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Getting strong modern China vibes from this video about Victorian England: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQ0RFTHvIo&t=90s
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Apr 29, 2020 12:45
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Dzhay posted:I work with an Indian guy; we've both been in China for 3 years, but he still barely speaks a word of the language. Or goes out at all, as far as I can tell. One reason why English names are easy for school and business is that you can avoid duplicates, and it's easier for outsiders to know which is their family name and which is their surname. I loved choosing names in Spanish class and during a volunteer expedition. It feels like making an avatar or getting your palm read.
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Apr 29, 2020 12:57
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Dzhay posted:I work with an Indian guy; we've both been in China for 3 years, but he still barely speaks a word of the language. Or goes out at all, as far as I can tell. It's a weird thing. Some people get mad if you mispronounce their name, so they prefer to have an English name instead so at least you're saying it right. My friend from Egypt did it too. Other people have different reasons of course, but I know that at least some people are like that. I was tired of seeing everyone in Korea use the same few names (Jinny and Jenny are sooo popular), so I tried to have my students pick out some more unique English names. A bunch of them used their hanja to form their names so they were things like "Ground Silver" and "Lightning Shadow" and stuff. BrigadierSensible posted:In Aus I won't have to pay for my 14 days mandatory quarantine. .... At least that 's what I have been told. America has no quarantine as far as I know because don't tread on me, but if I return to Korea, it'll be without a visa, so I'll have to pay for the government housing. Two weeks, $100 a day (roughly), which is my issue. peanut posted:I loved choosing names Yeah! It's a lot of fun! It's a name you get to choose for yourself! So I'm always kind of disappointed when my students don't seem to like to use their new names. .....or English...  How do so many students get through 5 years of English without learning how to spell their own names? Shadow0 fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 12:57
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I was married to a half-Korean lady for a couple years (we were together for like, tennish.) She kind of ruled but also not, kinda. So it it goes, I guess. Her Korean family was extremely cool. I kinda miss the bulgolgi and kimchi.
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Apr 29, 2020 13:48
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I have several male Taiwanese friends and acquaintances, one of whom told me good stories like "the time I got maced" and "the time I was walking home and got punched in the face"
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Apr 29, 2020 14:13
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Atlas Hugged posted:*snip* This is pretty much why I stopped studying Japanese. I spent a hell of a long time learning a relatively difficult language that I don't use in my personal or professional life. The time sunk to reward ratio is pretty low. Even those I know who do use Japanese in their professional lives always couple that with another skill they have. Speaking a foreign language has been a sign of culture and/or intelligence for centuries, but it's really a form a classism. Speaking English also kinda makes us spoiled.
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Apr 29, 2020 14:35
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UltraRed posted:Even those I know who do use Japanese in their professional lives always couple that with another skill they have. I mean outside of translation, which is really another skill as well, isn't this... always the case? For any language? UltraRed posted:Speaking a foreign language has been a sign of culture and/or intelligence for centuries, but it's really a form a classism. Uhhhh speaking another language(s)/dialects to at least a conversational level is, for a great many cultures and places in the world, the default. Saying that it's a form of classism is ironically an incredibly Anglocentric take dude. Edit: Like if studying another language isn't functionally useful or stimulating to you then by all means don't do it if you don't want to, but this just sound like you're saying "I'm so woke I know it's bad to study a language" 
LimburgLimbo fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 14:44
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UltraRed posted:Speaking a foreign language has been a sign of culture and/or intelligence for centuries, but it's really a form a classism. Is this why immigrants are always held in such high regard? The whole "It's pointless to learn something if you can't use it" is high school level "When are we going to use this?" thinking. Like woodworking or bird watching, learning can be its own reward. Certainly it's not for everyone, but I think a lot of people would benefit from learning a language. Especially something like sign language. Also math. And science. Imagine if Americans learned science. Shadow0 fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 14:48
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LimburgLimbo posted:Uhhhh speaking another language(s)/dialects to at least a conversational level is, for a great many cultures and places in the world, the default. Saying that it's a form of classism is ironically an incredibly Anglocentric take dude. Considering my audience is these forums, not really? edit for your edit: That's an odd take, and is also a kind of woke-me-up pissing contest that's better off in a DnD thread.
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Apr 29, 2020 14:55
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Lmao learning another language isn't classism dude, you're coming down with a nasty case of CSPAM brainrot or something
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Apr 29, 2020 14:57
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Shadow0 posted:Is this why immigrants are always held in such high regard? Moreover learning another language is arguably the only *real* way to deeply learn the viewpoint of a materially different culture which is a really important experience for understanding the world and people. In fact I'd say at the heart of a lot of America's issues is the fact that the majority of Americans don't meaningfully interact with or are even really exposed to other cultures beyond a superficial and often commercialized manner. Edit: to keep this relevant to the thread, I think China will also fall into this trap as they get richer and richer and people cater to Chinese language more and more, in addition to dialects starting to wane due to the nature of connected media/society, and partially be design of the CCP who doesn't want their populace to be too internationalized in case they start to have silly ideas about democracy. LimburgLimbo fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 14:58
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UltraRed posted:Considering my audience is these forums, not really? If you're making such a sweeping statement I don't think it needs to be or indeed should be limited contextually to the audience of SA? Even then, let's say we're talking specifically about North America and the UK; do you think that the majority of bilingual people are rich white people? They're not; they're immigrants.
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Apr 29, 2020 15:02
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UltraRed posted:Speaking a foreign language has been a sign of culture and/or intelligence for centuries, but it's really a form a classism. The whitest, most Anglophone take
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Apr 29, 2020 15:05
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Atlas Hugged posted:I've been an expat long enough that I'm over this. Some people have a knack for language, some people take hours upon hours of study to make meager progress, some people have no idea if they're going to be in a country one week or five years or the rest of their lives. Learning a language is a serious commitment, requires exceptional dedication, and not everyone is at a point in their lives where they can sit down for even a single solid hour of self-study a night, let alone paying for lessons. And that's assuming the local language schools are even any good and aren't just a giant blackhole to throw a fairly tiny salary into. Yeah, same. At least if we're talking like high level fluency. Knowing literally nothing seems like more trouble than picking up the real basic poo poo. You can get by very well in a country with nothing more than your please/thank you/give me/numbers level of language. I do still judge when I'd meet someone who'd lived in Seoul five years and couldn't read. Come on, I don't care how bad you are at languages, reading hangeul takes zero effort. The illiterates were only in Seoul in my experience though, since it's real easy to get by there with no Korean. I quickly realized I had no interest in living in China long term so I stopped studying the language past the everyday uses level. Still picked up more over time, but I wasn't going to put in the effort. Plus it's the only language where multiple fluent people told me "oh my god don't bother I regret wasting the time", so. If I end up in Taiwan some day I imagine I'll get back to it. Shadow0 posted:Also, "Can you use chopsticks???" Korea.  My favorite instances of this would be at lunch at school and a teacher goes "whoa, you can use chopsticks???". Someone I had eaten lunch with every single day for over a year. Quite observant!
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Apr 29, 2020 15:08
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Grand Fromage posted:If I end up in Taiwan some day I imagine I'll get back to it. It's waiting for you and it will always be #1 jfyi
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Apr 29, 2020 15:14
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LimburgLimbo posted:It's waiting for you and it will always be #1 jfyi I don't want to live somewhere that hot. But in a scenario where I am considering Tropical Asia, Taiwan is def option #1.
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Apr 29, 2020 15:15
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah, same. At least if we're talking like high level fluency. Knowing literally nothing seems like more trouble than picking up the real basic poo poo. You can get by very well in a country with nothing more than your please/thank you/give me/numbers level of language. Right, knowing absolutely nothing seems frustrating as hell. I've got coworkers like that and they're completely dependent on everyone for everything. It's not hard to learn to count. When I was in Korea, I think I picked up hangeul in like twenty minutes and then had to revise a day later. I can still read it 11 years later. poo poo was easy. I did actually start to learn to read Thai but that system is frustrating for about a billion reasons and no thanks. At some point I'll probably cave and just force myself to do it, but it's about as frustrating a system as you can get before it turns into the madness of Tibetan.
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Apr 29, 2020 15:22
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't want to live somewhere that hot. It's not so bad imo. Also the east coast is a bit cooler.
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Apr 29, 2020 15:26
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Taiwan is more wet than hot and from like October-March it's downright cool. But it's not like humid wet. It's "don't see the sun for two weeks at a time" wet. Just completely overcast with this horrible on-off drizzle.
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Apr 29, 2020 15:29
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Atlas Hugged posted:It's not hard to learn to count. This is the one thing I still can't do. Atlas Hugged posted:I did actually start to learn to read Thai but that system is frustrating for about a billion reasons and no thanks. My partner is Thai and she wants me to learn Thai, so maybe if things keep going well. Of all the scripts I've ever seen though, Thai has always looked the most alien to me. 👽 
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Apr 29, 2020 15:44
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On both my trips to Tokyo and Taipei, a random person helped me in perfect English. Tokyo: I get off the subway, open my map to look for the exact street my hostel is on, and some dude in a suit asks me where I'm headed and gives me directions. Taipei: In a Carrefour looking for a specific mooncake filling to send to my Taiwanese friend in Germany. My wife is trying to translate as best she can, when a schoolgirl overhears us and translates all the varieties into English. In Korea on the other hand, it's boiled down to two instances of school children (5ish in wifes apartment lift, and teens on Jeju island) saying "Hello!", and then being surprised/shy when I replied something like, "Hello, pleased to meet you". Oh, and the falling over drunk salaryman who wanted to start a conversation with me on the bus. That's when my GCSE French finally got used; "Pardon? Je ne comprend pas." Although, with a few exceptions, I have noticed that of my wife's friends, most of them are a lot more relaxed about chatting in English after a few drinks.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:38
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UltraRed posted:Speaking a foreign language has been a sign of culture and/or intelligence for centuries, but it's really a form a classism.  what the gently caress is this bullshitall those hispanic immigrants are so loving classist learning English when they already speak Spanish
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Apr 29, 2020 21:42
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I know communism is a joke, but I think even CSPAM would draw the line at 'Intellectuals ... actually, you know what, I'm not going to bet money on that.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:46
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"learning other languages is bad" is more of a right wing anglophone delusion
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Apr 29, 2020 21:53
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Grand Fromage posted:
If I had a nickel for every time I got a shocked “You can eat spicy?” I’d be a rich man. I used to work with a Korean guy who thought my lunch couldn’t be that hot, he tried some and immediately regretted it. tractor fanatic posted:"learning other languages is bad" is more of a right wing anglophone delusion For a while there were people on the weird Tumblr left who were super mad about white people learning spanish.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:05
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Atlas Hugged posted:I've been an expat long enough that I'm over this. Some people have a knack for language, some people take hours upon hours of study to make meager progress, some people have no idea if they're going to be in a country one week or five years or the rest of their lives. Learning a language is a serious commitment, requires exceptional dedication, and not everyone is at a point in their lives where they can sit down for even a single solid hour of self-study a night, let alone paying for lessons. And that's assuming the local language schools are even any good and aren't just a giant blackhole to throw a fairly tiny salary into. As someone who loves languages and currently teaches one (not English!), I actually pretty much agree with this take. In China/Thailand I was a student and it was basically my full-time job to learn the language. Japanese is actually what set me off on language learning as a teenager and inspired me to travel and live abroad and everything, but when I was teaching in Japan in my late 20s I just did not have the energy to devote to further study and also have a life. I was beating myself up over it by the end of the first year, but when I had a think about it: I had absolutely zero desire to live in Japan beyond my couple years, no real interest in Japanese media, and a Western girlfriend... so, yeah for the most part I decided I'd be happy to coast on my N3/N4ish Japanese from uni. Learning a language is probably one of the worst tradeoffs in terms of time invested:financial reward. In the time it takes you to learn most Asian language to fluency, you could probably learn to code, or do an MBA (or both, lol). But with that said, a lot of the payoffs are intangible or things you can't put a value on, like experiences, relationships, etc. Atlas Hugged posted:I did actually start to learn to read Thai but that system is frustrating for about a billion reasons and no thanks. At some point I'll probably cave and just force myself to do it, but it's about as frustrating a system as you can get before it turns into the madness of Tibetan. Shadow0 posted:
Thai reading/writing is not that bad - in my course we learned the alphabet and tone rules in about 3 weeks of afternoon lessons (developing from "dumb babby sounding things out" to more fluent obviously came later). I am here to tell you that your accent will always suck if you don't learn the writing system: every "learn thai book" for foreigners seems to want to use its own transliteration scheme, and even if you're versant in IPA and can keep track of the aspirated/unaspirated consonants and stuff, knowing the live/dead syllable rules is how you know what tone that syllable is read in. I'd liken trying to learn Thai without learning the writing system to like learning to drive a manual car but not how to shift past first gear - you might eventually get there, but it will be extremely slow and hard and ugly and only because of your pigheadedness (not speaking directly to you guys!) Now the spelling is almost as hosed as English (because of the huge number of Sanskrit and Pali loanwords, similar to the way that English spelling "rules" fall apart when you get to all the stuff that comes from Romance langauges), but as an English speaker you've got literally no right to complain  Thai is also massively useless as a language to learn (I had a good lol at someone upthread saying Chinese was useless): it's not a big political or economic power, and in Thailand 99 times out of 100 an employer will hire a Thai that thinks they can speak English rather than vice versa because it's so much cheaper. Culturally there's not a tonne of interesting stuff to read compared to other Asian countries with more of a literary tradition (Thailand's literacy rate is fine, but not many people read for recreation), the print news media tends to be really sensationalist and basic, most of the TV/movies are pretty lowbrow, anything interesting in academia gets published in English journals, etc. As far as travel, pretty much any of the places worth going to are going to have tourism infrastructure. Like, I had fun renting a motorbike and just tooling around the boonies for its own sake, but 99% of the cool and interesting stuff is on the beaten path where you'll find someone who speaks OK enough English. Don't get me wrong I love Thailand and Thai people/culture, but unless you're married to someone, are a language nerd, or have a deep interest in like, Thai history or art or something, trying to learn Thai to fluency is one of the biggest wastes of time I can think of. But even if you're just trying for conversational Thai, definitely learn the alphabet. Going back to the chat from a few pages ago about reactions to Westerners speaking the language - about 25% of the time I'd be asked if I was half-Thai (I'm not and don't really look it) because that was the only thing that'd really fit in people's schema of someone who looks Western but is speaking Thai. In Thailand it's almost like, a contest among the largely lovely expat community for who speaks the least (as opposed to the pissing matches among Japan/China expats about who's the best). Interestingly, in Thailand (which is comparitvely more modern and international), I'd always get people asking follow up questions and really curious about how/why I spoke Thai. In Laos (Lao is basically a dialect of Thai), which is far more rural and isolated, people would just be like "oh yeah that's two bucks" without comment, like "duh, everybody speaks Lao" 
Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 22:27
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Ugly In The Morning posted:For a while there were people on the weird Tumblr left who were super mad about
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Apr 29, 2020 22:37
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Ugly In The Morning posted:If I had a nickel for every time I got a shocked “You can eat spicy?” I’d be a rich man. I used to work with a Korean guy who thought my lunch couldn’t be that hot, he tried some and immediately regretted it. 90% of Korea's spicy foot tops out at a 5 or a 6 out of ten. Coworker from New Orleans put ghost pepper sauce on Korean Fire chicken once. He wasn't trying to flex, he had just reached the point where he almost needed to mace his tongue to get any spicy sensation after a lifetime of chilli abuse. During lunches at school he would sometimes break out his little bottle if chicken wings or something similar was on the menu. Naturally some of the male staff needed to find out for sure that it was actually spicy.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:56
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Atlas Hugged posted:Taiwan is more wet than hot and from like October-March it's downright cool. But it's not like humid wet. It's "don't see the sun for two weeks at a time" wet. Just completely overcast with this horrible on-off drizzle. You've been living in Thailand a while though. Coolest month in Taipei is January with an average high of 19. If I could choose a climate I would be somewhere the average high in midsummer is like 15 at most. Chengdu is subtropical and I managed, but I'm definitely more interested in a Sapporo than a Taipei if I'm picking a city to move to.
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Apr 30, 2020 00:18
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Dzhay posted:I work with an Indian guy; we've both been in China for 3 years, but he still barely speaks a word of the language. Or goes out at all, as far as I can tell. Cuz most non Chinese speakers can’t pronounce a lot of Chinese sounds, never mind tones. There’s also a ton of discrimination outside of China itself and if you cv says “Rachel” you’ll get a lot more follow ups than if you name is Shan Shan. A lot of people can never remember names not commonly from their language, so it’s also a convenience. I know a British dude who can’t remember half his coworkers names cuz they just use their Chinese names transliterated into the Latin alphabet. I also know Chinese people who constantly forget non-Chinese names, it goes both ways. multiple Chinese friends of mine with v good English who say the biggest reason is they’d rather have rando expats remember their fake English name than mangle their Chinese name beyond recognition. Sometimes this isn’t picking something like Mary but standardizing a sorta european-ized pronunciation of how the pinyin for their name might be pronounced if you didn’t use pinyin rules and used English phonetics instead. This also is common in more languages than you’d think. Most people learning Chinese geti a Chinese name for most of the above reasons. If you learn Japanese they’ll katakana up your name so it fits within Japanese syllable structure, most Russian names end up changed and anglicized quite a bit when they come over, etc...
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Apr 30, 2020 00:35
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Magna Kaser posted:Cuz most non Chinese speakers can’t pronounce a lot of Chinese sounds, never mind tones. Remember watching the news or something of the sort and they had an entertainment reporter on the red carpet at the premiere of "Memoires of a Geisha". Zhang Ziyi arrived, was walking up to the entrance, and the lady grabbed her arm and said, "Zih-yih . . . <awkward pause> . . Zeh-hang, the star of Memoires of a Gee-sha. . . ". Zhang Ziyi rolled her eyes hard enough to pass for a slot machine. You'd think they would have at least told the lady, "Jean Zye-Yee, now say it 50 times on the ride over there". The next year Gong Li was stopped on the red carpet for Miami Vice, and (it might have even been the same lady) the exact same thing happened. "We're here with Lie Gon-Ga. . . " I'm pretty sure she visibly scowled at the lady.
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Apr 30, 2020 00:48
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tff2PBatf2Y
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Apr 30, 2020 00:55
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Blistex posted:The next year Gong Li was stopped on the red carpet for Miami Vice, and (it might have even been the same lady) the exact same thing happened. "We're here with Lie Gon-Ga. . . " I'm pretty sure she visibly scowled at the lady. My 'favorite' part when this happens is extra syllables and sounds materializing out of nowhere. It's like they're merging their attempted pronunciation with an 'Asian' accent and frantically mashing 'Submit'. Supplemental material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1RKkRCiU90
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Apr 30, 2020 01:09
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So I've been reading through the Three Body Problem trilogy, and I just had to ask this thread... is it me, or is Chinese thinking practically alien? I've lurked this thread off and on through its many iterations and I think I understand no why and face culture and all that, but goddamn something struck a cord in me with these books. It's possible it's just the author, but I feel like it isn't because what I've read previously here? And yeah, part of it I'm sure is eastern and western thought, but I've read some translated Japanese stuff (not just manga), and seen tons of Korean and Indian movies, and I've never felt that way about other Asian cultures. Again, maybe it's just the author, but so many mental leaps are made and solutions to situations put forth as common sense that make me do a mental double take that I legit feel like an alien watching humanity from afar wrote these books. And please let me be clear, I am in no way attributing this to biotruths or race or anything and I know it's purely cultural- but drat that culture seems to be different than any other I've encountered before.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:20
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It's very different, yeah. There's a vast cultural difference that you don't get when interacting with other European/Euro-derived cultures. Reading fiction is a good way to experience it, you're getting both the different way of thinking and the different way of writing. I found Three Body an insufferable slog of a book but there was a lot in it that gave me "oh yeah my students do this" types of thoughts.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:28
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Still on language chat: 1) Learning the local language, or at least the basics, (numbers, directions, "where is teh toilet? etc.), makes a monstrous difference to your daily life. When you can walk into a shop and ask them where the jam is, or how much for a litre of milk, or what animal the pile of mystery meat you are buying came from without much hassle, it improves your quality of life no end. It always baffled me, and still does, how the people who live abroad for multiple years live like that? Do they do their shopping entirely by feel? At the register, do they rely on their fingers, or having the clerk show them a calculator with the price on it. (This has happened to me lots in Japan, China and Korea, and I always make a point of saying the number back to them in the local language) I suppose some people can live like that, but I can't. and 2) Taking all elements of racism and classism(?) out of it. To not learn the local language of a place you LIVE is at the very least rude. You are saying "I expect, nay demand, that you do the work of trying to understand me in a language that you do not speak, whilst I will expend no effort in doing the same." I have also found that the kind of people who spend multiple years in a country and don't learn anything beyond Hello" are also the kind of people who loudly complain, (in personal experience I have met several of these arseholes), about the stupid locals and how they don't speak English properly. Also, as expats we are the foreigners in the country. We are guests. So as guests, it behooves us to at least make a minimum of effort to try and make our lives, and the lives of our hosts, that little bit easier. Edit: Blistex posted:Remember watching the news or something of the sort and they had an entertainment reporter on the red carpet at the premiere of "Memoires of a Geisha". Zhang Ziyi arrived, was walking up to the entrance, and the lady grabbed her arm and said, "Zih-yih . . . <awkward pause> . . Zeh-hang, the star of Memoires of a Gee-sha. . . ". Zhang Ziyi rolled her eyes hard enough to pass for a slot machine. You'd think they would have at least told the lady, "Jean Zye-Yee, now say it 50 times on the ride over there". A similar thing to this is Indian/Sri Lankan names and cricket commentators. It pisses me off no end that people who have played against Indians/Sri Lankans in their playing days, and have been commentating for years still stumble over something as easy as Gundappa Viswanath. (A phenomenally elegant batsmen in the 70s. My dad's favourite player.). Whilst I am whinging about cricket commentary and names, it makes me angry that the "Hahaha, that currymuncher has a long funny name, so I wont bother and instead will mangle it on an international broadcast probably beinmg heard by his family at home. Haha, stupid brown people." is acceptable 'banter' on Australian TV. The English commentators seem a little better about it and at least don't actively demean the players. BrigadierSensible fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 02:31
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I always try to apologize beforehand when attempting to pronounce someone's name when I'm not sure how it's pronounced.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:48
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BrigadierSensible posted:To not learn the local language of a place you LIVE is at the very least rude. You are saying "I expect, nay demand, that you do the work of trying to understand me in a language that you do not speak, whilst I will expend no effort in doing the same." I have also found that the kind of people who spend multiple years in a country and don't learn anything beyond Hello" are also the kind of people who loudly complain, (in personal experience I have met several of these arseholes), about the stupid locals and how they don't speak English properly. Also, as expats we are the foreigners in the country. We are guests. So as guests, it behooves us to at least make a minimum of effort to try and make our lives, and the lives of our hosts, that little bit easier. Replying to this as an ESL person, I think you're overstating something, but most of SA does. First, there is a an objective value in humans having a lingua franca. How horrible, for many reasons it turned out to be English, which is the worst language and blablabla, but you could make the point that ANY language is the worst for one reason or the other. Second, there is a difference between the investments that the guest of country A makes when learning the language of A compared to the one the person from A makes in learning English (or whatever the lingua franca of the day may be, again, this is not an endorsement of English as the greatest language in the world). Learning language A is often a high investment with low benefits outside of A. Learning English is beneficial in most cases and its value is not dependent on specific situations. One of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on SA was that someone who wants to visit Prague for three days ought to learn proper Czech first. I get that you're talking about people who actually live somewhere, which is a different situation, but even then there's always a context.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:51
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Blistex posted:90% of Korea's spicy foot tops out at a 5 or a 6 out of ten. Yeah, Korean food tends to barely move the needle for me after years of putting ghost pepper/Carolina reaper sauce on everything but for whatever reason they think it’s unbearably hot for anyone who isn’t Korean. Then they try my reaper sauce in the work fridge, since it can’t be that hot it a white guy is eating it, and are crippled for like half an hour.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:55
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screamin and creamin posted:Replying to this as an ESL person, I think you're overstating something, but most of SA does.
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