Chinese USA and uk tourist manners

Which tourists annoy the locals and why, which natives annoy the travellers and why, and how can we improve service? I can explain the problem with tipping. China and Singapore ban tipping. An employee can lose their job if they accept a tip which is seen as a bribe designed to enable the immoral tipper to jump the queue.  Staff are paid wages by the employer and not expected to take tips. If you try to tip it is also deemed as condescending and patronising, saying I'm a successful person and you are a poor struggling soul.

I'm a friendly person but I like the no tipping or 10 per cent optional charge. No delay at the end. No obligation to round up. 

Serrata - family run 'Turkish influenced' restaurant in NW London

Hatch End, 'restaurant capital of North West London' said one of our local paper, has lost Hatchets but gained Serrata. The name means saw-toothed or saw-like in Latin, but they created it by merging the names of two family members.
When is it open? For lunch and dinner. If you can't wait for dinner time, and you are on a budget, the Lunch and early evening menu says: Select a starter and a main course for £11.95.
Great friendly people greeted me. A pity that they can't open in the afternoon because of family commitments.
The small restaurant, recently open in August 2013, was busy on a drizzly September Monday evening despite the dark echoing floor, which looked like lino to me. (I dare say it's practical and clean, but I prefer a warm coloured carpet.)
I decided to look at their menu online and choose my next meal.
The menu includes starters such as: falafel, crispy duck, melon with smoked salmon or prawn. Prices range from £4.50 for soup of the day to £9.95 for king prawns. I just bought falafel in Tesco Express, so I'll opt for melon with smoked salmon.
Main courses include classics such as chicken, calves liver, duck, lamb shank, and fillet or ribeye steak served with potato and season veg. Prices frange from £12.95 for chicken, to £18.95 for fillet steak with fat chips. Meat free options include musakka.
Desserts feature baklava, cheesecake, bread and butter pudding, three scoops ice cream for £4.85, either the healthier sounding option of mango sorbet, or pistachio ice cream, or vanilla. May I have one of each please. Fancy something different? Not stuffed dates but stuffed dried apricots and prunes, filled with mascarpone cheese and rolled in walnuts.
Their opening hours are lunch time 12-2.30, evenings from 6 pm. According to their website they are closed Monday lunch.
One page on their website tells the story of Mrs Beeton, whose house was on this location. You could sit at the restaurant table using your handphone to read the Serrata website and Mrs Isabella Beeton's story, a great topic of conversation.
I was horrified to learn that a German bomb destroyed this historic landmark. Here, right in the centre of peaceful rose garden suburbs of Hatch End. Then and now, Hatch End is far from the bomb sites I recall seeing as a child, bombed out buildings in the East End of London near the docks, Commercial Road and industrial areas. I'd actually been thinking how far from Mrs Beeton's English recipes were the varied European restaurants in this locality today. But the website fondly assumes that Mrs Beeton is forever a benign presence, or memory. They like to think she would have smiled kindly on a family run restaurant. What would she have thought of Turkish coffee? (£2.50.)
Location, Uxbridge Road, Hatch End, Pinner, Middlesex
Tel: 0208 428 9973.
More information from
www.serrata.co.uk
email them at info@serrata.co.uk

CAPITALS or Capitals?

In school in the UK we were taught that only five-year-olds use capital letters for emphasis. The same goes for using more than one exclamation mark. It is not correct, professional, businesslike.

A legal document or court report would not use multiple quotation marks.

A BBC report, like a business report, used to stick to facts. Rhetoric and repetition of words and phrases or  was left to politicians making speeches. Repetition of punctuation marks was not used by adults.

To a coolly detached, impersonal reader who has not yet formed an impartial judgement, multiple exclamation marks and sudden jumps into capital letters are annoying and distracting and suggest that the reporter is carried away by emotion and not giving a news story but an opinion piece, not even a well-argued opinion piece but a rant.

It is not for the newsreader to comment that an event is hilarious or tragic. The comedy awards presenter can say that the no 1 joke of the festival is "hilarious". The family can describe the loss of their loved one as "a tragedy". A news report simply states who, what, where, when, why. The accidental death of an unconvicted, alleged 'murderer', in bizarre circumstances might be a tragedy to their family, a comedy to bystander, a triumph of justice to a third person such as a victim, but a newspaper reporter is like to cause outrage by saying so.  The news report should give the facts without emotion. 

Comment should come evenly from both sides in a court case or any other report.

Punctuation around the world and double and single quotation marks

QUOTATION MARKS?
In the 'good old days', good in my opinion, I learned English from traditional books at school. My view on punctuation was reinforced when I trained as a journalist in the UK.  

Double Quotation Marks

Traditional punctuation dictated that books, newspaper headlines and handwriting used double quotation marks for quoting a conversation. So you used double quotation marks when reporting the exact words of a defendant in a court case; but you used single quotations for the editor or reporter's comment.

Therefore, James said it was an "accident" means he actually used the word accident. If you describe it as an 'accident', or an alleged accident, you are giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise you are prejudicing the reader. The defendant may ask to be judged in a different city or country or by jurors who have not read the newspaper. he or she might even claim that the case should be dismissed because there cannot be a fair trial after 'trial by media'

Single Quotation Marks

A single quotation shows the editors comment, that we have summarized what he said to get in in a headline, paraphrased what he said, or deduced what he implied, or what we inferred from some other statement. Single quotations are also used to distinguish and separate other items which are not reported speech, such as book titles.

Quotations

For example, "The book everybody should buy," says the author, or the reviewer. (Quoted words.)
The book, 'Everybody Should Buy', is now top of the book charts. (Title of book.)

The book 'Everybody should buy' is selling well. (Book title.)
'The Book' everybody is talking about ... (Praise.)

"He claims it was an 'accident' but we know better." (Here the single quotation is both a quotation within a quotation and sarcasm.

American Punctuation

However, some time at the end of the 20th century or the first two decades of the 21st century, American fashions took over the printed world. Punctuation is reduced to save space and time. the single quotation key on the far right keyboard does not require the use of the shift key, unlike the double quotation mark above it.

The Harrow Writers' Circle issued instructions for its competitions on the new system of single quotation marks for speech, with double quotation marks used to identify a quotation within a quotation.

Double Quotation Marks

In the 'good' old days, when single quotation marks suggested sarcasm by the writer, or a viewpoint of the general public, headlines were clearer. Italics were used to distinguish titles of books. Italics were used to emphasize a word within a quotation.

Newspapers

But now, alas, the single quotation mark is becoming common. The style books of the major newspapers and publishing houses producing books and brochures and leaflets must be promoting it. For the sake of consistency, and modernity, I shall probably have to follow the trend. it would be too confusing for me as a writer and for my readers to see two sets of punctuation produced at the same time. 

The Internet

The internet means that what I write in London is read in the USA and Singapore. What I write in Singapore is read in London and the USA. What I write in the USA is read in Singapore and London. I used to feel annoyed and insulted when Singaporean school pupils, who had previously been under the UK education system, and were still doing O level, marked by UK examiners, tried to tell me that they were using the correct spelling and punctuation because they had copied the US films and reports on the internet. 

Now I am on a see-saw. One more straw on the see-saw and I shall land with a thump, shocked and surprised, on the side of the single comma, while my two friends on the other side, two of them on the double quotation side, look aghast.

No! I have just read a very confusing newspaper headline, which leaves me wondering whether I should go it alone and return to the old system in my self-published books.
Your comments would be appreciated.

Worse still, I have discovered that several European countries think they are in Australia and hang the quotation marks upside down at the start of the sentence. 

Who? The Dutch.Not double Dutch but single Dutch and upside down Dutch.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Keep Doors Shut In Public Buildings

A child allegedly leaves a nursery school and walks home, via busy roads, past a pub, near a canal and through a wood. How did she get out? Somebody left a door open.
Workers can leave open doors and windows.
Is there a sign on the door warning people to shut it?
All places where there are children (or adults with Alzheimer's and hospital wards) should have a sign saying:
Keep door shut at all times
to prevent
children/vulnerable adults wandering out
and unauthorised adults entering.'

Travel Safely - Road Safety and Park Safety

A mother and child were killed by a park vehicle in the USA. The driver allegedly ran away.


1 Can't understand people who run away. My first instinct seeing an injury is to get help. I was passenger in a car which hit a jaywalker who changed direction. He ran out into the middle of the road then tried to run back to the kerb in Asia. We stopped. I ran around screaming at bystanders to use a phone and call an ambulance.
2 Every vehicle driver should have a test in which they are required to reiterate the correct procedure in the case of an accident.
3 Areas where vehicles operate should be taped off away from the public.
4 Vehicles operating in parks and walking areas should have a 'going forward' bleep, distinct from a reversing vehicle bleep.
5 Vehicles should have loudhailers or announcement systems asking people sitting or lying or palying or standing on lawns to move to seats while vehicles operate nearby.
It's a good idea to note the numbers of other countries' emergency services. Often there are different numbers for fire, police, ambulance; local police for non-emergencies, and in Singapore reporting noise nuisance.

Buying Real and Imitation Silk

I am happy to buy 'Thai silk' some of which is not real silk but silky soft with a lovely sheen and flattering fit. The fabric looks glamorous. It is easy to look after, does not get dirty, but can be washed. It does not crease easily. It is not see-through. It looks expensive.

I recently bought a pure silk item from an ebay seller. It was lined and stretchy but did not look classy and had no label.

I wrote back to the seller: What makes you think it is silk? If so, 100%, 50% Imitation? Silk-like? What evidence do you have that it is silk?

I looked up the tests which seem to be setting fire to the item - in a safe place - not in your house - not where vegetation can catch fire - and without destroying the object but extracting threads - all things which I do not wish to do!

The seller said she had it hand-made overseas for a daughter's wedding. I'll show examples of silk I have seen in shops and which you can buy from catalogues or on ebay.


1 Noil silk is bobbly. It feels rough. What's the point? (If you like it, it's available from Patra, who also do other silks of all kinds.)

2 Stiff, heavy genuine Thai silk, with uneven threads, used for boxy jackets. Expensive. Label Jim Thomson.

3 Heavy silk.

4 Silk mixed with cotton.

5 Silk mixed with elastane to give stretch.

6 Fine silk used for scarves and light dresses. Flows well. Can cling. Fragile - fabric easily torn. garments can be pulled apart at the hems as you pull garments on and off.

Caftans in silk fabric with oriental flower patterns, sold in Singapore. Some dresses are silk, some a good imitation. Look at the label or ask the seller.

Thai 'silk' with lovely sheen - my favourite. 

Gold and silver tops.

Patra in the UK has a catalogue and website. Noil silk is bobbly.

You can buy Thai 'silk' in dark colours or bright colours with contrasting gold. 

You can buy tops sleeveless or with short or long sleeves, jackets, dresses, fishermen's wraparound trousers with bell bottoms, matching top and skirt outfits, or try to order sets, but each batch is different even from the same supplier as the factories may vary or be hand-dyeing. Some of the gold sets are sold as 'wedding' outfits.

7 Imitation 'Thai' silk. Stiffer. From Northern tribes with an oval all over pattern. Classy.

8 Some have a great sheen and are mixed with gold for wrap skirts. Gold elephants can be repeating pattern all over or in a band at the hem. Elephants are the Thai Symbol. (My joke: A buyer never forgets!)

9 Silk velvet can be either a mix, such as a flat pure silk, or silk base mix fabric, with other fibre inserted, or entirely silk. Silk velvet is often devore, or cut-out, with a pattern in the velvet and sheer fabric making it light and pretty.

10 The softest silk I've found is sand-washed silk.