I just saw one of those newspaper articles linking Colombia with drugs that always makes my blood boil. It’s an article from news.com.au about tours of cocaine factories in Colombia. I’m only linking that article so you can see I’m not inventing this, but I hope nobody who reads this site is interested in such [...]
My German husband’s not usually much of a cook, but he can turn out a mean Zwiebelkuchen. Literally translated, a Zwiebelkuchen is an onion cake, which doesn’t sound that appetising. But apparently it’s not all in a name.
My first memories of Zwiebelkuchen are from outdoor parties like the annual wine festival where local vineyards sell [...]
Excuse my ignorance, but I only just realised today how few nations there are that regularly allow refugees to come to live within their borders. The topic came up in my ESL classroom somehow - quite randomly, as many topics do - and eventually one Korean girl boldly asked me, quite incredulously, “Why does Australia [...]
If I ever wrote a book about my time in Japan, I hope it could come across as beautifully as Hamish Beaton’s experiences in Under the Osakan Sun: A Funny, Intimate, Wonderful Account of Three Years in Japan.
Like me, Hamish Beaton - “Mr Hamish” to his students - went to Osaka to teach English. Unlike [...]
News out of Moscow these days seems to alternate between another luxury hotel being built where people will have to pay a thousand dollars a night for a room, through to an extreme opposite - ordinary people are without hot water for weeks at a time. It might be summer, but that doesn’t mean that [...]
You don’t find the real Russia in an expensive St Petersburg hotel - we found it in Valentina’s kitchen. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a few weeks in Russia twice, and each time I’ve avoided hotels or hostels and instead found accommodation through a homestay programme.
Homestay Hosts - Widows and Families
In my experience, a [...]
When I first arrived in Japan, I was tricked by street markets and stalls who wrote their prices using the Japanese characters for numbers - and more than once I bought something that was more expensive than I’d hoped by confusing the kanji for seven and nine.
I thought in Europe, things would be easier. But [...]
Languages just can’t be trusted. As a language teacher, I often see how dangerous it is to simply translate any concept word for word - relying on a dictionary as your only way of learning a language is bound to lead to problems. One really good example of that is the seemingly harmless verb, invite.
The [...]
Who would’ve thought that some “fact” like the number of continents in the world could be so culturally-bound? In fact it’s a subject I’ve simply learned to avoid in a multicultural class because there are usually more answers to the question of “How many continents are there?” than there are people in the class.
English-Speaking People [...]
People often ask me about what really makes up Australian culture, and I’m never quite sure what to tell them about. Australia Day tends to rate highly, though, and I think this year’s experience of our national holiday gives a pretty good explanation about at least some aspects of what it means to be an [...]