Jumat, 25 Januari 2008

How to eat

How to eat

In addition to impacting food choices, culture also plays a role in food-related etiquette. People in western societies may refer to food-related etiquette as table manners, a phrase that illustrates the culture expectation of eating food or meals at a table. Some people eat with forks and spoon, more people use fingers or chopsticks. However, utensil choice is much more complicated than choosing chopsticks, fingers, or flatware. Among some groups who primarily eat food with their fingers, dinners use only the right hand to eat. Some people use only three fingers of the right hand. Among other groups, use of both hands is acceptable.

In some countries, lacking the fingers is polite, in others, licking the fingers is considered impolite (and done only when a person thinks no one else is watching). Rules regarding polite eating may increase in formal setting. At some formal dinners, a person might be expected to choose the right fork from among two or three choices to match the food being eaten at a certain point in the meal.

The amount people eat and leave uneaten also varies from group to group. Some people from Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries might leave a little bit of food on their plates in order to indicate that their hunger has been satisfied. Cooks from other locations might be offended if food is left on the plate, indicating that the guest may have disliked the food. Similarly, a clean plate might signify either satisfaction with the meal or desire for more food.

The sunnah of the prophet-saw is to eat with fingers, and lick your fingers after eating. According to religious scholars, fork and spoons were invented, they themselves were too dirty so didn’t eats with his fingers in the food while eating, some germs are made that allow digesting the food more easily, and the stomach doesn’t get any problems. So you need to lick your fingers to lick the germs, which are good for your health.

In today fast paced and mobile world, few folks eat all their meals at an actual table. If they get one meal a day at home it’s a lot. In New York City, where I live, foods stand do a brisk business and it’s not uncommon to see people rushing through the streets, chomping furiously on anything they can hold in one hand, signaling for a taxi with the other. There is no way for us to learn the right way to eat in order to live a long life, except trough the guidance and teachings.

referrence: www.google.com

Kamis, 17 Januari 2008

Currency

Currency

A currency is a unit of exchange, faciliting transfer of goods and service. It is a form of money, where money is define as a medium of exchange, a store of value. Therefore any currency or gold ( for millennia gold has been used as money, a store of value ) are a orm of money. However gold is better money than a currency because it keeps its purchase power with time.

In fact if 50 years ago you could compety dress yourself with 100 grams of gold than today you still dress yourself with 100 grams of gold which is not the case with it is not enough because on inflation, so gold a batter money. Despite the fact that by definition gold is more a money than a currency, we can however say that gold is similar to a currency. That is why many people use the term gold currency to talk about gold as a medium of exchange. So that gold currency is similarly to a national currency because both are units of accoun. As a bank account contains a quantity of national currency or gold account contains a quantity of weight of gold.

A while ago, gold was not as currency paper as a method of payment because carting around even an ounce of gold is not very suitble. If you wish to purchase a product or service for a value of 100USD then it is difficult to break off a slice of gold to that value and hand it over to the merchant. But now with internet it is not a problem anymore since you can have an online gold account from where you can send a payment of any amount to anybody in the world as can do with your bank. Many of the worlds currency are pegged againts the dolla. Some countries, such as Ecuador, Elsavador, and panama have gone even futher and eliminated their own currency in favor of the united states dollar. Since 1999, the dolar dominance has begun to be undermined by the euro, that represents a large size economy, with the prospect of mre countries adopting the euro as their nationality currency.

The euro inherited the status of major reserve currency from the german mark and since then its contribution to official reserve has risen contnually as banks seek to diversify their reserves and trade in the eurozone continues to expand. Similar to the dollar, quite a few of the words currency are pegged againts the euro. They are ussualy eastern european currecies like the estonian kroon and the bulgrain lev. Other european countries, while not being EU members have adopted the euro due to currency unions with members states. The first dollar coins isssued by the united states mint were of the same size and compotition as the spanish dollar and even after American revolutionary war the spanish and US silver dollars circulated side by side in the united states. The coinage of various english colonies also circulated. The North American currency is a proposal in which the three principle countries of North American, namely Canada, the united states and Mexco, would share a common curency. The idea for a north American currency union was first proposed in 1999 by canadian economist.