04/04/2005 - 04/05/2005

do's and don'ts around the world - new book

With the continued easing of international travel restrictions and growing interest in international trade and culture, more and more travelers have resumed traveling abroad. Unfortunately, while many of them are making their travel plans, they neglect to anticipate the very real problems and embarrassments they can encounter once their feet touch foreign soil.

"Do's and Don'ts Around the World: A Country Guide to Cultural and Social Taboos and Etiquette," by Gladson I. Nwanna contains hundreds of country-specific cultural and social do's, don'ts and taboos. Each regional volume contains a separate listing for almost every country in the region. The book addresses such diverse topical areas and concerns as greeting protocols, business etiquette, table manners, tipping guidelines, gift giving, body and sign languages. Readers will find in this book important social and cultural beliefs and practices ranging from the types of gifts to avoid, best types of gifts to give and best time to present gifts to such details as colors, shapes and numbers with culture-specific connotations and much more.

ten tips of working with an interpreter

The Interpreter, a new addition to our translation articles page, offers some useful insights into getting the best out of an interpreter.

camel meat losing popularity

"Every expatriate should try it once."

Camel meat is fast becoming a rarity in Saudi Arabia as the younger generation dine out on burgers and chicken sandwiches. So for all those expats living in Saudi, try some camel meat now before its too late!

uk managers are poor communicators

Research has revealed that staff in the UK usually hear about important business decisions in their companies from office rumours rather than directly from their managers.

UK managers tend to be poor communicators, leaving employees to find out about any planned changes in their organisation through the office grapevine.

could esperanto be the answer to EU language maze?

Enlargement, with official EU languages shooting up from 11 to 20, is a headache for planners looking for Maltese and Baltic linguists. The multiplication of official languages also means ever greater dominance of English in EU corridors. Would a neutral and easy-to-learn language like Esperanto help restore the linguistic balance? "My answer is more languages even if this means costs. This is a better than choosing some artificial or uniform solution," said Jan Figel, the Slovak in charge of the Commission's translation and interpretation services.

Heineken order a chinese

Dutch brewer Heineken NV has bought a 40 percent share in a Chinese beer maker via its Asian joint venture company Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd., expanding its interests in the world's biggest beer market.

The $28.6 million investment in Jiangsu DaFuHao Breweries Co., a mid-sized brewer located in Nantong, a city in eastern China's Jiangsu province, will give Heineken a stake in four breweries with a total annual capacity of 92.5 million gallons, the company said in a statement seen Friday.

googlephobia spreads in france

French President, Jacques Chirac, has called for an end to the monopoly of Google on the internet through the establishment of a rival French search engine.

At present 74% of searches in France use the French version of Google, yet the rhetoric coming from government is highlighting a 'cultural resistance' to the American search engine. Mr Jeanneney, head of France's Bibliothèque Nationale, has talked of the “risk of crushing domination by America in defining the view that future generations have of the world.� “I have nothing in particular against Google,� he told L'Express, a magazine. “I simply note that this commercial company is the expression of the American system, in which the law of the market is king.�

Chinese executives begin cross cultural training in USA

Five executives from Shanghai have just begun a six-month immersion into American business and culture through the Fogelman College of Business and Economics. The great question: How did the United States become the single most powerful nation the world has ever seen, and how is it that Americans are the first super power to prefer business and freedom rather than conquest and empire?

"We have come here to understand the culture, the values and the way Americans think," says Pan LeQun, an editorial manager of Jiefang Daily, a Shanghai newspaper.

using cross cultural differences positively

Businessmen in Malaysia are being encouraged to make full use of the diversity of Malaysian society by forming “multiracial teams� when venturing into foreign markets.

Housing and Local Government Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting, said Malaysian businessmen could work together and use different approaches based on the team members' cultural background for the benefit of the whole group when exploring markets overseas.

“The Malaysian Chinese can establish the network in China and work together with their Muslim partners (to provide halal food). “Similarly, such the multiracial teams can be formed when exploring markets in India and Arab countries,� he told a press conference after opening the 2005 China Guangxi Commodities Exhibition and Investment Conference at the Putra World Trade Centre yesterday.

Diversity in Law

Sex equality and ethnic diversity may still be passing by the leading City law firms, but they are raising significant interest in the Scottish profession. The Law Society of Scotland said last week it had had a "phenomenal response" to the initial, fact-finding stage of its one-year action plan to develop an "integrated diversity strategy" to cover the next three to five years.

The Lawyer magazine said that a survey of leading London firms it published last week showed that women and ethnic minority applicants entering the law are still failing to reach partnership. While 64% of trainees at these firms were female, women lawyers represented only 25% of partners. Ethnic minorities represented 23% of applicants but only 3% of partners.

The Indian Expat

There was a time when a typical Indian expat in Singapore was a construction worker or a cook. Now he or she is more likely to be banker living in a plush condo. A new breed of highly skilled (and often highly paid) Indian imports is helping to keep Singapore's financial and technological status sharp and steady...

new website offers training guidance to employers

A new government website has been launched to help bosses in London access better staff training.

Primarily funded by public money, the site at www.egtp.co.uk aims to make businesses in the capital better skilled and more competitive. The Employers' Guide to Training Providers assists firms in identifying and locating quality training in their area, including a comprehensive database of providers and guidance on how to assess their quality.

new wesbite offers training guidance to employers

A new government website has been launched to help bosses in London access better staff training.

Primarily funded by public money, the site at www.egtp.co.uk aims to make businesses in the capital better skilled and more competitive. The Employers' Guide to Training Providers assists firms in identifying and locating quality training in their area, including a comprehensive database of providers and guidance on how to assess their quality.

new website offers training guidance for employers

A new government website has been launched to help bosses in London access better staff training.

Primarily funded by public money, the site at www.egtp.co.uk aims to make businesses in the capital better skilled and more competitive. The Employers' Guide to Training Providers assists firms in identifying and locating quality training in their area, including a comprehensive database of providers and guidance on how to assess their quality.

new training guidance website for employers

A new government website has been launched to help bosses in London access better staff training.

Primarily funded by public money, the site at www.egtp.co.uk aims to make businesses in the capital better skilled and more competitive. The Employers' Guide to Training Providers assists firms in identifying and locating quality training in their area, including a comprehensive database of providers and guidance on how to assess their quality.

The Employer's Guide to Training Providers

A new government website has been launched to help bosses in London access better staff training.

Primarily funded by public money, the site at www.egtp.co.uk aims to make businesses in the capital better skilled and more competitive. The Employers' Guide to Training Providers assists firms in identifying and locating quality training in their area, including a comprehensive database of providers and guidance on how to assess their quality.

irish translation firm wins UK EU deal

A Clare-based translation company has won a contract to provide translation services for Britain's presidency of the EU, which begins in July.

ETeams Ltd hopes to use a network of 45 translators based in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia to provide translation into French from English for the duration of the six-month presidency, according to a report in The Irish Times.

laptops for the poor

In a rural Cambodian village where the homes lack electricity, the nighttime darkness is pierced by the glow from laptops that children bring from school. The students were equipped with notebook computers by a foundation run by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte and his wife Elaine.

Negroponte and some MIT colleagues are hard at work on a project they hope will brighten the lives and prospects of hundreds of millions of developing world kids. It's a grand idea and a daunting challenge: to create rugged, Internet- and multimedia-capable laptop computers at a cost of $100 apiece.

word of the day: amaneusis

amanuensis \un-man-yoo-EN-sis\, noun; plural amanuenses, \-seez\:
A person employed to take dictation or to copy manuscripts.

The chore of actually writing the words in the end fell to a hand-picked amanuensis. --Austin Baer, "River of Desire," Atlantic, October 1996