Blessed Lives

What could be more precious than life? Two decades ago, we just trekked all the way from heaven down to the solid earth, which is filled with laughter, passion, adventure and miracles. Sunlight embracing, heart pumping, we have plenty of possibilities and a brand new blueprint to fulfill.

That’s why life is a prevailing theme that touches the most of people. When I was reading the report of 159 Chinese miners being rescued, I was moved to tears, even though I seldom shed tears in daily life. Moreover, this blessed feeling was rooted at the bottom of my heart, growing into a sunflower, which keeps reminding me of bright hope. The letter sent to the trapped miners read, “Dear fellow miners, the whole world is concerned about your safety… Hold on to the last.” Then they found the swaying light of a touch, apparently a sign of life. I was thrilled at these words. The thought of giving up hope of life never came into those miners’ minds, even though they witnessed some of their fellow workers’ dead bodies drifting in water, even though it was already the eighth day since the accident and has passed the best time of rescue, even though they were inflicted with pain, thirst and hunger, even though hope was rare.

Nothing could have supported them though eight dark and dreadful days except for yearn of life, which is so powerful that a lot of miracles were made to happen. Lately, especially the year of Beijing Olympic Games were held, several tragic events swept China. There were much heartbreaking news, yet more miracles inspired the whole nation. I dare say Chinese people are never short of spirits, never before, never after.

I tried to imagine the feeling when trapped miners were again bathed in the sun. It was hard to describe, but my eyes were filled with tears again. One thing is for sure, that each and every one of the miners, including those who were truly moved by the miracle, will be overwhelmed by the gratitude of being alive. No matter what difficulties we are faced with, the fact that we are alive is enough to serve as a reason to be glad and cheerful. Besides, we are also aware of the importance of living to the full, because no one knows when the blessed life comes to an end. But even when it does, we won’t regret, as the life we lived is meaningful and substantial enough.

The Cove---a shocking movie appealing for mercy!

Last time, I wrote a blog The Ugly Japanese which revealed some ugly aspects of Japanese. But after watching the movie The Cove, I realize what I wrote was not ugly enough at all. It’s a really true and proved fact that thousands of dolphins are being killed cruelly in Taiji of Japan. In some scenes, fishermen took a baby dolphin up and cut its throat pretending to help it fulfill its life. What’s more hatable is those engaged happily in capturing and slaughtering flippers never acknowledge the fact but scold and force tourists away who want to find some evidence in the cove. The fishermen get right in tourists faces and show the brutish facial expression. Many people are arrested for trying to free some captive dolphins. Some animal rights activists are even murdered over dolphin slave trade. Some nice-voice dolphins are sent to the ocean park around the world where the noisy pools do not fit dolphins at all, and those left are all killed and cut to sell meat.

We have some of the same physiological traits that whales, seals, and dolphins have. We’re all air-breathing mammals. They live in the water while we live on land. That’s all. But when we see the mind-boggling scene that the whole cove is filled with blood and horror scream, we cannot believe it is a fact that many dolphins are killed right now at some place in the world by our mankind’s hand. They’re doing it exactly like they did with large whales---slaughtering every one they can get. After the truth was exposed, some officials of Deputy of Fisheries for Japan were fired. The whole world realized it’s time to take actions to stop it. We can see there is still hope for dolphins’ future unless we all come and against those ugly Japanese! The main character in this documentary film claims that he must see this end in his lifetime. I also hope to see the end just in the near future. Still, the Taiji dolphin slaughter begins every September unless we stop it! At last, the film shows go to the following websites to support stopping it; yes, we can!
TakePart.com/TheCove
www.opsociety.org
www.savejapandolphins.org

Human beings in the old days and now

As we study deeper about our ancients, we know more about the way they lived, which is totally different from the way we live today. Their lifestyle is tough and simple when compared with ours, but human beings nowadays don't seem as happy as the ancients.
The first thing our ancients have to worry when they get up is the food of today. Thus they spent most of their time on finding food and fighting with the animals they might meet when looking for food. When we sigh at the hard life they had and think that we are so fortunate to live in a society full of technology that makes our lives much easier, at least we don't worry about food as much as our ancients do. As we have more free time than them, we end up with many things else such as computer games, MSN, facebook, of course boredom and so on, so that many people today still find time limited.
However, even though they were so engaged in the basic needs of life, some of them still found time to do the art. The pictures on the wall, the dance at midnight, the new words to communicate, all these things that we get from the relics show what they did in their spare time. When thinking of my spare time, I finds that I am so lacking in imagination compared to the ancients. All I do when I have nothing to do are sleeping, movie watching. I can not think of something that is more than entertainment. Or maybe I haven't found what I'm really interested in thus don't know where to use my energy.
Human beings in old days still live and live through all those years, while human beings now live a different life with so many conveniences but still find it hard. However, in my point, human beings don't have to write the essays as I do, which may make their lives a bit easier than mine.

If...

"If I had 10 million dollars, I would buy a villa.
Do I have 10 million dollars?
No.
So I still haven’t got a villa.
…
If the fire of loving you couldn’t be put out even I poured all the water in the Pacific Ocean out.
Can I pour all the water in Pacific Ocean out?
No.
So I still don’t love you."
This is from a once-famous internet novel called the first intimate contact. A man and a woman got to know each other because of this stupid poem above. They then fell in love with each other but didn’t speak out. The ending is pathetic that the woman got a very serious disease and died. The most moving part was that the last moment before she had died, she wrote another paragraph:
“If the fire of loving you couldn’t be put out even I poured all the water in the bathtub out.
Can I pour all the water in a bathtub out?
Yes.
So, I love you.”
When I was at Edison’s age, a person who was very important to me recommended it to me. I still remember that I have caught a cold that day, but kept on reading it late in the night.
Now I feel regretted to have returned the book to him. After I burned all the dairies I wrote about him, the novel seems to be the only substantive memory about him. Of course, I have considered buying another one. But another one has no meaning to me.
He has been buried deeply in my mind until the phrase “seize the day” in the movie reminded me again. Before I decided to forget it, I thought about it not less than one hundred times that maybe if either of us seized the chance rather than waiting, we’d been in the same university and I wouldn’t even been here, Harbin or Singapore. Unfortunately, fairy tales didn’t come down upon me.
If...
Given a time capsule, I would travel to tens of millions of years ago to find out whether we descent from apes for terrestrial.
Given a time capsule, I would travel to feudal China to find out why women were forced to band their feet for Mrs Yap.
Given a time capsule, I would like to travel to last year to find out what life would be like if I seized the chance for myself…

O Research, My research!

Our group –Amy, Qin, George, Laura and I—has already been working on our research for more than three weeks. To be honest and say, we never lack enthusiasm. In fact, most of our time was spend on aboil debate. We all have different opinions and usually can’t easily get to an agreement because for most times we just can’t convince each other.
As far as I know, our group is the only one that worked out the questionnaire before our topic was decided. So you can see our enthusiasm from that. Luckily, we have five people in our group, so when we can’t agree with each other, we have to vote. We chose our topic as ‘Privacy on Social Media’ ultimately, because we were all bored with eternal nagging debate. Then we found that our thinking had been limited to our first questionnaire, we had to do it again and find some methods to measure people’s awareness which is very difficult for us. After hard brainstorm, some of us came up with some good ideas. George always has his own thinking style and sometimes his style helps a lot. He offered a method with several questions in a series. I also offered another way to measure our data which need people to rank the options. Then our group had a really ardent discussion which lasted for nearly two hours but we didn’t solve our problems. However, our debate did have some functions. At the end of that night, we knew what we lacked.
Yesterday, three of us went to Centre Library after class to search for information. We found some books useful and interesting. To my surprised, I found that there were pencil labels in many books I need. Sometimes it appeared exactly the chapters I wanted. So I thought there may be someone doing or had already done the same research.
I like to work in our group, though sometimes I feel upset when my opinions are objected. We are a team, which means one for all, not all for one. And I know clearly that a team won’t improve without discussion and debate.

The differences between the chopsticks used in China, Japan and Korea

A lot of people in East Asian use chopsticks as their tableware, for example, China, Japan and Korea. But if you look at these chopsticks carefully, you will find some differences between them.

Firstly, the material is different. Chopsticks from China or Japan are made of wood or willow whereas those in Korea are made of metal. The reason is the Koreans like to eat barbeque, if they use a wood pair, it would be burnt in the broiling grill. But metal chopsticks are a bit heavy, so Chinese and Japanese prefer the wood ones. On the other hand, many Japanese chopsticks are made of willow as Japanese think willow can exorcise evil spirits.

What’s more, the tips of the chopsticks are also distinct. The tips of Chinese chopsticks are flat while those of Japanese chopsticks are sharp. Japanese like to eat raw meat, especially sashimi which is so smooth that it is quite hard to pick up with chopsticks. So their chopsticks’ tips are sharp to stab the raw meat, like a harpoon. In contrast, Chinese seldom eat raw meat, so the tips are flat. There is a rule in China: if you cannot pick up food with chopsticks, you can even throw it away but never stab it. Because stabbed food are for the dead.

A further difference between the three is the length. Chopsticks in China and Korea are longer than those used in Japan. China and Korea continue the theories of Confucius that they regard unity as a virtue. So it is so common to see a Chinese family eat together and pick up food from the same plate. A long pair of chopsticks make it easily to pick up food that is on the other side of table and you can also pick up food for others to show your polite. On the contrary, Japanese always eat separately. Everyone has his own portion of food so there is no need to use a long pair of chopsticks.

Comments by ZhaoTong

blog 6

to Yin Shuqing:
The same feeling with you ! In China,we did a lot of practice as preparing for final exams but here, we just learn and don't be familiar with what to be tested and how we are going to be examed. So, some time later, we can handle more with these "awful" exams!

to Unicorn:

You shouldn't be here.I saw the potential to be a great author on you.May next Nobel prize belong to you because you seems a good writter who often come up with new ideas." The writters are outsiders and professional daydreamers who get paid to write down their dreams."

to Felix:
Hah,we really turned off the lights,but played computers in the dark! In another way, we comsumed electricity.Anyway,we can notice the importance of the very hour in that day.I really hope there being a Earth day when we can't use electricity all day and just play at "night",even it is not practical.

to Amy:
Really great! Deep thoughts! I like it ! Indeed, being ourselves is easy to say than done.Just cast away those heavy annoying garments and move forward and upward !

to Bao Kaixuan:
I find myself being delighted more to keep English diary so do my roommates.It a good way to put down our feelings and thoughts while using English.But I think we'd better try not using Chinese-English distionary as just translating instead of depicting what we really want to write.

blog 7

to Cady:
You're really capatable remembering such many cartoons that we are familiar with! I enjoyed them very much,but what a pity that we cannot watch them on TV any more.I think watching and remembering cartoons that companyed us for long time is not a behavior representing still immature. They are really alive in our mind.

to Amy:
We had the near seats and I experienced your feelings then. Although many don't like Mayday so much, I must confess that, they are really good. They have their music vigerous and their own style.Hope you have another chance to reunit with them.

to Gwendoline:
It's not bad up to now, and every minute of our work deserves greeting and cheering.At lease, we managed to start well; I'm looking forward to our big finishing!

to George:
Good! We all pray for our people in our country and give them our best wishes.Those passed will be remembered forever while the alive must be encouraged.

to mingxia:
I also also also love this movie!!!
It's amazing that there is a movie revealing tha darkness of original society and the never-droped hope in human's heart.It affects me much that I'd like to hold my hope up forever!

blog 8

to Shalley:
What a unique view you have! I like the perfect thread the debaters have when undertaking such a severe debate.It shows a good logical analyzing ability and a calm mind.If I can choose my ability designed, being good at debating will be the first choice.

to Elian:
Some of the Thai food is not suitable for us from North-East proviences.But I like to try and gradually enjoy them!

to Hanle:
I really really want to go and enjoy the EXPO in Shanghai! Well, when comes to the question mentioned, I think it is just the very reason we came here. That is to say, we need to learn knowledge and technology of deleloped country, don't we?

to Yin Shuqing:
How time flies! Well, I don't like Thai food very much because it includes a smell that seldom appears in food of my town.Anyway, it's a good idea to try something different, isn't it?
to Florence:
Wah~ I still remenber the first time I got a little flower as a prize because I manage to finish a typing game within fixed time when I was about 5 years old. The point is, all the classmates then couldn't make it like me until several months later ! haha~

blog 9
to Shelley:
What a beautiful scene it was! I'm dening you because my host family didn't show much hospitality, and the nearest meeting won't come until next month! no words...

to Charles:
Yes, maybe we can regard it as our motivation giving us the energy to step forward. I wish one day, iPod became a toy that comes in handy.Besides I found you are good at economy, isn't it?

to Amy:
Fortunately, when it was our turn to try that game, a severe storm came. But we witnessed the whole process of another term. It'a a dangerous game asking for coorperation spirit. Your topic sentence remind me of a sentence in catoon Conan, that is " a secret makes a woman woman" haha~

to Elian:
Wah~ marvelous! You linked the little ants to the environment problems and analyzed it well! I was shocked that the ants here were so big like little evils~

to George:
Once there was a great chance but I didn't cherich. I regreted until I lost it. If I was offered another chance to fix it, I would say: I really want to eat Braised Meat Pau !

blog 10

to Charles:
Actually, the price here is not very different from that in Beijing or Shanghai;anyway, Im going to Malaysia to buy a lot of stuffs!

to Laura:
just follow what interests us! Prepared, no regret! Hope everyone of us can get a good grade in each facuilty~

to Wang Yunxiang:
Don't be sad guy, next time we'd pat a visit to Esther's together and memory our Bridgin time~

to Amy:
Anyway, you are more fortune than I am, in the service programme, I was asked to company and serve the eldly. you know, they sometimes ack like kids but we cannot play highly with them. Something must go wrong with my RP!!

to Bao Kaixuan:
how grateful I can feel in this blog! anyway, everything will end at last, and I hope all of us can move further both upward and forward in the future !!