Menu: Job Restaurant

[ziasudra]

Breakfast:
- Rice crepes
- Stir-fried vermicelli noodles
- Curry fish eggs
- Radish and beef (or more accurately, "cow parts")
- Tea egg (which I didn't eat any because omg so full)
- Coffee

Lunch:
- Ten-dish lunch, family style
- Moon cake (I chose the smallest piece I could find, which was still quite sizable)
- Tea

Afternoon "Snack":
- Red bean soup (didn't eat... decline was successful!)
- Cheesecake

Food to take home:
- Chicken in garlic sauce baked rice, leftover
- Stir-fried vermicelli noodles
- Tea eggs (I guess I'll end up eating some after all...)


I really think I should update my resume to include "eat excessively throughout the day" as one of my job descriptions ;p


ETA: Success! I've given the tea eggs for co-worker J to take home :D

Comments

[lynkemma.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I've been meaning to ask you something. I'm planning to sort of maybe possibly try to learn a bit of Japanese, and I'm currently grappling with the logic of Chinese characters. So, to take an example:

朽, according to the dictionary, means "decay/rot" or "decaying/rotting". When, however, I look up "decay" (the English word) in a dictionary, 朽 does often turn up, but invariably in combination with other characters, to make up a variety of words relating to death/decay/crumbling/dying in seclusion (!).

So, my question is: does 朽 actually mean "decay" in the same sense that the English word "decay" means it, or is the meaning of 朽 closer to "a character, which, when taken together with other characters indicates a state of decay or rot"? In other words, does the character actually mean something on its own, or does it depend entirely on the context provided by other characters?

And is my question making any sense? :-P

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

Yup, your question makes sense.

I'm not sure how qualified I am to answer this, because I know Japanese characters, even the kanjis, can change meaning from their Chinese counterparts even if they look the same. So what I say here might be totally wrong...

As far as I know, 朽 can mean decay as a standalone word in Chinese. It's also commonly used in two-word and four-word phrases, and can also be used paired with any other number of characters. Think of it this way: in conversation, it's really unusual to just use 朽 by itself without attaching it to other words, but it doesn't automatically excludes 朽 from being a standalone word.

So say if you have to choose only one character as a motto (like 忍 for ninja seen in some anime/manga), you can just write 朽 and people would go: Why did this person choose that as a motto?

[lynkemma.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you for taking the time to explain all that! I'll take the difference between Chinese traditions and kanji traditions into account, of course, but the logic of it makes more sense now. ♥

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you, too!