u/pirapataue

For context my grandpa immigrated to Thailand and passed away a long time ago, when my dad was still a little kid. My grandmom is a second-generation Thai Teochew born in Thailand, but she has Alzheimer’s now and I can’t get much info out of her. I have his pictures and maybe some old documents. I know where his hometown was based on his tombstone writings, and I know where it is today in the modern address form（揭阳普宁）.

It would be great to be able to connect with his relatives if they still are any. But in this day and age I was wondering if it’s possible to do this sort of thing online first. I don’t feel like it’s appropriate to just travel there and walk around asking people like I’m a movie protagonist.

I've heard some people say that people in colder climates cannot deal with the heat because their bodies are literally not adapted to do so. A lot of people buy into this idea that people from different countries just have vastly different genetics (literally built different) and tolerate different climates, which is not how acclimatization works at all.

But from what I've seen, I suspect that the way houses and buildings are built also have a huge effect. As someone from a tropical climate, I'd imagine I would struggle too if I had to live in a city that isn't designed to deal with year-round heat. I've heard a lot of stories about European homes built to retain heat rather than push it out.

I'm from southeast asia, and our houses are either the traditional houses, which are usually highly-ventilated thin wooden houses that don't trap heat, or modern houses and apartments, which are less naturally ventilated but equipped with AC. Even in cases without AC, everyone has fans and often take a shower twice a day / drink cold water all the time to relieve the heat.

We also avoid the heat and treat the heat as a safety hazard, people are most active during mornings and evenings, we stay indoors during the midday/afternoon. Outdoor activities are always done during morning or evening. People avoid the sun as a cultural norm. We have a lot of sidewalk covered in shade. A lot of pedestrian walkways are connected to the subway system. Indoor sports is also highly popular.

Out of all the factors, it just seems that physiological acclimatization seems to be the smallest factor? Put any person from a tropical country into a heat-trapping house and they would suffer the same effect. If you personally have had experience in heat waves in your Europe, how does it feel compared to traveling to tropical countries?

I work with Chinese colleagues and clients so I hear it from time to time, but I feel like it's way more common with older Chinese folks as an actual greeting.

When younger people ask me this question, they usually ask around lunch or dinner time and they are actually inviting me to have a meal together, so it's an actual question not just a social etiquette.

But older Chinese people seem to ask me this question out of nowhere. Like even when it's not really time to eat.

Purely anecdotal,

For example, I’m a native Thai and C2 in English. I’m around B2 in Mandarin.

Sometimes I try to find content that’s dubbed in mandarin to practice listening, and some Japanese animes have mandarin dub, so I use them. When watching the anime (I’ve never learned Japanese), I still feel that it’s easier to understand the original Japanese version with English subtitles more than listening to the Chinese dub (with English subtitles), even though on paper I understand Chinese way more and can use it for intermediate level situations. I cannot speak Japanese at all. The same goes for Korean movies, I don’t know any korean, but it somehow feels “easier” for me to understand the context of the movie when listening to the original Korean dub compared to the Chinese or even English version.

Also when I watch Hollywood movies dubbed in Thai, I feel like it’s harder to keep up with the context compared to watching it in the original English dub, even though Thai is my native language.

I feel like it’s easier to understand and get immersed with the context of the scenes when I watch movies in their original language (Korean movies in Korean, Anime in Japanese, Hollywood in English, etc.).

I wonder if there’s some kind of linguistic quality that gets lost in voice-overs/dubbing that makes it different from listening to the original actor’s voices. Anecdotally, I feel like I understand the emotions of the original language more, the tone, the social interactions, and micro-details, even if I don’t know that language. And it doesn’t just affect live-action movies where you can see the lips match with the voice, but even in animated movies I still feel that way. For some reason, seeing anime characters speak in Japanese just feels easier to understand. But when it’s a Korean or Chinese anime, I also feel like the original language is the easiest to understand.

I don’t know why, but the “original” language just feels easier to understand.

https://preview.redd.it/uypc3xgsqm0h1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=85b3d231bffc6bd56cb8cbf03381cc8cbfcde489

All the online muslim comments are saying it's deserved, saying how buddhists would also react the same way if the buddha was insulted, which clearly isn't true.

Our birth rates are dropping and they keep increasing their population in cities. Our left-wing opposition doesn't dare say anything, and our right-wing government also doesn't care enough to do anything. Mob rules.