Why do so many bloggers in Brunei show pictures of their food? How can anybody anywhere in the world possibly have any interest whatsoever in what I ate for lunch?
OK, OK, so people in England talk endlessly about the weather, and this can seem pretty bizarre to people from elsewhere. In linguistics, we call this phatic communication: most conversations take place to oil the wheels of social interaction rather than to exchange information. And it has long been known that only a small percentage of things we say actually provide new information, such as or 'Beethoven died in 1827' or 'Salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine' or 'The meeting is next Monday'. Instead, most of what we say every day consists of things such as greetings, apologies, expressions of appreciation and other ways to ensure that our progress through life is comfortable and sociable. And discussions of the weather fit exactly into that kind of framework, as they offer an opportunity for extended phatic communication.
Now, the weather in tropical places such as Brunei does not change much from day to day, so it would rather quickly get pretty tedious as a topic of conversation. And that is maybe why people discuss food instead. Indeed, in Singapore, the standard greeting in the middle of the day is 'Have you eaten your lunch?'.
Even so, showing photos of one's lunch on a blog seems pretty strange to me. Do people in England take photos of the weather and put them on their blogs? Maybe they do, I don't know. I have to admit I don't follow too many personal blogs of people in England, so I'm rather out of touch.
Anyway, just in case you were concerned, the curry puffs and tomatoes were delicious!
