Was sagst du? 樣樣都德

(DE/FR/EN/中文) Zur Hausausgabe des deutschen Sprachkurses muss jeder einen Witz erzählen. Hier ist meiner: Ein Deutscher hat mit seinem italienischen Kunden verabredet, dass sie sich um 9 Uhr in der Betriebscafeteria treffen. Der Deutsche ist pünktlich angekommen, an einem Tisch gesitzen und hat auf den Italiener halbe Stunde lange gewartet, aber musste er denn fortgehen, weil er viele andere Dinge zu tun hat. Der Italiener kam um 10 Uhr in die Cafeteria, konnte den Deutschen nicht sehen, und bei ihm dachte: Ich muss zu früh angekommen sein! Comme devoir du cours allemand tous doivent raconter une blague. C'est mienne: Un Allemand a pris un rendez-vous avec un Italien chez la cafétéria au travail à 9h. L'allemand est arrivé à l'heure, s'est assis à une table et a attendu l'italien pendant une demi-heure, mais il devait partir parce qu'il a beaucoup des autres choses à faire. L'italien est arrivé à 10h à la cafétéria, ne pouvait pas voir l'allemand et pens...

Hong Kong is well known for its intense and pressurising work conditions. Now a survey on the finance, accounting and human resources sectors in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand has added weight to this reputation. Many employees would stay in contact and continue working through their supposedly ‘leisure’ times, while many employers expect the employees to be reachable outside normal working hours. The hard-working ethic is no doubt a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s economic success, and working long hours and being constantly in touch with colleagues or bosses are facts of life when there are deadlines to meet. But when Hong Kong employers become over-reliant on placing exigent demands on employees all the time, one has to wonder if they have overlooked other important factors in lifting workplace performance and business competitiveness, such as improving efficiencies in certain processes or the overall workflow. There are many other effects of such demanding workloads. T...

No, this is not an advertisement for an insurance company. It’s just an interesting finding when I ran a content analysis of my blog and had the most frequent words presented in a word cloud – the larger the word and more centrally it is positioned, the more frequently it appeared. (Try this analysis too if you like.) To my surprise, the word that stood out loud and clear in the middle of the cloud is We, followed by My and a lot of words concerning time and quantity. Even the word timely ranked very highly, although I wonder why as I haven’t used that word that often. Some bloggers who used it say that the word cloud is a reflection of the type of person you are, but I think it’s also a consequence of my blog topics. I do care about time and always want to make sure that things run to plan and schedules as much as possible. These qualities probably can make life a little too regimented and dull, but they are indispensable when doing a lot of travelling, since there is always the next...

People of Pommesfritesland started a Pommes Frites revolution back in February to demand the political parties of that country to work together to form a government. However, things have since then taken a turn for the worse and the political parties plunged deeper and deeper into disagreement. The only thing that they could agree on was to split the country into two along the ethnic and cultural boundary. 薯條國國民發動「 薯條革命 」，原意是促使各政黨儘快組成聯合政府，但事與願違，政治談判不但無成果，各黨反而愈吵愈烈，最終決定於4月1日把國家按民族和語言分界一分為二。 The news took the world by surprise, and many Pommesfritesland citizens only found out when they were denied entry upon arrival in a foreign country because their country was no longer existent. Those already abroad faced the problem of being stranded because their passports and nationality were no longer recognised. They would have to stay put until the arrangements for the separation of Pommesfritesland are finalised and new passports can be issued. The United Nations described it as the largest pe...