Tag Archives: culture

9:07 am - July 2, 2014 - sjcarlson

Portraits from around the world–first post

Woman possessed by a spirit, telling the future outside Angkor Wat Temple, Cambodia during Tet (Lunar New Year).

(Oh, and here’s Ankor Wat in case you’re not familiar)

In February this year, I went on a trip to Cambodia and northern Viet Nam. While I was there, I adventured out of my usual photographic focus (landscapes and buildings) and decided to photograph people, both candid shots and also asking for permission to take a portrait–which pushed me out of my comfort zone because I’m secretly shy! I was particularly interested in showing how kids lived and how they dress in other parts of the world because back home I work in the schools. Anyway, I’m officially going to launch a themed series of photos within Samples of Southeast Asia around portraits. Check out my first attempts at capturing people. Please offer any advice on what I can do better to capture the message or emotions.

Categories: Photography, Portaits from around the world, Samples of Southeast Asia Tags: culture, photography, portraits, travel

8:02 pm - June 18, 2014 - sjcarlson

Team USA beats Ghana in some game in Brazil. Is it the Olympics again or something? Wait, what’s the World Cup again?

JK I know what the World Cup is, mostly. And I even know it’s in Brazil, unlike 2/3 of other Americans lol. And I know this happened…

So we beat this tiny country in Africa. Yaaaay!!! I guess?

Irony…. I’m in a I forget what my British friends actually called it but I’ll call it a bracket but it’s wayyyyy simpler than that. Anyway, the teams I picked out of the hat were Germany (who are good, right?) and Ghana, who Murica just beat. Guess that ruins half my shot at winning fifty bucks. The bitter, bitter irony.

So obviously, the rest of the world is very excited. The US in general, meh. On my Facebook feed, I saw one mention of USA winning, and it was more like an ironic, go USA you managed to beat a developing country. Hope you’re proud. Way more posts about the Packers (obviously), Brewers, possibly even the Bucks basketball team (who are not very good, I guess). I kind of feel bad for our soccer/football team. All the rest of the teams, their home countries be all crazy about it. One stat I saw said that only 7% of the US planned to watch and cheer for Team USA. Though apparently there are plenty of excited people.

I’m contemplating being a total fairweather fan, buying a knock-off jersey while in Viet Nam (that would be the only thing with USA on it that I own), trying to find one of those scarf things like all the rest of the world’s fans appear to have, and start chanting USA all over the place. Everyone else in the world is excited, I guess I could be, too. It would help pass the time til football starts in the Fall, too. Go Pack Go! I will say soccer/football fans appear to have way more fun at their games with their songs and their chants and their scarf things. I wish the Packers had a song all the fans sang…..

Anyway….

Survey questions: should I care about the World Cup? American friends, do you care about the World Cup? Why don’t Americans care about it–is it not American enough, do we have enough of all our own sports, is it the sketchy penalty calling?

Categories: Expat in Singapore, On being the token Yank Tags: culture, expat, travel

7:37 pm - June 1, 2014 - sjcarlson

Talking Dirty: Porta-Potty or Porta-Loo…or something else entirely?

I ran a half marathon this weekend with a fellow American and two of my English friends. It was actually MORE than a half–my Map My Run app told me I ran 13.76 miles, so thanks thanks for that Sundown Singapore. I digress. Obviously at the race, they had plenty of these:

(By the way, this totally happens all the time in the U.S. :P)

I said to my English friends, “Hey, we’re going to meet Steph by the Porta-Potties.” They looked at me like a was a bit mad, then thought that was hilarious that I called it a Porta-Potty. I don’t think one of them believed that’s actually what I call it. “Why don’t you just call it a toilet?”Haha I don’t know, that’s just what we call it. My English friends were also surprised when I said ours don’t often have sinks in them. After that I was kind of like, eek maybe I’ll just call it a toilet then. I cannot say Porta-Loo, it sounds too funny when I say it lol.

Another side note: Singapore has nice Porta-Potties or Porta-Loos or Porta-Johns or toilets or whatever you want to call them.

What do you call a portable toilet made out of plastic, set up just for a special event?

Have you ever used a word that people from other cultures unexpectedly found hilarious?

Categories: Expat in Singapore, On being the token Yank Tags: culture, expat, Humor, travel

9:47 am - May 19, 2014 - sjcarlson

On being the token Yank: Things my British friends say (that I wish I could)

(retrieved from http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/05/yanks-and-brits-is-america-really-the-best/)

So as I mentioned in my previous post, over in Singapore, I have loads of British friends and that’s who I hang out with the most. One of the most fun parts of this, for me, is learning the dialect differences–as there are many. My friends have also unknowingly been my research subjects! They’ve helped me write a bunch of my characters in my novel, which is set in the UK. Today I’m posting a list of some of the words my friends use that I find awesome but don’t feel I have the street cred to use. It would just sound weird if I said it. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of vocabulary differences, though perhaps some day……

Gutted (this is my favorite I think): like you’re devastated. Like “Arsenal lost and I was just gutted.”

(retrieved fromhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2013120/JLS-left-gutted-forced-cancel-T4-On-The-Beach-performance.html)

Knackered: tired/beat

Shattered: tired

Dodgy: sketchy, questionable

(retrieved from theinspirationroom.com)

Posh: upper class and likely snobby. Yeah, like Posh Spice, but I’m not sure why she was called Posh Spice. My friends don’t use it in a complimentary fashion, particularly when talking about posh Londoners. There’s also posh accents. I’d say that posh British people are what Americans might stereotypically think of all British people as being (which is obviously not true lol). We’d probably consider those old money Martha’s Vineyard types that play polo posh in the US.

(retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/23/posh-duke-yorks-review-billington)

Wanker: idiot. Wank means to masturbate, so wanker would be one who masturbates, but this is used as a generally insulting term.

(image retrieved from www.kitschagogo.com)

Rubbish: garbage or crap. This can refer to actual garbage, like “Put it in the rubbish bin” or generally to desribe a situation or thing that is crap or no good, like “That’s rubbish.”

Chav: white trash. Also maybe like a poser, too.

(retrieved from hfboards.hockeysfuture.com)

Bollocks: literally means balls, but is used in many ways. Used in isolation, I think it means like bullshit. Examples of uses in sentences: “Bollocks you do” “That’s a load of bollocks” “Made a bollocks out of it.” “Bollocksed it up.” Also, that’s the dog’s bollocks, which apparently means it’s awesome.

(retrieved from www.thecalmgallery.com)

The loo: the bathroom. Example: I’m going to nip to the loo. I’m going to quickly go to the bathroom. I will say I’ve stopped calling it a bathroom and call it a toilet instead as, at least in public places, there is no bath in it

A few phrases I’d like to use:

Couldn’t be bothered
if you/do you fancy…: would you like to…
I’m keen to…: I’d like to….
I’m going to the cinema to see a film

Also, I’d like to use those little xx after text messages or other messages. like “See you tonight! xx”

I’m sure I’ll have a follow up post to this. Not sure what next post’s topic will be, but I’ll definitely do one about words I say my British friends don’t know 😛

Have you encountered words other people say that you either started using or wished you could use? Also, did I get any definitions wrong?

Categories: Expat in Singapore, On being the token Yank Tags: culture, expat, Humor, writing

8:02 pm - May 15, 2014 - sjcarlson

On being the token Yank, an introduction

Image from americasolidarity.org though apparently the website got hacked.

(Holy crap that eagle is scary. Don’t mess with America or he’ll eat your soul! Seriously though, I’m a nice American, not a scary one)

My Husband: So I just got offered a position in Singapore. What do you think?

Me: Um…is that by China somewhere?

No, no it is not. Well, I mean kind of it is, I guess. Relatively speaking….

Anyway, many steps later, we’re living in the tiny island nation of Singapore (see map below). A few quick boring demographic notes about Singapore: 74% Chinese, 13% Malay, 9% Indian. There is also a sizable population of Westerners here as well, mostly brought in by companies to do specific jobs, and a large number of foreign domestic workers and foreign workers here to do construction jobs. Most people speak English (mostly the British variety, but mixed with American vocab) or Singlish (a mix of a variety of dialects including English, Hokkien, Tamil, Malay, and Cantonese).

Over here in Singapore I just don’t know many Americans, even though I’m sure there are plenty. I hang out mostly with English, Scottish, Australians and a few locals who also speak the British variety of English. Weird, right? Travel to the other side of the world to hang out with people from a different side of the world. It’s amazing how similar we seem when surrounded by Asians haha.

Anyway, being surrounded by people who are NOT Americans has taught me quite a lot about the United States. I was over here during the government shutdown. Try explaining that fiasco! Um, no actually President Obama can’t just restart the government… It’s also helped with my writing tremendously. Stay tuned for all my random musings and observations on the topic. It.is.fascinating!

Next post topic: Things my British friends say that I wish I could

Have you ever experienced being the token______? What were some of the things that really struck you?

Categories: Expat in Singapore, On being the token Yank, Uncategorized Tags: culture, expat, randomness, Singapore, travel

Sarah J. Carlson

Contemporary Young Adult Author