In the 1980s, when I was growing up in Rangoon under Ne Win's Socialist Government, I remember how foreigners were shocked by, among other things, local people chewing betel quid and spitting out splashes of red betel juice all over the sidewalks. Today, if you come from a place like Japan, where nobody expects you to tip, you’re in for a shock when visiting the U.S., where tipping is expected everywhere, from coffee shops to fine-dining restaurants (15-20% of your bill is the norm, in case you’re wondering). In both Thailand and Burma, travelers are expected to remove their footwear when entering temples and shrines, but there’s a notable difference between the two countries. In Japan, you can generally enter temple grounds with your shoes on, but must remember to remove them if you’re entering someone’s home, especially a traditional home with tatami mats. In this episode of Learn Burmese from Natural Talk, my guest Su, a Chiang Mai-based Burmese teacher, and I discuss the culture shocks we have experienced at home and abroad. (Photo by Jirawatfoto, licensed from Shutterstock. Music courtesy of Pixabay) Vocabularyမျက်နှာချင်းဆိုင် face to face (adverb)ခြေချတယ် to settleမြေအောက်ရထား underground train, subwayမိုးပျံတံတား / မိုးပျံလမ်း overhead bridge or walkway (lit. flying bridge or walkway)ညဈေး night marketကျတ်ရွာ village of the lost souls / ghost villageသရဲတ‌စ္ဆေ ghostsအလာကျဲတယ် to come infrequently (used with trains and buses)အလာစိပ်တယ် to come frequently (used with trains and buses)ဖိုမဆက်ဆံရေး intimate relationships (lit. male-female interaction)ပွင့်လင်းတယ် open, progressive, liberal (socially)ပရဝဏ် pagoda precinct အများသုံးအိမ်သာ public bathroomကွမ်း betel quid ကွမ်းတံတွေး  betel juice (liquid from chewing betel quid)ထွေးတယ် to spitပက်ခနဲ in a splashလူ့ကျင့်ဝတ် social protocol, proper manner လိုင်းကား bus ၃၁ ဘုံ 31 planes of existenceဖေါ်ရွေတယ် to be hospitableနှိုးဆော်တယ် to urge, to rallyချေလျင် on foot (adverb)တစ်ပြ a distance equal to one furlong or 220 yards, but Burmese people also use it to refer to ill-defined distancesHave a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.

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