151–160 of 179 posts
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Yes, let's import an alien species in a closed ecosystem. What could go wrong?
Granted, I guess I should have asked in the past tense? Why didn’t they? And why don’t local bees work in pollinating the vanilla vines?
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In my experience, people have come to use expat to describe someone who is temporarily or provisionally living elsewhere (e.g. Gone to London to work for a few years). Immigrant is often used for people who have moved with a permanent intention.
Agreed. An expat is someone "on assignment", who has and expects strong ties with their home country. People who fit this description tend to frequently seek help from their own consulates, for example. It's particularly relevant for Americans because we tax ourselves even when overseas. An emigrant (as seen from the source country) or immigrant (as seen from the destination country) is someone who has (usually perma…
Higher status? "People who hang out with diplomats", try beating that. If you routinely dine at your embassy you'd sure be considered "expat" even if you are from Afghanistan. Of course only a tiny fraction of expats would actually do this, but it illustrates the idea. A more practical line of distinction: would they seems their children to regular local schools? If they insist on private "international schools", then it's "expat", otherwise only if a return date is known.
A slightly more up-beat version: A single county in Pennsylvania grows 50% of the mushrooms in the United States. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/this-small-pennsylvania-...
Another interesting geographically focused product is rhubarb and the 9 square mile Rhubarb Triangle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb_Triangle At one point they grew 90% of the worlds forced rhubarb (a special kind of rhubarb grown indoors).
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Immigrant is the English word that denotes someone moving permanently to a new country. Emigrant means someone going to another country permanently. That is to say, moving to Canada from the US one would be considered an immigrant in Canada and an emigrant in the US. An EXPATRIATE(expat for short) is someone working or living in a country not of their origin, and still consider themselves to be whatever nationality t…
That may be technically correct, but that is unfortunately not the common usage. Regardless of how long you intend to stay in a country, people from the non white countries are almost always called immigrants. I've almost never heard an H1B worker called an expat instead of an immigrant.
It might be an executive thing?
(This would include companies like Sony, Nomura, Toshiba, Honda, BMW or even Saudi Aramco - all having US subs)
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Many gulf countries don’t grant permanent residency or citizenship even if one is born there to legal migrants. So they are expats
Yet, the SE Asian workers in the Gulf aren't given that title. If you are an American, European, or Australian you are an expat. If you are Indian you are just a migrant worker.
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FWIW, I think it's fair to push back on bad use of language even as I'm not prescriptive in general. Using "vanilla" to mean "plain" is just wrong and bad. It's possible to make plain, unflavored ice-cream. Vanilla is obviously a real flavor.
Yes and no. I mean, a "regular" pizza is understood to be a cheese pizza, the default or base pizza. I think vanilla ice-cream is the regular pizza of the ice-cream world.
> it's one of the few regions with the right climate that is also poor enough to make laborious hand-pollination affordable It's not like I didn't know that this is how the world works, but this specific case is even more of a slap in the face. It's kinda fucked up to think that in the local specialty store merely a couple pods of vanilla (a few grams each) go for 6-7 dollars, but these folks live in poverty. But mor…
Just because there is cheap labor here does not mean they live in poverty; in fact they do not. The cost and standard of living is much lower so the wage is not as bad as you think. Sure they don't drive BMWs and don't get their coffee at Starbucks or have a $1000 iphone but they are far from living in "poverty"; since the definition of "poverty" is poorly constructed. In any case lets say we accept they live in pove…
The difference isn't luxuries it's SURVIVAL ESSENTIALS. Like Healthcare (159th in the world), Life Expectancy (140th in the world), and Happiness (143rd in the world).
As to your argument that stopping from sending the money is going to harm the poor farmers not the corrupt government/military, I could just as easily make the reverse argument:
"If the majority of the money we send there goes only to the corrupt leadership, helping keep them in power and abusing their people, then A) Doesn't that prove that trickle-down economics don't work without regulation? Just sayin'. but more importantly B) Wouldn't STOPPING sending that money then WEAKEN that leadership, making them more susceptible to an uprising and takeover? But no, see if the people take over, you know it's not just that the money would be distributed from the leaders to the workers. They would actually start to expect rights, and prosperity growth. Which means rising prices. Which, historically, would have led to a Western-based invasion or coup (see: Republics, Banana) means the west would have to invade them and restore the status quo. "
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A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
One a side note, I thought of a joke where his "vanilla startup" would be far from a "vanilla" startup. And that got me curious as to why the adjective vanilla refers to anything plain. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanilla "For lexicographers, vanilla has more flavor than chocolate, because it adds a tasty synonym for plain to the English menu. The noun vanilla was first served up in 1662, but it took a…
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A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
OT, but why are immigrants called expats when they're from anglophone nations?
The funniest manifestation of this is letters to the Daily Mail where the writer moans on about all the immigrants in England before revealing that they’re an ‘expat’ living in Spain.
Edit: incidentally, it’s not universal in English speaking countries. Irish media, for instance, will rarely refer to an Irish person living abroad, temporarily or permanently, as an expat; they’re an emigrant. And immigrants from other English speaking countries would normally be referred to as immigrants, not expats.