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bitofarambler

@ bitofarambler @crazypeople.online

Posts
1
Comments
153
Joined
1 yr. ago

I like to travel, learn and tell stories.

Travel podcast here

Travel community here

  • Multilingual people of Lemmy who learned a language (or multiple) as adults, how did you do it?

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  • teaching english in china got me nandarin.

    for the other languages it was duolingo mostly, and talking to real people helps a lot. i live abroad, so immersion is right there.

    I find learning all the food first really helps me,. I learn a lot about the phonemes nad rhythms of the language and after I'm comfortable with those, it's just a repetition game for the words and grammar.

    My 100% speed trick if you can stand it is watching the same episode of TV or movie once per day for a couple of weeks in that language and paying absolute attention to the show for that span of time each day.

    It boosts, speech, listening, and comprehension so crazy much over 2-3 weeks, but of course is boring after a few days.

  • This is for fellow nomads of lemmy

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  • usually AYCE buffets first, then local supermarkets.

    then general wandering around my town or city to see what looks cool, open-air markets, mom and pop restaurants and the like.

  • AI remains top reason for US job cuts for third straight month as employers axed 97,000 workers in May

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  • What's the best food you're had in another country that's not from that country?

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  • dang that vietnamese chili shrimp i shared in travel from osaka is probably right up there.

    i have not had as good pizza in italy as i have had in several countries, but I prefer a strong, thick tomato sauce, which is very light in Italian pizzas that I've had, although the Italian fired crust is consistently better.

    i prefer indian momos to chinese jianjiao: less oily, more consistently flavorful and healthy.

    Where are sandwiches from!?! Because I don't know if I've ever enjoyed a sandwich as much as I enjoyed the Colombian barbecue chicken patacones that use plantains as bread. holy crap that is good and enough food for three days.

    The Japanese have perfected the cheese cake, way more decadent without losing any of the flavor.

    oh dang though, you know what, a Venezuelan living in Colombia made the best sushi I've ever had, and the best salmon belly sashimi I've ever had.

  • What have you experienced recently that restored (or reassured) your faith in humanity?

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  • Talking to people around the world and people being kind, even after they find out im originally from the US.

    despite the terrible things the internet and the news tells us to fear from people, most people in real life are compassionate, understanding, empathetic and like to laugh.

  • Can someone tell me what I want to hear so I can blindly follow them?

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  • Sure! get any remote job that pays ~$500 USD equivalent per month and live abroad.

    You'll be down to working a couple hours a day maximum and can pursue your interests, hobbies or get to know yourself and figure out what you want to do next.

    details over in the travel community. or ask here.

  • Those with 100% remote jobs that travel abroad, how did you find the job and what advice can you give?

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  • yea, esl teachers often need a work visa depending on the country, but schools generally sponsor your visa if they hire you, so that's all taken care of by the school staff or they'll walk you through the process. if a school doesn't offer to sponsor your visa, they're not worth the trouble.

    it was awwwesome and i got to retire very early, so it's tough to complain about anything.

    Really there were no challenges with the job itself, speaking basic english and playing learning activities with a bunch of respectful, dedicated, cute students for 45 minutes at a time(including a 10-minute break), watching them improve and leaps and bounds evey week, get paid USD $35 per class minimum. Rent/food/everything pennies on the dollar. My most expensive apartment was about three hundred and fifty U.S. dollars right in the middle of Beijing, but the studio I rented the longest was $120 a month. 4 classes and my monthly rent and utilities were paid for.

    the only challenges were with other administrators after i ended up co-owning the school that hired me, they were pretty bad at business and it was frustrating to see this extremely successful business that was fun to work at run so poorly.

    oh, i was in beijing, so the smog was the other main challenge, but it's such a comfortable and convenient country to live in, I still ended up staying there very happily almost six years altogether, and have great friends that I still talk to and actually just visited last month.

    Wayyy more ups and downs.

    there are tons of chinese cities that aren't smoggy, but Beijing was where I started and that was my journey.

  • Those with 100% remote jobs that travel abroad, how did you find the job and what advice can you give?

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  • Thailand does have a lot of beet farmers. and beat farmers.

    thanks.

  • Those with 100% remote jobs that travel abroad, how did you find the job and what advice can you give?

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    1. i was very dissatisfied with the amount of lifetime my job in the US was taking from me with so little in return, so when i came across an ad for English teaching that advertised half my hours double my pay i applied, when i was offered the job right away, i accepted, made a bunch of money for 3 years, had savings and plenty of breathing room, invested most of my savings.

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    1. with breathing room, i thought about what i wanted next and how much it cost:

    i wanted to never work again unless i wanted to, basically retirement. I had traveled a bit and realized that with 200 countries, i could literally choose my cost of living and cost of retirement. i picked Thailand to start my retirement since i had visited before and knew the costs. i needed $250 USD/month to start($100 month for a hostel, $150 for food and beer).

    i had nearly that coming in from investments, so i signed up for a conversational English speaking app and doubled my income to about $500 per month by chatting 5 hours a week. i used the extra money for private places, extra food and beer, renting a moped, museums, etc.

    i traveled for a year working up to 5 hours a week, received an offer to open my own school in China, went back and saved money for two years until i had plenty of passive income to lived abroad indefinitely(USD 500+/month), and here i sit 8 years later, on the way to jeju south Korea after a month in Mongolia, Japan next week.

    advice: make a change sooner rather than later, time is finite.

    ...sooo basically the FAQ in the travel community, hahaha.

  • Does anybody else feel like everything is off lately? What have you noticed is different?

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  • All over. I like learning and exploring, so I move every few months. I'm in Mongolia right now.

    Starting out from the US, Medellin is very comfortable, Cusco is great too. If you're up for Asia, Thailand is amazing.

    You can also stay in a single country longer or permanently, I move around because I like to.

  • Does anybody else feel like everything is off lately? What have you noticed is different?

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  • That struggle is very real and has been for a long time.

    There are lawyers fighting for civil rights and elections happening, plenty going on, but there is also a mass disillusionment about the undeniable disadvantages of living in the US that you're picking up on.

    I started living abroad 15 years ago because of the broken social compact in the US and it is shocking how much worse the US got so quickly since then.

    It's very comfortable living abroad, way cheaper, better food, better medical care, better a bunch of stuff. Head over to Travel or shoot me a message if you're interested.

  • What is everyone doing to survive this food inflation?

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  • Living abroad is very comfortable and means an instant, massive reduction in cost of living. if prices get too crazy or you're interested in the idea of living abroad, feel free to reach out or head over to Travel.

  • What is everyone doing to survive this food inflation?

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  • I used to make big woks of fried rice/quinoa, which stores and reheats well, and golgoppa is delicious, healthy, very cheap and easy to make.

  • What is your favourite Pokemon?

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  • Best legendary, but I'll hear arguments

  • What is your favourite Pokemon?

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  • Gyarados normal, Suicune legendary, Bulbysaur starter

  • Japanese curry roux question

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  • Curry was always such a satisfying ending to a long day of hiking. I carried some noodles in my pack, a box of curry cubes and bought fresh vegetables from the first roadside seller or stall I saw when I got hungry. Filled up my cookpot with some water, poured rubbing alcohol into my alcohol stove and had piping hot japanese curry with mushrooms and spinach and noodles a few minutes later ahhhh it was so good. For 3 months straight I had curry every other day, when I wasn't chowing down on sushi and sashimi.

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  • Ha, it's an interesting language, and the Duolingo course is actually pretty good, although I'm more interested in the writing system myself.

    I lived in China for years and I'm gonna go visit some friends in a couple weeks.

    If you're willing to teach English, living in China is a great way to save money very quickly while enjoying the affordability and convenience mentioned above.

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  • The value of Chinese yuan is directly dictated by the Chinese government, in contrast to the other currencies you mentioned.

    A stated raise in value would erode their national manufacturing competitiveness, which is a large percent of Chinese GDP, and hit most people in the country hard, instantly erasing a proportional amount of their savings value, which would threaten Chinese political stability.

    1 usd to 6 yuan from 1 usd to 7 yuan means tge 1.5 billion chinese people holding rmb lose almost 10 percent of their purchasing power instantly and directly because of government action.

    one of the upsides for the Chinese government is that Chinese people are very dependent on living in China, lending political stability and citizen retention.

    This encouraged dependency is effective because it really is incredibly cheap aid convenient to live in china. USD equivalent of $1 meals, $100/month apartments, new 2026 EVs with the highest safety ratings in the world for only $8000, everything delivered to your door the same or the next day for free or nominal shipping costs, cashless society, national affordable healthcare, and many more.

    Any declared raise in value of the yuan destabilizes the entire system and citizen dependency that the centralized government appears to be working very hard to establish and maintain.

  • I made Chongqing Laziji

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  • Most Chinese markets should have the real one anyway, which is fantastic and worth looking for: it's "mala huoguo tangdi", or in english "spicynumb hotpot base", in Chinese "麻辣 火锅 汤"

    If you show those pictures to a Chinese person, they'll know exactly what you're showing them.

    laziji means "chili chicken" so don't say that, show them the picture of the block in its packaging and "麻辣 火锅 汤", they'll know what it is.

    Yea, it's crazy good, you'll dig it; I have made it with larb and pretty much every form of meat and veg stir-fry and it's always nuts good. I almost exclusively use that spice block when I cook nowadays because it's very straightforward, portionable, delicious and quick.

    Good luck with your gig!

  • I made Chongqing Laziji

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  • heck yea.

    If you like this cooking method at all, the daiso mala flavor is worth trying out since it's a dollar, but this is what you really want and what I usually use for cooking almost everything:

    the best part of mala and laziji(op) is the fresh sichuan peppers, which the daiso one does not use; they use roasted sichuan peppers, so it'll be good, but flat overall, no pop and fresh mix of flavors.

    Get that block above, and hot diggity dang, it's a layer of beef tallow on top and then a hundred(or like twelve) spices just staaaacked underneath.

    same process, fry whatever you want with a little oil, when it's nearly done cut off a chunk of this stuff, throw it in, turn off the heat, stirritup and mind blown. A 1x1 inch section of this hot-pot base block is my shortcut to easy, consistent, amazing flavor.

  • Today I Learned @lemmy.world
    bitofarambler @crazypeople.online

    TIL a pack of lemmings is called a plague