I believe the number one issue most expats or international students feel they face is cross-cultural difficulties. Most find it extremely confusing and frustrating, not being able to understand how a person might think or act so differently. But, interestingly enough, the one thing I realized pretty fast was that cross-cultural differences are just anther version for personal differences. People from the same culture can be quite different. It might be true that the stereotypical average for cultures is different, but when dealing with individuals and not on an organizational or national level, one must consider that personal differences might attribute for more variance than cultural differences. I’ll do the mistake of giving a personal example. In a stereotypical generalization, I find that I …

A week ago I got an e-mail titled - "I am glad to be your receptionist~!!!".

Hello !
My Chinese name is <removed>. English name is <removed>.
I’m your receptionist. <personal information removed>
I ‘m a junior student majoring in Account. If you want to visit anywhere in NCKU or have questions you want to ask, you can contact me!

I was confused for a few seconds, till I figured out what "receptionist" means. So I wrote and got this back:

I interpret receptionist as a voluntary student who help foreign students out when you start a new semester in NCKU. (usually 1 voluntary student to 2 foreign students). <…>
Please write some questions you want to know so that I can prepare what …

 
Other “what people do”s :

Part 1 : The Importers, The Internet Auctioneer, The English Teacher
Part 2 : The Hosteler, The Blogger.
Part 3 : The Online Gamer, The Travel Journalist
Part 4 : Write Chinese names, Chinese related blogging.
Part 5 : Build websites

 
Building websites
 
Tools – a computer, preferably a laptop.
Place – anywhere.
Experience and professional knowledge needed – none.
 
A website builder is somewhat complimentary to a blogger, sharing many traits. While a blogger’s success mainly relies on his personal abilities for writing, a website builder’s success mainly relies on the control of the tools in use …

I had enough of the very limited flickr account with 200 photos and 3 albums, so I took up on Ori's advice for building a new gallery. So, the new fiLi gallery is up at : http://www.filination.com/gallery . The fiLi gallery RSS feed can be grabbed at : http://feeds.feedburner.com/FilinationsPhotos (which I imagine will be updated while I'm at the UK).    

It's been a very long time since I've seen something this powerful in Israeli TV. I can't recall something quite like it. No special effects, no big action scenes or fake dramas… it's simple, honest and effective, goes straight into your soul. Being in Asia for a year I missed the first season of this show and have heard very little of it. Last week, I got to see a rerun episode with my dad and right after I quickly tried my best to get a hold of some more episodes. I have to confess that although I had plans as to what to do yesterday, I've spent a fair …

Some friends have been telling me about their dreams of taking a time off to go and pursue their fantasies, even “at the risk of losing what they’ve achieved so far”. Asking for my advice, I try and let them know that they are not alone and that it is a fair dilemma that isn’t necessarily as bad as they might think it is.

A British gal I met in Northern Vietnam in her one week Vietnam trip is now returning from 6 months around-the-world after quitting her journalism job. A Canadian friend is traveling around India thinking about her lawyer future. An Israeli hi-tech friend who fell in love with China has given up that …