Superstitions surrounding Numbers

While searching for cars, I happened to negotiate a deal with a person from China. Well for someone like me who was a first time buyer it was hard to negotiate without proper knowledge and consequently I just randomly quoted some price. Readers, these were the early days, not that I am a pro now, but have some idea and know few tools that could ease your buying process.

So coming back to the Chinese seller, I always knew it was going to be hard to bargain. Well I based my assumption on what Russell Peters said:
"An Indian cannot live without a bargain, and a Chinese will never give you a bargain." (for sure this cannot be taken as a general norm :), it was just for humor)
If you haven't seen the video check it out at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhGzXOWxfFs

The price of the car he quoted was $5800.00 and without my asking explained that 8 is a lucky number for Chinese and so is the reason for the price. I thought for a while and said why not I give you $4888.00 , which has three 8's.Well the person kinda got a little anxious hearing that price and said that wouldn't be possible.

I haggled that it was a reasonable price but it was in vain. So finally it was decided that he wouldn't sell the car and I continued my tryst of finding one that would fit my budget. Well if your budget is limited and expectations are high, its always hard :) lol !!!

Well, I never realized what was with the number 8 for Chinese and why it was lucky. I narrated this incident to a friend, who was well aware of the Chinese culture. This friend explained that number '4' in China means 'death' while number '8' means 'wealthy.' So with the price of $4888, though i was making him super-wealthy, I was also bringing him super-bad luck.

Then I read this Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture
which further explained the whole deal with numbers in Chinese culture.

No surprises here, because we (Bohri) people too are obsessed with certain numbers:
786, 110, 51, 52, 7, 21 etc.

Weather Forecast in Banswara :)

Well, today I came across this page which tells you today's weather in:

Banswara : http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/42655.html

Partapur : http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=partapur

Unfortunately there were no informations for Sagwara and Galiyakot.

Well you might be wondering where these places are. Hmm they are located in the Wagad region ( unfortunately there is no wikipedia page describing wagad) but yeah its the south-eastern belt of Rajasthan on the eastern side of the Aravalli Ghats. ( there is no wikipedia page for aravali hills as well :( )

Well there is fortunately a page for Banswara:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banswara

How to Ripe Mangoes

Sounds Yummy !!! no doubt !!!

So yeah few days back may be two weeks back, I was shopping at an Indian grocery store. Well I saw few mangoes lying there and I decided to buy some. They were raw and in no way in this Holy Mother Earth was I going to satisfy my urge for mangoes right then.

As usual the salesman cajoled me into buying two of them. He in his conceding tone assured me that they would ripe in two days and I would be able to eat them.

So as usual I bought two and kept them in the refrigerator. And as usual I forgot that I had them inside. Just yesterday my taste buds drew me towards them and guess what they were still not ripe. They were as raw as how I bought them 14 days ago. Weird I thought.

It was later that I realized that they need to be kept outside, they need moisture and they need to be placed outside. After doing some research I found at this site:

"We have found that the best way to ripen a mango is at room temperature, on the kitchen counter and if you wish to accelerate the process place in a paper bag overnight (some folks place an apple with the mango in the bag to create more natural ethylene gas and further decrease the ripening time). Once ripened the mango can be refrigerated for a few days, but should be used shortly thereafter."
This was mentioned at:
http://freshmangos.com/aboutmangos/


So hmm, now I realized why they were still raw. Also found this amazing article on how to shop for mangoes at:
http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipesstepbystep/ss/howtocutamango.htm


I hope this helps you shop for mangoes and enjoy the luscious taste of the King of Fruits :).