Re: CHAT: various infotaining natlang tidbits

Jonathan Chang wrote:
>    Incidently, hardcore Cantonese see European-types as being similarly
>monstrous - not just cuz of body hair, facial hair, large size/girth, &
body
>odour (due to eating horrendous amounts of red meat) >>
That's an interesting fact, confirmed by personal experience (I wonder if
there's anything scientific to back it up?)--  maybe the absence of dairy,
butter, wheat etc. has something to do with it too.  My first six weeks in
Indonesia, with radical change in diet,  I dropped 20 lbs, which have never
returned. Despite much sweating, I didn't smell.  Oddest (personal
confession time), I stopped biting my fingernails..........???(and haven't
resumed).  Toward the end of my year, I was in the countryside, and noticed
that the water-buffalo didn't shy away from me, either.
I only recall one Indonesian with BO-- an older Ambonese, Christian,
probably ate a Dutch-ified diet??  To be fair, maybe he just didn't bathe
that often-- at least twice a day was the norm for most.  Maybe bathing with
cold (room temp.) water keeps the pores more tightly closed?