A BOOK REVIEW----《China》BY Neil Leach

My friend sent this book to me as a gift.

The book is named, China. On the webpage of an online bookshop, it's said that the author gives decisive and contemporary portraits of popular icons through short, thematic texts, accompanied by photos taken by Gutierrez + Portefaix. Subjects include Mao, the Great Wall, video games, karaoke, etc., and their relation to Chinese culture. It portrays China as the new America - not only a leading industrial nation, but also a dynamic center of world culture.

There are several sentences impressed me.

Even with a lifetime experience in China, nobody could say he knows China. I don't really know China, just understand it.Moreover, I don't know the whole world, even can not understand it.

It's same to many foreigners who are interested in China. This book full of his questions of china and opinions of the world. No flattery and bias.

Several year before, gossip faned the fantasy of the perfect west and the ignorance east. Once we are in the east or west, as he said, we notice that there are so many layers beneath the surface level of a society, even just a single person.

Unfortunately it's become such a trend for something to be the new something else these days. People are always trying to take a short-cut in explaining their point. Unfortunately, it also works. Especially for Americans (who would also be unaware that comparisons of one Asian country with another need first to consider their histories together, at the very least).

In the apparent chaos, there is a certian order. All the produce is carefully graded and divided into separete piles. Everthing has its place. Patterns of self-organisation, it seems, emerge within any complex system."

Regaring the bicycles and open-markets in China, regulations are not tight. A foreigner can hardly riding in Beijing cos it's too dangerous. In an open-market, the acrid smell of veges and the pungent perfume of dies fish fill the air. There are pink mountains of dried shrimps and piles of crabs. They suffered terribly before their death. However, people have getting used to it. "Patterns of self-organisation, it seems, emerge within any complex system".Uh-hha, a very smart piece of comment!)

I recommend this book here because it's thin but comprehensive, it's full of questions but holds a neutral point of view, it not very expensive but ....

Hi Everyone

Hello all my classmates and my two kind teachers. here is my cousin's letter to her EX-BoyFriend, because that guy got married and asked her to attend their weddings. However, my cousin was in British so she sent him an email and she feels really bad. With the permission of my cousin, I will post his letter and I want you guys can help me to think about some ways to console my cousin.



Here is the letter:



Hey baby:



i have got your message and invitation.



Thanks very much and congratulations.



For a long time...i cannot get rid of you...cannot get over from our memory...



The funny thing about life is that the most profound things are often the most banal...



there is no unique part in our story..just like the most ordinary relationship in the whole world..



Someone has told me that...Time is a great healer...and Nothing lasts forever...



i believe that you will live a better life than the life i can offer you....



that's really enough for me...

i feel happy for you from the bottom of my heart if you find your right girl finally....



sorry about the absence at your wedding...6because i am here in the United Kingdom...it is really far away from our hometown...the same place we fell in love...



it is a whole new life here...which is totally different from the past....



both of us have changed a lot...especially me...i am not that little girl who needed you so much before..and you...i know you are already a strong man who i wished you to be at that time..i wish i would be there and be a part of the most important moment in your life...but...sorry again...and best wishes...



remember to be cool and be good!!



take the best care of your girl..never hurt her in the same way..



i will always wish you a happy life...with all the love and without me..

Congratulations!





What happened is my cousin and this guy who got married broke up 2 years ago, but when she got this message she said it's really a strange feeling. She said she write this letter with smile, but she cannot read it once more. She feels very bad now but I don't know how to comfort her.
If you have any good ideas, just told me by comments.

Thanks a lot.

Language is always a BUT

It's paradoxical, isn't it? Most time we are seeking for a unique answer to our questions, all kinds of. Some say because we are very lazy, we want to find the exact (and the only right) way to solve our problems. But really can we?

Psychology can not. None of them can solve all the metal problems, So there are many psychologies. Maybe you will shake your head to my example. Why not physics. The speed of acceleration of gravity is always 9.81 metres per second. Well, it is. But what will happen a thousand years later? I don't know. Everything is relativistic and temporary.

Language is no exception.

Last week I went to attend a lecture on Pragmatics. The whole was boring, repeated theoretical cliches, you can imagine. Almost at the end of the lecture, the lady began to give some conclusions. Then she gave an example, which aroused my curiosity.She said she had an American colleague. One day there was a class exchange on his schedule: his Tuesday's lecture would be postponed to NEXT Thursday. Then the lady told the guy not to come Tuesday but NEXT Thursday. Nothing seemed wrong.

Everything was perfect. However, on Thursday afternoon, the guy suddenly appeared in the lady's office and told her that he had been waiting in the classroom for the whole afternoon, but on students came! Oh, my God, the lady was absolutely confused, did I tell him the wrong date? No, of course not. I asked him to come NEXTThursday. Then what was wrong?All wanted to know the answer. Then the lady smiled and expained to us: We Chinese take time as a period, while English-speaking people take time as a point. So NEXT Thursday to us, definitely should be the Thursday of NEXT WEEK, while they take Tuesday as the time point, so NEXT means "following immediately". No doubt NEXT Thursday is the coming Thursday of THIS week.

Fun, isn't it? Maybe you guys here have never thought about that. Me too. We take it for granted that NEXT THURSDAY is the Thursday of NEXT week. Well, then, I guess many students will remember this, and take the lady's words into their hearts. (That's what Chinese education is! We are trained to act like that!)
But is it universally true? I doubted on the way home. The best way, and easiest way is simply to ask a native speaker (or a group of native speakers, to be more precise). So I wrote an email to my supervisor (a native speaker) to ask about this question.
What happened?*

Fun!
This is the orginal words from his email: I have argued with years with my wife about this as NEXT Saturday = THIS COMING Saturday to me, but the one after for her (and probably most people). A charitable view is that people vary and you generally need to check what they intended.

There is no unique answer. Even natives disagree!

So next questions to me are: are the American guy and my supervisor represent the majority or my supervisor's wife? What do we teach our students if we never know, or even we know this rule? No grammar books will tell us that rule. Not even our English teacher. This is the language what people actually use. Maybe there is a unique answer according to authoritative grammar books. Well, there is no unique answer to what people actually speak every day. ETS can check if you understand the difference between an attributive clasue and an appositive clause. Well, they will never know if you can use "NEXT Saturday" correctly when you are inviting your foreign friends to have dinner with you! What do natives really care about our English? I am not sure the exact ranking, but definitely, pronunciation, the correct choice of words and your manner overweigh the grammar rules. Remember, most of you are training to communicate with native speakers, but not to be linguists! Make sure you are learning to deal with people, but not grammar books!

Langugage is always DESPITE OF.

Being happy with your job is more important than high salary

Perhaps no issue in this world is as basic to individual survival as job.Despite the numerous responses people may have on the topic concerning the debate that which is more important between happy and salary. Give the chance to make a decision, I would prefer to the latter point—being happy with job.Considerable importance to the job obviously is happy condition.With regard to my reasons come three reasons hereupon listed.

Firstly, do a job with the mood of happiness is more helpful to achieve some accomplishments.a famous philosopher, was once quoted as saying, "a good spirit is a guarantee of our career", which was directly matches what I am getting at.We cannot emphasize a good mood in the course of working too much.In addition, many of staffs have been working all-day in office.A fantastic emotion is necessary for them to gain a deal of achievements in competitive daily.

The second point of my idea is that happy emotion exerts a affirmative influence to communication with other.We live in a world which knowledge is accumulated by multiply.In order to keep the pace of developments of society, communication with other is a dispensable part of our life.For example, if you could talk other in humor or comfortable, I am sure of that the happy emotion what you have will be advantageous to your communication abilities.

To further clarify, being happy with your job is conducive to acquire potential opportunities of career in future.To explain, I would like cite another example of a particular person who fits into this category.My friend, Eric, who was working in an office, is a person with kindness.He has been fascinating with his responsibility in work.Owing to his active attitude towards job, he often praised by his colleague while promotes to an administrator of Technology Department.In my opinion, this is a incomparable example to illustrate my point.

Overall, we may see through appearance to perceive the essence, although salary is a significant factor to be considered for our survival, we are supposed to put emphasis place on being happy with our jobs.From what I said before, it boosts my in confidence endorse being happy with job than high salary.

Government should focus on preserving natural environment less than on economic development.

Recent changes in government priorities have seen a reduction in financial support for natural environment preservation. This is occurring at a time when there is severe soaring pollution on envrionment and increasing rise of economic development. The issue of environment and development has been the subject of dispute for some time. Many argue that government should concentrate on economic development more than protecting natural environment in order to satisy basic needs of the general public. However, it is my contention that government should be strongly urged to provide more financial assistantce envrionment preservation for the alarming damages done by pollution.

It has been argued that a large number of children in remote and impoverished area are still suffering from insufficient education by some experts. Many, as this argument goes, are forced to drop from elementary school for their parents could not afford it. It is concluded therefore that government should make economic development top priority other than envrionment preservation. However, since China has ranked as the fourth economic power according to the annual report released by World Bank in 2006, the government is able to appropriate a large amount of funds for the development of remore areas. The access of children to education could be easily expected. In addition, as economic development is no more our headache, or a blessing, it should not stand top on our agenda.

On the other hand, severe pollution brought about by heavy industry is a big headache, or a curse to the publich and government. It is envrioment preservation that should engage much attetion of our government. According to the study conducted by the Ministry of Health, mass heath is peeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. It is a tragedy that only one percent of the five hundred million city dweller have the right to breathe safe air. Nearly five hundred million people are deprived of drinking clean water. If our government continues to ignore environment degradation with the excuse of economic development, no doubt that we will have to pay far more higher price for the lesson.

It is ture that economic development is fundamentally important. However, natural enviroment is highly worthy of our government’s attention and appropriation. No one is willing to see numerious cities wrapped toxic gray shroud, deprived of sunshine, devoid of clean water and air. No one is ready to embrace this catastropic. So, maybe it is the time to take a stand, to rever the tide, or we will not all end up in dead cities.

People work because they need money to live, What are some other reasons that people work?

It is said that the reason why most people work is because they need money to live. Of course, money is an important reason. However, in my mind there are many other reasons that people work for, such as sense of responsibility, self achievement, or just interest.

Firstly, a lot of people work for their responsibility. Soldirs work for the safety of the country, and teachers work for the growth of the next generation. My father is a very good example. He is a physician . He always tells me that he works for the patient. What makes him happy is not the high salary, but the recovery of the patient he treated.

In addition, many people work for self achievement. Those people usually have high salary and prestige. They don't need to work very hard to maintain a reputable life, but they still do that. Why? Because they have something want to accomplish. For example, my supervisor, a chair professor of my university, is an absolute "professor", working from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm everyday. Of course, he earns a very high salary, but in his eyes, achievement in scientific research is more important to his life. That's why he works so hard.

Moreover, some people just work because they like it. Jerrie is one of my best childhood friend. She planned to be a tourism guider when she was very young. The reason is very simple - She likes travelling. Taking a job such as tourism guider can allow her to travel all over the world.

Obviously, money is not the only reason for people to work. Sense of responsibility, tendency of self achievement, or maybe just interest can play an important role in people's career

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

Television has destroyed communication among friends and family. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion. Although is widely believed that TV has destroyed communication among friends and family as it takes lots of time which can be used with friends and family. However I do disagree with this point of view as in my opinion, TV did not hinder the communication, indeed, to some extend, TV does even enhance the communication.

The first thing I want to mention is that , it is not the TV itself that cost our time which maybe spend with our relatives as whether to watch TV, how much time would we like to spend on them is depend on our personal will. The one with great will power can refuse to watch TV, even the most attractive one.In addition, the news or information that TV has transformed to us, such as, important event, lasted movies and interesting anecdote is the original souse that our talking with friends would to concern. One can hardly image what will life be without the common topics we got from TV. So, in terms of this, one should absolutely admitted that TV, indeed, do favor in our communication.

Furthermore, the newly advanced technology such as TV-based games, karaoke singer on TV, which will enhance the communication while watching TV, as it not only require talking, but also need interaction among the players.

In conclusion, TV, although suffered too much critics, does not destroyed our communication, and we should take a more critical attitude towards it.

Studying at home

Thanks to the fast updated technology, studying at home will no longer be a slot in the fiction. With the help of computer, internet, digital television and other modern technique, students can take courses at home just as they did in the traditional schools, whereas I would still prefer the traditional way of studying.
Although the modern technique brings us much convenience and almost changes our life style, I don't think we should depend on the machines too much. It is quite common that college students do not know how to communicate with each other if the conversation is not conducted on line, which is a real tragedy for the so called developed society, since we have lost our basic ability of oral communication. To this extent, using digital ways to study at home is also harmful to the students' grown up.
What's more, I strongly believe that the vivid teaching and learning process in the traditional class will enhance the learning effect in a great sense. We have to confess that it is also possible for students to do the discussions through the internet, but because of the limitation of the net enviroment and teaching resourses, those discusisions can never be as efficient as the normal face to face one .
Also, learning at school will necessarily provide you more opportunity to build friendship with all your schoolmates, and take part in some activities as well. As we all know, study does not only means gaining knowledge from the books, but also the application of what we've learned in our real life. Only by doing these could we become competitive in our future career in the modern society.
To summerize my points, in order to accomplish whole person's development it is much better for students to go to traditional school in which they can not only obtain knowledge efficiently, gain friendships, correct values, but the basic skills of communication and cooperation at the same time as well.

How to make Chinese Traditional Tea.

I love Chinese tea, especially a very old fashion one that called "Kongfu Tea". Now let me teach my friends how to make it. First of all, you should prepare all the utensils, include teapot, teacup, kettle, electric stove or alcohol stove, and a tea tray.Befor make tea, you should use the hot water to warm the teapot. Then put the tea into the tea pot and use hot water to wash the tea, which means pouring water out of pot as soon as possible. It's very nice to use this water to warm the teacup. Now you can use hot water to make tea. Before pouring the tea into teacup, you'd better to clean the bottom of the teapot in order to avoid the water on the bottom to drop in teacup. As soon as you finish all these steps, you can pour the tea into the teacup. While you are drinking the tea, using your nose to smell it. You should finish it by drinking it three times.
OK, this is the right step to drink the "Kongfu Tea". Do you think it too complex? Or do you think it very enjoyable? I like it very much. However, I have no utensils here and I also very busy, so I did not try it for a long time. I hope I can try it several when I back to China.

Working

Last week, with the help of my friend Chenz, I found a part time job in Tim Hortons.

It's my first time to work outside and I felt really excited. The first day when I came back home I was too excited to went to sleep.

For this job, I had a big argue almost with all my family members. They are afraid that it will have bad influence to my study. But in my case, I know I have a lot of time, I can do some part time job. I think it's a kind of experience, it will be very useful to me.

I asked some of my classmates, many students their parents don't allow them do part time job,the reason is their parents all afraid whether it has some bad influences to their study.However, many of them made their own choice.Just like me.

May be our parents they're right.But I think many people when they are in 19 or 20 they all want to have a independent life, especially for boys.Most of the time we don't like do what other people make us do.We prefer to experience something by ourselves.

OK,some people will say that you parents' experience can help you to be succeed very soon,but in my opinion, to get a completely life,we must experience many different things, included failing and successful.

Many young people have many arguments with their parents, it's a very common scence.We have different views for the world-----that's why.

First journal

It's my first to write a English blog.Nowadays,blog is very popular in China,maybe it's also very popular in Canada-I'm not sure.However,I rarely write it,except writing for my girlfriend...because in fact I don't like writting,both in English and Chinese.I think maybe I'm not very good at expressing myself or I don't like express myself.So this time will be a great challenge to me.I'll try my best to write something to share.
I like Chinese poem,because when I read it,I can have a kind of fantastic feeling.I want to share it with my international friends and Chinese friends,so I want to translate one of these perfect poems to English.But it's out of my ability...So here I have one that translated by my teacher.

The sun along the mountains bows,
The Yellow River seawards flows.
You will enjoy a grander sight,
If you climb to a greater height.

I like this translation.My Chinese friends may understand it easily.So I just want to know does it make sense to my international friends?