want to find out more information about the dish.

The Rilakkuma teacups are really cute, right? But that is not my main point XD
What I want to do is draw your attentions to the ingredients of the dish.
According to the video, the dish is made of ingredients which have unique Japanese names, such as Shimejiシメジ, Kamaboko蒲鉾 and Mirin味醂. All these add values to the uniqueness of the dish that it becomes a truly Japanese dish. I would like to try this dish, which is an important part of Japanese food culture, if I have chance.
What do you think about the dish?

Homemade Time!

Do you know, last week is my grandma's birthday!!! In the previous years, I didn't have time to prepare for her birthday party due to my busy work but this year, I decided to give her something special. Since my grandma is a vegetarian so after searching on the Net, I decided to make a vegetarian pizza for her birthday present. I found this video on Youtube. Although it is in Hindi, it has very clear English subtitles so I feel comfortable following the steps.

 

My grandma always tells me that she loves pizza but she always cannot enjoy it as most of the pizzas contain meat. Therefore when she saw the homemade pizza last week, I could see how delighted and touched she was!!! I wish I can treasure my time being with her and I think we all should cherish everything around us. You never know what will happen next minute. So, if you get spare time, why not make some snacks for your friends and family to show your love? Any interest on marble cakes? Haha...I love it very much! How about you? :)

 

Not Delicious Enough?

If you are not hungry enough after reading our blog, why don't you visit the blogs made by our classmates for more mouth-watering experience?





Chinese food is highly regarded and you can find Chinese restaurants all over the world. But what about the traditional food? Check out Bilingualgipsy's blog to know more!






You may know a lot about food from popular cities like Shanghai and Beijing. Do you know what Taiwanese eat? Look at Clevhne's blog to encourage yourself to visit Taiwan! What about Chaozhou? No fear! They also have a post about Chaozhou cuisine. Looking for something spicy? Click the picture below!


How can we introduce so many varieties of food without mentioning the one we are most familiar with? Ever heard of Cha Chan Tang?Find out how those terms are translated in Virtual Pop Cults!



Finally we would like to thank our classmates for introducing these tasty food to everyone. Even we are feeling hungry this time.

Oyakodon: Rice of "Parent and child"(?)

Do you know what is oyakodon（親子丼）? It is a kind of Japanese rice bowl dish. Why would it have such name as "Parent and child" (direct translation from the name 親子丼)? In fact, the dish contains chicken (parent) and eggs (child) as ingredients. Thus, the name OYAKODON borns!!!!! Just click here if you want to know more about the dish. I have also found an interesting video about how to make the dish. It is really in a Japanese style since it involves such elements as moe(萌え)and maid (メイド) into the video. It is just like watching a short story when you see there is interactions between the maid and the master (but believe me, this is not the main point of the post) . Although not all persons like Japanese culture (but I like it indeed), I still hope there would be someone who watch this video and find out the ways in making the dish. It would be FUN!!! (You need not worry about any difficulties in watching the video since there are ENGLISH SUBTITLES!!)

 

What do you think about the dish? Feel free to leave any comments!!

Language for Advertising Food

Having learnt how to translate advertisements, I think it would be a perfect opportunity to analyze how delicious advertisements are translated to attract non-Chinese users in Hong Kong. To start with, let us look at one of the most familiar restaurants:

Chinese Version / English Version



The Chinese slogan is "愛の限定" while the English is "Enjoy love while it lasts". Something is off...


Chinese can often be analyzed word-by-word as a first step in understanding. 愛 is "love" while
限定 is "limited". "の" is not exactly Chinese and is best described as the genitive ('s in English).

Considering the fact that this burger is limited by its promotion period, the limit is obviously an limit of time. What is love? We can ask Shakespeare and look at his sonnets, but his answer won't be useful here. The answer is simple actually. What is limited by time as we are told in the advertisement? The burger.

So we now know that the Chinese slogan focuses on how the love is limited by time and you better hurry before it is gone, what about the English slogan? Seems to have the same message.

I got more to talk, but it would be great if you guys can make use of what you have learnt in class and apply them on this advertisement. Here are some questions we would like to ask, feel free to leave your responses via comment:

1) What type of bilingualism is demonstrated in the Chinese slogan? (For students taking Bilingual Cyber Culture, you must have read that)

2) Can you use the idea of signifier and signified from semiotics to explain the love in advertisement? (For students taking Translation of Texts in Popular Culture, can you still remember signifier and signified?)

3) Do you think the slogan was translated well to replicate the discourse of source text/attract potential customers?

4) Can you think of an English translation that is more localized (closer to the Western culture)?

Subway® Sandwiches

I recently ordered online a delicious 6-inch sandwich filled with roasted chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and with spicy barbecue sauce from my favorite sandwich franchise of all time – Subway®. While I was in the process of ordering, I couldn't help but notice that almost every country had their own website for ordering sandwiches from Subway®. Moreover, most of these websites were in the countries' national languages. These included languages from around the world, including French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish etc. This is a type of commercial bilingualism where bilingualism is used to sell goods or services. In this case, the Subway® franchise provided almost each country with a website in its national language since it will be easier for their consumers to read and understand the language and they will be more likely to attract consumers.
Check out the international website for Subway® right here! Just click on the drop-down menu on the left side of the page where it says "International Sites" and chose your country. They have an option for Hong Kong as well so make your choice of sub and order away! 

Fusion Cuisine 融合菜.

Well, I'm not sure whether fusion cuisine is related to bilingual stuff or not but I think it is a quite interesting, hit topic in the modern Hong Kong. Few days before, I found an old news article about fusion cuisine: http://paper.wenweipo.com/2011/05/28/FC1105280007.htm. Although I can only find the Chinese version, I'll try to describe this fusion culture here and let you know more about this awesome stuff.

Recently, we always hear of the word ‘fusion’ but actually what is fusion food? It is simply a general term for the combination of various forms of cookery and comes in several forms. For example, we can find that there are more and more different types of mooncakes during Mid-Autumn Festival. Besides traditional mooncakes with only egg york and lotus seed paste, there are ice-skin mooncakes with ice-cream or chocolate or different fruits’ favors. These strange combinations usually grab the awareness of public.

If you think that Fusion Cuisine rises only these few years, then you are wrong. Actually we can also see fusion food in cha chaan teng such as egg tart and Yuanyang. Egg tart is created from afternoon tea of UK while Yuanyang is mixture of Hong Kong-style milk tea and coffee. Both of these illustrate that globalization affects Hong Kong very much. There are some reasons for arise of Fusion Cuisine. First, there are more and more immigrants from Mainland or minority groups come to Hong Kong and they always bring recipes of their home to Hong Kong. Moreover, foreign culture is more accepted by Chinese these few years and the cooking from western countries match with the taste of the new generation in Hong Kong.

From the above, I believe you all will agree that Fusion Cuisine is actually a deepgoing topic to discuss. So, after all, maybe we can list out more delicious fusion food in Hong Kong for us to try. Any tasty suggestions? :)

Ice-cream and you traits

Once again, here is an interesting news connecting food with your personalities. There is also a Chinese version for this news. Being a lover of the flavor named chocolate chip, I happily discover that the Englsih version describes me as "generous, competent, and a go-getter", while the Chinese version describes me as 自信野心型 (confident and aggresive) and 強人 (in my case, maybe strong woman?). When comparing both, I just feel myself being fit into the English version rather than the Chinese version. Why? Because I am not as aggressive or confident as the Chinese version describes. Rather,these would be the kind of traits I would like to possess (which means I am NOT YET such kind of person). I also found that the Chinese version misses one trait which the English one mentions: generous. This is also a trait which I think I possess. From the omission of such trait, a fact can be told: not all translations we see on the famous websites are perfect. Something might be omitted for the sake of perfect categorization (in this case: chocolate chips are equalized with ambitious group). Which flavour of ice-cream does you like most? Do you feel yourselves being fit into what both versions said? Have fun! Share your results if you like!!

 Yummy Chocolate Chip Ice-cream!!!

Translation and Food - Chinglish?

If you are taking TRA209/3209, engrish.com should not be new to you. If you aren't, don't worry, you can keep reading without any problem.

While most entries on engrish.com are funny and ungrammatical English, this one is not exactly the same as others. If you can read the source text, you can tell that it is a fairly literal translation and the product is grammatically correct. Yet, it is personally picked by the English speakers from engrish.com to be featured. Why? Let's find out what is 功夫牛排 first.

功夫牛排 consists of four Chinese characters, which form two nouns, with the first one 功夫 (Kung Fu) being the modifier for the second one 牛排 (steak). That doesn't help understanding why they have to call them Kung Fu steak when those cows (or steaks) cannot (and could not) do Chinese Kung Fu.

According to a restaurant offering this dish:

[經典功夫牛排]煎製牛排有很多講究，既要能夠將牛肉表面迅速加熱，產生大量的香料分子，又不能使它們的細胞壁破裂，這樣，更多的香氣就會在客人口中爆裂。這就需要廚師的經驗和功夫了。

The most important part is in bold and underlined. It means "the cook must be experienced and skilled". If you cannot read Chinese, you must be wondering where the Kung Fu went. In this brief translation, I have used experienced for 經驗 and skilled for 功夫, which is a word with multiple meanings based on the context in Chinese.

Judging from the information we have so far, it looks like the translator is to be blamed. However, is that really the case? Today in the lecture of TRA209/3209 we learn that there is liberty in translating advertisements to make them attractive and easy to remember. While this is not actually an advertisement, translators in this scenario are at least expected to make it appealing, not puzzling, for the audience.

Is it really the translator's fault for turning this into a joke? Can you think of a better translation to introduce this dish to non-Chinese? Let us know what you think by posting comments here!

Non Resident Indian (NRI) grooms preferred than Resident Indian grooms

Skimming through the pages of the People’s section of my customary online newspaper The Times of India, this morning I came across a rather interesting article. This article, titled “NRI bachelors over Desi dulhas” (desi, meaning Indian and dulhas, meaning grooms), immediately caught my attention not only because it demonstrated a cultural norm of marriage in my country, but also because it used a fair amount of Hindi words in a newspaper that is supposed to be one of the most read English newspapers in the country. More interestingly, the use of Hindi in this article did not involve the actual Hindi symbols, but involved the phonetics of the Hindi language in English alphabets. This article basically talks about how Indian parents are looking for NRI (Non-Resident Indian) grooms for their daughters because they don’t want to risk marrying their daughters off to men living in India because of India’s unpredictable economy.  

This phenomenon of code switching, defined as switching between two or more languages, has been around in India for a while. The use of English in the country greatly increased just before India gained independence from Britain. In the above-mentioned article, code switching can be seen in many instances, including the title of the article. The concept of code switching comes so easily to Indian people as myself, because we are brought up learning Hindi at home or with friends and using English at school. In fact, most of the Indian schools have English as their first language and Hindi as their second. This ease of code switching among the readers lets the writer of the article use both English and Hindi at the same, thereby maneuvering linguistic diversity in the article. As mentioned earlier, the use of English alphabets for Hindi phonetics is also an example of linguistic diversity. This may also be called societal bilingualism since the two languages are being used for the people in the Indian society. It confirms the people’s national identity as Indian people can relate to both languages. Sociolinguists, people who study language as affected by social relations, will support that this technique is useful since it fulfills both the linguistic desires of the Indian community, English as well as Hindi.

In addition, this article falls under the category of public media since it is an online newspaper article accessible to all the people around the world, although it is mainly aimed towards the Indian public and towards people of other nationalities who comprehend the Hindi language. The author has used a mixture of formal and informal language, using facts and figures as evidence (E.g. "The demand for NRI grooms, which fell by over 20% after the 2008 global financial crisis, is rising again.") and using people’s personal opinions about the issue (E.g. "Because our daughter's our only child, we initially wanted her settle down with a groom based in Delhi”) in order to build a connection between the author and the audience in order to attract the audience’s attention. Also, if you roll the cursor over some of the direct links, it takes you to an advertisement page, completely unrelated to the marriage issue in India. This may be argued to be contradictory to this article being public media as opposed to private commercial media since the advertisers of the product shown in the links are trying to get the attention of the people to buy the product.

In conclusion, bilingualism has been around in India as well as all over the world for a very long time. People working in the media are starting to understand the importance of it and starting to use strategies to attract more audience. 

Apologies for this essay not being about food. 

What could be told from the drinks"latte" and "cappuccino"?

Just few days ago, an interesting news about coffee came out: one's love towards particular type of coffee could tell what kind of person they are. Unfortunately, since I don't care which one I am drinking as long as I have one cup of coffee in my hand (except for the black one), I just discover myself being fit into all traits mentioned in the text.

Anyway, that is not the main point of this text. This text is talking about the bilingual features of the news. Since one of its main focus is on coffee, which is a term related to exchange of cultures, it is not unexpectable to see the bilingual features embedded in it.

Although Italy isn' t coffee's origin, it has played an important role when engaging in the evolution of the beverage (Click here for more information). From the news, you can see that noth "latte" and "cappuccino" are among the important types of coffee. They are not English, but Italian words. Latte means milk while Cappucino comes from Capuchin friars. This shows that coffee is a product which follows the trend of globalization. Because of the increasing trend of cultural exchange, drinks, which can represent part of a culture, is prone to influence of cultural exchange. Different types of a particular drink can keep on evolving along with human history. In the case of coffee, although "latte" and "cappucinno" did not exist when such beverage as coffee was invented, Italians can still take part in the process of coffee's evolution and develop their own coffee. They can use their own language to name after their newly invented latte and cappuccino. This shows how the increasing trend of globalization draws different cultures together. One's culture can be enriched after absorbing a new comer from exotic lands.

The words "latte" and "cappuccino" are Italians. However, from the news article, you can clearly see that these words have been absorbed into an English article naturally. Even we are not Intalians, we are still get used to these phrases. This tells how the effects of globalization are absorbed among us. Since we are living in an age at which international communication becomes more and more important, it is common for words from one language to be abosrbed into another language. For the case of "latte" and "cappuccino", since they have become quite popular around the world, it is not surprised to see them being accepted into an English passage. It is a use of code-mixing and terms related to food makes quite much use of it.

In short, from "latte" and "cappuccino", it can be discovered that language can be placed under the influence of cultural exchange. Different codes can be mixed together without downgrading the readability of a text as long as those terms are common enough to be recognized. Those words would not lose their abilities in representing a particular culture, but represent it well.

Baking with Fun!!!

Hey everyone! Our blog has introduced different types of food to you in the previous weeks. Do you think there's something missing? Yes, that's desserts! Here I get something really fantastic for you all. What's that? It's an awesome website full of baking stuffs and I think you certainly have to go inside and take a look: http://www.joyofbaking.com/ There are recipes and baking videos of cakes, tarts, muffins, cookies, cupcakes...etc. You can make snacks by yourself in your spare time or even share those sweets with  family, friends and maybe...lovers! Enjoy your baking!!!

*White Cupcakes!

*Black Forest Cake!

*Rasberry White Chocolate Shortbreads!

Making Your Own Mooncakes

Li Chun En, a well-known writer in Hong Kong, has written a great piece of article about homemade mooncakes.

The original Chinese version:

自己做月餅 2013/9/14

每到中秋節前，就收到許多朋友送來的月餅。月餅多了吃不掉，便在節前拿去四周送人，務必不浪費。         月餅多數出自餅家酒家，也有朋友自己做的。有一位朋友，不但自製月餅，連精美的月餅盒也是特別訂造，盒中還附刀叉，如非月餅盒上印了「非賣品」三個字，看起來就是專業製作了。         自己做月餅，純為興致，所以用料也自然比大批生產的餅家講究，那位朋友的月餅分了兩批製成，還特地做了記號，送給我的時候特地叮囑，要我吃後告知，是第一批出品好，還是第二批出品好，原來吃月餅還要交功課，可見這私家製作是何等認真。         月餅應節，並不難得，難得的是這一份閒情逸趣。有這份興致的人，不管窮富，日子都會過得愜意。         其 實自己做月餅的人不少，有專門的月餅製作班開班教人，去學做月餅的人也為數很多，猶如烹飪班，只是在烹飪班學會做菜，在月餅班學會做月餅，做月餅只為應 節，便又顯得格外有誠意有興致。待到月餅做出來，分送朋友，得到讚賞，做月餅的滿足感，比吃月餅的還大。         李純恩

To let non-Chinese users know more about mooncakes, I have decided to translate it. I have only taken a few translation courses so it is not perfect. Feel free to leave any comments you got for it:

Making Your Own Mooncakes
As the Mid-Autumn Festival is coming, the amount of mooncakes you can get from your friends is simply uncountable. There are usually too many cakes for you to eat so you have no choice but to give out some.

The mooncakes are mostly made by restaurants and bakeries, but there are some homemade ones as well. A friend of mine makes not only the mooncakes, but also the gallant boxes with knivies and forks inside. One may mistaken it as an expensive box of mooncake sold in luxurious shops if they cannot spot the "Not for Sale" tag printed on the box.

Making homemade mooncakes is for pleasure, so the ingredients is often an aspect dealt with much attention. My friend made two batches and gave them markings so that I could let her know which batch is better. I didn't know that eating mooncakes can be a piece of homework, but that just shows how serious she is.

Eating mooncakes to celebrate the festival is nothing special. What she has done is special though. I bet that people like her can live a pleasant life regardless of any adversities encountered.

There are actually more people making homemade mooncakes than we thought. Some are offering classes on this art and many pay to learn. They attend the lessons, as if they were cookery courses, just to learn how to make the food. The mooncakes are made to celebrate, with extra sincerity this time. Though I am sure, when you share your cakes with your friends and hear their words of praise, you will realize that it is happier to make them than to eat them.

Li Chun En

Sushi or not Sushi?

I cannot believe that a few months ago I was in Korea, when it feels like it was yesterday. Which Korea you ask? The southern one of course! I don't think my university would want us to study in North Korea for now.

As expected from one of the most developed Asian country, there are so much to experience that I could only learn a tiny bit during my stay. It was difficult to express yourself or receive information when language became a barrier, but the human civilization has left us a tool to overcome this - gestures.

Without knowing any Korean, I was able to order food by pointing at the delicious pictures. Today I am showing you all one of my favorites:

You must be wondering, why bother with sushi, a Japanese food, in Korea? There are two things wrong with this question. First, Hong Kong food is not the only thing we eat here, we often eat more Western food than Chinese food without realizing it. Therefore it is perfectly normal to have non-Korean food in Korea. Second, they are not sushi actually. When have you ever seen a sushi with ham?

They are gimbap (reads like Kim-barp), often identified as the Korean variant of sushi. Similar-looking but very different in taste. Normally they are served with neither soy sauce nor wasabi, because they are seasoned well enough. Also, you cannot feel any vinegar in the rice, because they don't use vinegar (obviously).

Next time when you go to Korea, don't think that kimchi is the only thing you can eat!

Thai food in HK

Hello everyone!! Are you interested in Thai food? If yes, this would ceratinly attract your attention! This is a website which briefly introduces to us the "Little Thailand" in Hong Kong: the Kowloon City. If you want to taste those delicious Thai food, you can click here and you may get some tips! After going through the lines describing the "Little Thailand", hope you would really go there and try those yummy cuisine. You would certainly have an unforgettable expreience!

Spicy Indian Food!

Are you a fan of spicy vegetarian Indian food? Do you wish you could make it on your own at home?
Check out this website filled with Indian recipes both in English and in Hindi. Click here to explore some of the most mouth-watering, delicious, and easy-to-make recipes that promise to tickle your taste buds! 

Welcome! Btw, why are we SWAN?

Welcome to our blog! We are students studying at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. This is a collaborative project for a course entitled "Bilingual Cyber Culture". In case you don't know, we are the very first students taking this course. Cool, isn't it?

Why do we call ourselves SWAN? We are not real swans, of course. Let us introduce something interesting to you. There are four students working on this blog and they are Winnie, Najuka, Samantha and Anson. Got it? No? Alright, we are Samantha, Winnie, Anson and Najuka. Hints in bold so I hope you get it now.

What will you find in this blog? Pictures of sexy swans? lol nope. We will be talking about one of the most important thing. Btw, have you had your meal? If not, don't blame us if you get hungrier as you look at the food introduced here. We hope to present to you the sweet, wonderful, astonishing and nice-looking food we have had, hence our blog name SWAN.

We are still preparing so, if you want to be hungrier, you may check out one of these:

Food of Hong Kong and Macau by HK Epicurus, introducing beautiful and delicious Chinese dishes: http://www.hkepicurus.com/2012/02/empire-city-roasted-duck-hong-kong-12.html

Hong Kong Food Blog by Anna, all about eating in HK: http://hongkongfoodblog.blogspot.hk/

 Venchi x 不眠王子 朱古力派對, Chocolate Party!: http://blog.yahoo.com/sleeplessprince/articles/1200462/index