Takeaway Chinese Where you can take some Chinese away, and experience progress day by day.
Takeaway Chinese We will promise you a difference Welcome to Takeaway Chinese I am your home with Steve Hatherly in the studio Hello Steve Hey how is it going today?
It's been great! And doing Takeaway Chinese is always a highlight of my day, being able to talk about interesting culture points, language points, sharing knowledge, it's always fun.
Yeah I totally agree and I'm looking forward to our chat today it's gonna be a lot of culture we discuss.
Yes because when we say cultures we are definitely always very proud of our cultures but in fact no country is isolated unto itself entirely I mean from history you you gotta definitely blend a little bit with your neighbor countries, sometimes in certain occasions your neighbor countries and yourself were just one country.
But you know what I'm trying to say here?
The interaction, the communication, the affecting each other is always there.
Yeah. And speaking of cultural exchanges, I watched a video not so long ago that was talking about the deep connections between the languages, actually not just the languages, but the cultures, too, of different Asian countries like China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and many words across these languages share similar pronunciations and meanings.
Particularly, and this is fun, those related to food and trade like tea and tofu and silk and I think this is evidence of how these regions have been connected for a really long time for centuries and through culture and and trade and so much more I think that we've always been more connected then maybe even we may realize.
It's like all these cultures have talked to each other at certain point and then they decided to develop separately a little bit and then they talk to each other a little more and you know, pick on the points they like about each other, blend it in their own cultures and then develop a little bit.
So the intertwined way of development has made the culture here in Asia very diversified.
but yet you can also find the similarities in different and fun ways.
Yeah, I think it's easy to find differences if you're really looking hard, but if you're looking for similarities, it's easy to find those too.
But what's interesting to me, and this is a global thing I think, people always want to know what's different, right?
They don't ask, nobody ever asks Hey, what's the same?
What do people do? And I kind of think that sometimes we forget that when we're asking about different cultures, different countries' cultures, well, those countries are inhabited by human beings, right?
So, it couldn't be that different!
It's not going to be that different.
Yes! Right? But the number one question people always ask, what's different?
What's different? What's different?
After moving to China, I've experienced that question a lot.
And my answer is, of course you can find little differences, but let's talk about the similarities.
I'm always trying to promote the similarities because I feel like when we promote similarities that helps to break down cultural barriers.
Definitely and in today's episode we're actually going to discover the fond similarities, maybe some discrepancies, some differences among different cultures here in Asia.
And it's going to be a feast of diversified cultures.
For those of you who are interested in Chinese culture and in today's case Asian culture and you want to get a grip on the Chinese language, then this is the show for you.
Stick with us for 30 minutes and you soon see the rewards.
And for more fun chinese learning, follow our Facebook page LearnChinese to watch many fun videos and live streams. But now let's provide you with some free chinese for a takeaway.
So Steve, I want to ask you this question because we're going to definitely teach some Chinese, some Chinese language point and stuff.
I wonder, what do you think is something that is commonly shared by Asian countries because you've been living in and visited more than one Asian countries?
I would say one of the similarities that I noticed is that there's a respect for elders, which I think comes from Confucianism, right?
That's one of the biggest similarities that I can compare to Korea and China.
Respect for elders is really important, and that shows itself, it manifests itself in the way that people speak to each other.
For example, in Korean, there are different ways that you can talk to somebody.
Panmal, which is a casual way, or Jeongdaemal, which is a respectful way.
Friends will speak the casual way with each other, right?
but the words change, the word endings change, when you're speaking to an older person.
And then when you're speaking to a much, much, much, much, much older person, then you use a different way of speaking, which is the honorifics way.
So that respect for elders things exists in Korea and it exists here in China too.
Yes, but it exists in China in a different way instead of having specific words that you can only use for the people that you should be respecting, meaning that they're older than you or they're in a higher position than you and then speak to people, your peers using a different set of different groups of languages, different groups of words and then people who are socially below you in a different one.
What Chinese people do is to start with, we commonly respect strangers no matter if they're younger or older than you, to start with.
And also of course, age wise, social status wise.
The respectfulness is expressed in the actual words.
So there are respectful ways of saying things and it's not mandatory.
It's more like I get to choose who am I really respecting if you know what I'm saying here.
Okay yeah. For instance, we use the word plenty a lot, Which is the respectful form of 你, you.
Ah, see, okay, so there's a similarity there.
Can you give me that one more time?
你, 你, 你好. Ah, 你好, instead of 你好.
Exactly! And also 你喜交, so you first. And 先 means first, and 先 is another respectful way of saying things.
Or a respectful word. using this word generally means that you are being respectful already which in my opinion is much easier instead of learning all these different ways of saying things just because you need to be talking to your peer or talking to your elders in different languages you just use the respectful words this is a good one if you're in an elevator with a grandma or somebody much older then it for sure and in the sentence is actually quite useful.
Because in English, of course, you can add please in a lot of sentences and scenarios, but it's not always needed.
It's more like... and the elevator example applies to what you're talking about, because if you want to be really polite in an elevator and let someone else go first we wouldn't say please...
Well you could say please just on its own but you could also simply say after you and that would be very polite.
Yes yes exactly. Besides the elevator situation, if you want someone to hand you over something you can say please give me that.
So is handed over. And you can basically add the ting in front of all of these kind of sentences so is to eat something and is enjoy your food but not slow it's like take your time enjoy your food so please enjoy your food take your time or you can say please wait for a while please wait for a while so please wait for a while so please is very commonly used and yes these kind of respectful way of saying things is definitely much common here in Asia, in all these different countries, our neighbouring countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan, all these countries.
Yeah, in English it's a little bit different isn't it?
Because I've found that sometimes in Asia people might think in Western cultures we don't respect our elders...
in fact, of course we respect our elders, it's just shown perhaps in a different way sometimes, whereas it's shown through the structure of words in Asian languages sometimes too.
Yes, and one funny thing is in Asian cultures, if you're being respectful to an elderly, even if they're not your family relative, you can call them using the term that families are using, That's different in Western languages.
For example, if there's an elderly lady, you can call her grandma or grandmother, but in English, you would not.
You would not do that.
You wouldn't say grandma.
In fact, grandma is often used as an insult to a stranger and it implies probably that their thinking is old or they're moving slowly or something along those lines.
Quite the contrary here in Asia in many Asian countries addressing elders by their name is considered a little bit rude or Yes that too.
However We should note that if you're going to use the term Grandma, let's see if this is true in China as well.
How do you say grandmother in Chinese in Chinese?
Grandmother is not not nye nye so if you want to use that word when talking to a stranger make sure that person is of the age if you use that word to someone in their forties no never look that's my point yeah that's my point because that's an easy way to offend someone but you know you know what it is to start with I'm not really sure if its true, but I've been told by many people from the western side of the world saying that you Asian people age really well i cannot tell you're in the age that's the first thing and another thing is it's easy for us because we can definitely differentiate if someone
is in their 60s 70s i won't even call them 9 now just you know address ah just don't say anything yeah just don't say anything yet there is an occasion now you know 9 9 is grandma and 一种 is grandfather.
And there's also shushu ai yi, another very common way, shushu ai yi, shushu is uncle, ai yi is aunt.
So these are also very easy because you can use it to address basically anybody.
You don't have to worry about their age.
You don't really. Even if the person is younger?
Oh no no no no, I mean still one generation older than you.
But, what I'm saying here is that even though shu shu, technically speaking, when you're using it to address your family member, that is supposed to be your father's little brother.
Not even your mother's little brother, by the way.
And again, something specific here in Asian cultures.
That is, we're specific about relatives.
If they're from the father's family, or the mother's family, it's different.
In Western culture, we know it's not.
Still, when you are addressing family members, it's supposed to be your father's little brother, and Ah Yi is supposed to be your mother's sister.
But here Ah Yi can be older sister or younger sister.
What I'm saying here is if we're addressing strangers, then Xu Xu is just a man approximately the age of your parents' generation, and Ah Yi would be a woman, the same generation.
So the generation of your parents, so it doesn't really matter, you do not have to differentiate hmm this man looks younger than my dad, I can call him shushu, this man looks older than my dad, should I ask, you do not have to worry about that.
If I go to a small restaurant and the person serving me the waiter there or the shop owner or whatever, can I call him shushu if he's obviously older than I am?
If he's obviously older, to the extent that he's your father's generation.
Ah, that's the important part.
It has to be a full generation ahead of you.
It has to be a full generation.
That's quite specific, isn't it?
Yes, which is why when I enter my age, which is, you know, 30 something, I call people older sister or older brother all the time, even if they look quite old.
I still want to, you know.
Because you're betting on the safe side.
yes yes so that's again something common in asia we're being very respectful we treat people when we want to say we respect them when we want to show we respect them we use the kind of term we address family members to address them makes sense yeah because it's all about making the other person well i was going to say feel good but it's more about not offending them yes right Yes, for sure.
And since we're on the subject of this blended cultures here in Asia, we also interacted with our friends online a little bit, asking them what is the cultural point that they're super proud of, what are something that they notice is unique or similar between their culture and also other Asian cultures.
And we've got some really fun answers.
So, the first question we asked was what traditional foods or must visit attractions in your country would you recommend?
And we've received some fun answers, right?
We have one from Asiramar from Indonesia that says, I would recommend Sagupapita from Papa of Indonesia.
It's unique and it's delicious.
Ah... mei shi, dhi shi mei shi or...
ben di mei shi! So, been di is local, mei shi is delicious food.
Ah, Ben Di is local.
Local. So like this place, local, ben di mei shi.
Ben Di mei shi. Ni tui jia na jie, Ben Di mei shi.
What are some local foods that you recommend?
The Ben Di mei shi.
This sounds like something so delicious.
I want to try it. I have never tried this before.
Have you been to Indonesia before?
No! I want to go! It's a beautiful place.
Oh, you have! yeah beautiful beautiful i've been to jakarta and bali and um of course it's gorgeous and the people are just so lovely they're so kind oh so what did you have did you have some padang rice meat balls and meat dough noodles that's recommended by ali ali said the food that i recommended from my country indonesia is pandan rice meat balls and madang noodles did Did you try these?
It sounds great. I had the rice.
I don't think I had any meatballs when I was there.
And of course, yeah, noodles.
Noodles are very commonly eaten, so I had those for sure too.
The food in Indonesia is really, really good.
I mean, you could just go to Indonesia and just eat the whole time you were there and have a great time, no doubt about it.
We have another message from Indonesia, from Asima Sihahan.
It says in Indonesia, there are many traditional foods good egg, penpek, keto prak and there are many interesting places in my country Please come to my country.
Of course we're also super proud of our cultures and our country It's so nice.
We had three messages so far from Indonesia I think we have a couple of more to share.
Well, let's share them first before I say anything Here is another one from rufinus rufinus.
Yup on the same theme I recommend Medan noodles and Anita Sarai says, The most delicious food recommendation in Indonesia, beef rib soup, meatballs, and also rendang.
Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, and more food.
Yeah. The thing is I feel like rice is something definitely shared among Asian countries.
Noodles, too. But I think Asian noodles and Western noodles like spaghetti is different.
different totally different yeah totally different I think.
The noodles that are commonly eaten here in many parts of Asia are very very different from spaghetti yes and also rice.
Here we see Mitali Deb from India saying rice and fish curry.
For sure curry is really good, I like curry, oh by the way curry in Chinese would be gali, gali.
uh -huh and also Alcina Soros from Timor saying in Timor our traditional food is sidak and tplace.
Hopefully I'm pronouncing it right.
You can come and visit.
Sounds good. Actually the next thing on our to cook list is Indian food.
I love cooking. I don't know if I've ever told you that.
I love it and my wife's getting into it now these days, which is cool and we are on the hunt for some shops where we can find some Indian spices so we can try to cook some delicious curries at home.
I love cooking but I've never tried to cook Indian food.
Have you ever cooked Chinese food?
I have tried a couple of different dishes at home but I don't know if they would qualify as like Chinese dishes.
Oh, it's fine. Well, what I mean is for example in Chinese restaurant in Canada you can get something called beef and broccoli which is kind of like a stir -fry beef and thing with the sauce I've tried to make that at home but nothing overly complicated it's good enough it's a good start.
Yeah. After staying here long enough I'm pretty sure you're gonna be fluent in Chinese culinary languages as well.
Have you cooked a lot of Chinese food?
Oh yeah for sure! Are you good at it?
I think I'm good but for Chinese food the main thing I'm not really sure if it's only a Chinese thing or again a common Asian thing is that instead of saying you need two spoon of this you need two gram of that we say you need it in the right amount of the proper amount of that.
Who knew? I mean what amount is the proper amount.
You have to rely on your Shougan, hand feeling.
We call it Shougan.
So that is why the same food can be totally different if it's made by different people.
Yes exactly and it's often the grandmas and grandpas who know best about that.
Yes and ah that's the flavor of the family, which is a flavor of love.
And another thing that is definitely common in Asia would be chopsticks.
Oh yes. Yung kwayzu.
Yung kwayzu. Uh -huh, kwayze would be chopsticks.
Yung is use, so using of chopsticks.
In the East, different cultures have developed unique styles of chopsticks that reflect their culinary traditions and customs. So even though we are all using chopsticks, we're using them, they have different shapes.
They're made by different materials.
Yeah in Korea, they use metal chopsticks a lot.
And in Japan, I think the chopsticks are more of a tapered variety.
They come to a point more so than they do in Korea.
And in China, from what I've noticed so far is that they're round on the eating and square on the other end.
Ooh yes, very important.
Okay, I didn't know it was important.
There is a philosophical reason behind it.
Actually we believe the heaven is round and the earth is square because in ancient times people believe square symbolizes that you have edges, you have corners, you have your principles, you're not that let's say sophisticated in a bad way that you can deal with anything.
Okay, rigid? a little bit rigid, but in a good way.
It's kinda like you have principles.
So the ground which represents the human society, it is supposed to be with edges, with principles, whereas the heaven is to start with round, and the heaven is representing the heavenly world, the God's world, to start with should be bigger than the human world.
It can encompass the human world.
If you think about this round thing like a lid covering the square ground.
And also it is supposed to be a very tolerant, very inclusive, it can accept everything.
So how's that related to the shape of chopsticks?
It's related to anything and everything.
Chopstick is a very important part in people's life.
So when they design chopsticks, they want to make sure that one edge of the chopstick represents the heaven and the other edge represents the ground that is the humanly world and that is that is still applied in some chopsticks these days not that rigidly applied but it is good connotation yeah and then the materials for chopsticks here in china that you can find different materials for different kinds of chopsticks definitely bamboo wood metal too right oh chill but not as common in mostly for kids so they do not break now kids have wooden chopsticks too right and actually we've also involved
a dear listener Xuelin from Vietnam to introduce a bit of her culture her language learning journey and her observation of the similarities and differences between Chinese culture and Vietnamese culture let's take a Hello.
I am Lin from Vietnam.
I am very happy because I have a chance to check back in the new episode of Check Away Chinese focusing on a diverse Asian culture.
Today I would like to share a little bit about my culture with other listeners.
When traveling to Vietnam, I would like you to visit our capital Hanoi located in the north of my country.
Hanoi is famous for the ancient and traditional things and you can enjoy real parts and ram noodles which is called Bum Gia, as square as third when going there.
Then if you are interested in lying on the peaches, warm weather, as well as screaming, you can go to Da Nang, which is located in the middle of Central Vietnam.
Da Nang is famous for the ram noodles.
Most importantly, element city, the largest city In my country, metropolis in the south of Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh City is famous for its diverse culinary cultures.
When you go there, you can eat different kind of food.
For example, banh mi Vietnamese bread, gong thanh, broken rice.
And if you enjoy the dynamic atmosphere as well the hustle and bustle of the city, Ho Chi Minh City is a wide choice for you.
Thanks so much for the message, Ginyao.
That was great to hear from you.
And I've not been to Hanoi before, but I have been to Ho Chi Minh City.
And I remember when I was there, one of the most famous foods in Vietnam internationally speaking is the Pan Mí.
The Pan Mí sandwich, right?
And when I went to Ho Chi Minh, I thought okay, this is the food I need to try first. So I went to one place and I tried it and I thought, okay.
I mean, it was okay, but I don't get why the attention.
Then I went to another place, oh, okay, it was all right.
And then I went to a third place.
And apparently that place is like, even the locals know, that's the place to go if you want a really good buy me.
I bit into that sandwich and people think a sandwich is just a sandwich, right, like whatever.
I bit into that thing and I was transported into a different world.
Oh my goodness, and in that moment, I knew this is why people say the banh mi is the best sandwich in the world.
Because it is, I think.
I think that is the kind of mark, something truly amazing, something that can be appreciated by people all around the world can live in your heart.
Yeah exactly. Yeah, Ho Chi Minh City is a is a really cool place, and again and really, really, really kind and lovely people.
Yes, I didn't think that we can only cover cuisine in this episode.
I guess we need to talk about some other cultural parts, the cultural...
Well, you and I love food so much. We do, we do.
But, I think that's good because even time is up for this episode.
We can anticipate another episode talking about, for example, language -wise also, and the festives, the kind of traditions we also share.
Sure, lots to talk about there.
Yes, about the splendid and fun Asian cultures.
And that brings us to the end of today's Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Nihong Lin with Steve here in the studio.
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