[HN Gopher] Learning to Live with Durians Again
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Learning to Live with Durians Again
Author : Thevet
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-10-23 04:19 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (catapult.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (catapult.co)
| greenbush wrote:
| If you've never had the opportunity to try a durian:
| http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/travel/a-love-letter-to-a-...
| wayeq wrote:
| sure is a lot of words
| atribecalledqst wrote:
| I had a coworker bring a durian shake or something like that to
| work. This was probably a month or so after he started. I don't
| think anybody ever really forgave him.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Did it actually smell? I would have thought by the time it was
| mixed into a shake that there wouldn't really be much smell?
| mynegation wrote:
| That would be a worthy contender to reheating fish in the
| cafeteria microwave.
| chana_masala wrote:
| I wonder what makes people who like them become proselytizers of
| the Durian religion. That is, why does it seem that you are
| either obsessed with (addicted to?) Durian or are completely
| repulsed by it. Somehow I am in the middle which doesn't seem
| common. I don't think Durians stink but they also don't excite me
| that much.
| krallja wrote:
| Survivor bias. It's such a bad experience that nobody would eat
| it unless they REALLY liked it.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I suspect we are just wired differently. Much like some
| people can't stand cilantro (tastes like soap to them).
|
| I absolutely love durian and I rue the fact that it is hard
| to find (and expensive) in Central Europe. I find the odor
| strong, but not repulsive.
|
| My wife, OTOH, hates it with passion. She cannot eat it even
| outdoors, where the wind blows the smell away.
| thrower123 wrote:
| I suspect it's genetic, like whether you find cilantro a tasty
| garnish or like grating Ivory soap onto your tacos.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Do they really speak Mandarin in Singapore, I wonder? I thought
| they would be on some southern dialect.
|
| Or does she use the word in place of just "Chinese"?
| krallja wrote:
| CIA World Facebook says:
|
| English (official) 48.3%, Mandarin (official) 29.9%, other
| Chinese dialects (includes Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka)
| 8.7%, Malay (official) 9.2%, Tamil (official) 2.5%, other 1.4%;
| note - data represent language most frequently spoken at home
| (2020 est.)
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| They DO speak Mandarin there (and English) because Chinese-
| Singporeans tend to dominate and outnumber the other groups
| politically and demographically.
|
| Mandarian is a unique dialect of Chinese. Singaporeans also
| speak other dialects of Chinese in Singapore but Mandarin is
| one of the official languages of Singapore so it's what is
| taught in schools.
|
| You can find elements of Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese dialects
| mixed into typical Singaporean Mandarin. These have been
| frowned upon by academics and the government (Singlish has also
| been frowned upon and incorporates them also) but that hasn't
| changed the use of these.
|
| https://theheartlander.org/2021/08/28/the-last-vestiges-of-c...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaU7_k8I3o
|
| Taiwan has similar dialects: there is Taiwan Mandarin as well
| as Taiwanese and Taiwan English.
|
| Fun Fact: Singapore and mainland China use simplified Chinese
| characters. Taiwan and Hong Kong use traditional Chinese
| characters.
| hawflakes wrote:
| The word "heaty" is used for "hot" foods. There's a concept in
| traditional Chinese medicine for categorizing foods as hot or
| cold. Not temperature but having to do with inflammation.
|
| Suffice it to say it seems to be a false friend of the
| Cantonese pronunciation of the word Re which is pronounced
| "yeet" (re in Mandarin)
| inawarminister wrote:
| Hmm I don't know why Singaporeans are so obsessed and repelled by
| Durian.
|
| It's just a fruit. King of the fruits, as the poets say, but
| there are a lot of other fruits in the same tier as well.
|
| But as others said, it's probably partly genetical and
| habituation. Here in Jakarta durian is almost universal in the
| proper season, and the smell does not turn off people, on the
| contrary it signals a savory fruit.
|
| Though I myself don't like durian that much. I'll eat it, but not
| to the point of obsession. I got rambutan for that haha.
|
| Getting hit by a flying durian and die is a not that uncommon way
| of death though. At least in the pop culture.
| dqv wrote:
| >Was my rejection of the durian, Southeast Asia's King of Fruits,
| a betrayal of my cultural identity, of my life in Singapore?
|
| No. There are Japanese people who don't like sushi. There are
| Koreans who don't like kimchi. (I only mention these things
| because they are foods I've had before that I really like.) And
| we can catalog people from all over the world who don't like
| certain things they are assumed to like because of their cultural
| identity.
|
| It's bizarre that we have these strong ideals of _not_
| stereotyping people and yet these reverse stereotypes are so
| common. You 're not rejecting culture because you have
| preferences.
|
| But hey if it was just her not liking Durian for some other
| reason and learning to like it, that's great.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| 9 of 10 Swedes despise surstromming.
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(page generated 2021-10-23 23:02 UTC)