h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Welcome to h2g2, I hope you're having a pleasant time?

Now, I'm Em, I'm Angel and it's part of my duty to welcome you to the neighbourhood

Now you can reach me via U129266 (this will also tell you about me)

but instead of telling you a bunch of URL's and things here and now and overwhelming you, I'll give you my welcome page which should have some useful links A562303.

I hope that helps and I'll be here whenever you need help with something and the secret to h2g2 is just to have fun There's always someone interesting to talk to.

EmXX

[h2g2 researchers needed for Top 10 CD's @ A768567.]

Chao em Em,

Did you know that in Vietnamese your name is the personal pronoun used to address someone who is younger than you? A literal translation of 'em' is 'younger brother or sister'. The language reflects the deeply hierarchical (sp?) nature of the society, with over 25 different ways of saying 'you'/'me' dependent upon the age, sex and real or perceived social status of the person you are addressing in relation to you.

For example, I would address you as 'em', 'younger sister', and you would address me as 'anh', 'older brother', or 'thay', 'male teacher' if you were being excrutiatingly polite.

To unneccesarily complicate matters further, all the pronouns change within the structure of the family, and it is also necessary when addressing someone of your parents' generation to address them differently according to their age relative to your own parents' ages.

Any mistakes are considered a grave breach of etiquette.

This can make polite personal interaction something of a minefield.

Ok, sorry, that's my useless information for the day.

Thanks for the welcome note, I liked your front page. I'm thinking about my top 10 cds and will post them to you soon.

I'm thinking long and hard about where to start with guide entries, but am suffering from too many ideas, too many things I keep trying to put together. I don't know if you've seen my front page, I think it's A785243, but don't quote me on that, I'm not too computer literate. That should give you some more background anyway.

So my question, dear Angel, is what would you, as a reader, like to know about Viet Nam, or Ha Noi in particular? The life of an ex-pat is wild and varied (though admittedly mostly revolving around large quantities of alcohol). Where to start? This is my dilemma? Any ideas would be gratefully received.

From the top ten most bizarre things I've seen on the back of a 100cc scooter (fridge-freezer, live buffalo, 6*4 pane of glass, family of 6 would be high on the list), to the current socio-economic situation of the country (though one has to a bit careful with sort of thing), it's all there. What would you like to know?

Thanks again for your welcome, and thanks in advance for your help. I hope to hear from you soon.

Tal.

Well I think we'll keep the name thing simple, Em and Tal shall do quiet well

And on the too many ideas front, I started on h2g2 two years ago, most of my entries were either written within the first few days of my arriving or over these last few weeks...write anything you want and you can come back to things.

The Guide is for anythinga nd everything, but write what you know

i'm sorry I can't help more at the mo, I'm trying to do things between sorting my ceiling which decided to leak yesterday from the rain.

I've just had an idea, do a search for Viet Nam, and/or Ha Noi and see what other researchers have written, then go for different areas and presepctives