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Inherent Properties Communicating Costs

Back alley restaurant in the suburbs of Chongqing gains multiple benefits skewering vegetables and meats: most obviously the produce is already prepared for the grill; the skewer helps display what is being sold in a standardised format; allows customers to select their own raw ingredients without making hand contact; allows the restaurant to easily track how much each table has consumed; and not least communicates how much each item costs - pricier items being embedded with more than one skewer. Somewhat surprisingly everything turns up in a stir fried mess. Less surprisingly it arrives swimming in oil and covered in red/green chillis.

And the digital equivilent of skewer / multiple-skewer pricing?

Tonight's sounds include to our left the croak batch frogs being slaughtered and to our right a table full of male students working their way through a roster of loud drinking games.

Sort of related: tales of the flesh in Chengdu.

Writing from Chongqing | May 29, 2007 | Permalink