Physical Training

Physical Training is so popular in the Unites States, but it is only for champion of activity in China. That is because of the big different on the lifestyle, eating and on the mind.

Different from the United States, vegetable and rice is the main food for Chinese in breakfast, lunch and dinner. So that Chinese people think they don’t need to do heavy training as a way to become healthy. In china, old people wake up earlier in the morning and do light physical training, and most teenagers play basketball, soccer as the main way of physical training. However, people who is between thirty and sixty years doesn’t have any physical training during normal days. Some of them may spend time to travel in the holiday but someone doesn’t have any physical training for months. That is one of the main problem Chinese people have today.

When I first went to the United States, I fell excited for so many people walking or running on the sides of the streets. I fell that Americans looks so strong than most of Chinese. I tried to find the reason on eating, minds and the environment.

Most American have a high percentages of meat in dinner and lunch. However, rice and vegatable is more important in China. That cause Chinese won't become fat without enough physical training. On the other hand, Americans need to do a lot of Physical Training for high precentage of meat they eat. In addition, most of the huge cities which has a high population always means huge air pollution. That makes outside phsical training doesn't make a heathy people.

Thus, there is more reasons just like no enough room for people to running outside in huge city in China and so on. However, the style of eatting, people's mind and the environment pollution are the main reasons for Chinese don't have enough physical training.

Chinese Knoting

Traditional Chinese decorative knots, also known as Chinese knots, are typical local arts of China, it has a long history which was appeared in Tang Dinasty and became popular in the end of Ming Dinasty.

They are a distinctive and traditional Chinese folk handicraft woven separately from one piece of thread and named according to its shape and meaning. In Chinese, Chinese knoting means reunion, friendliness, peace, warmth, marriage, love, and so on. Chinese knots are often used to express good wishes, including happiness, prosperity, love and the absence of evil. Mostly,It can be seen during the festival.

The Chinese knot is based on over a dozen basic knots named according to their distinctive shapes, usages, or origins.Except for the Two-Coins Knot, the Chinese knot is three dimensional in structure. It comprises two planes tied together leaving a hollow center. Such a structure lends rigidity to the work as a whole and keeps its shape when hung on the wall. The hollow center also allows for the addition of precious stones.The Chinese knot, with its classic elegance and ever-changing variations, is both practical and ornamental, fully reflecting the grace and depth of Chinese culture.

Chinese knoting is one of the best gift and souvenir to buy. If you wish to visit China in the future, you should not miss it.

Life Style- The Diet

As everyone knows, the navigation and the colonization of Europeans cause they have foods which easy to store. As a result, there is a huge different between Chinese and Americans on breakfast, lunch and dinner. Rich, as one of the main foods for Chinese people can be seen in breakfast, lunch and also dinner.

In my opinion, I felt most Americans does not eat a lot during lunch, most of them having sandwich. However, beefsteak always be found on the dinner. (That’s my experience in the Campus mess hall.) That’s different in China, when I was in primary school; teachers always told us “Good breakfast, full lunch, nice and simple for dinner”. That is the healthiest styles for eating Chinese believe.

Rice, as the most common primary food for Chinese people. It has history for thousands of years and it is also the first primary food Chinese people had. In my hometown, Nanjing; people have rice for breakfast, lunch and also dinner. As my father said “I always feel hungry if I don’t have rice.” When I was in China, even I have had lunch; I also think I didn’t have it if there were no rich.

Because people don’t have time to cook rice during early morning hundreds of years before, so they made so many kind of snack for breakfast. ShaoMai, as one of the famous snack people have during the breakfast. It can be made easily with glutinous rice and flour, looks like a volcano which can be seen on the visual above. After people made it, it can be eaten for several days. That's make it so convinence and popular.

Reflection about WOVE

In my opinion, the best part on WOVE I worked on is visual. Because I like to use visual relate to my essay a lot, or, visual which can show the background I want share to audience but I can't write in my essay. As an result, using visual become very important as ways of getting audience's attention, show background or as a supporting materials.

Just like the pie graph i used in the stereotype essay which can be seen on the left. This pie graph shows the world jewry population by regions, which i shared as source to get the result: Jews always live in regions with high GDP density. However, I could not share all information, all numbers on the table during my essay, sothat this pie graph help me a lot.

Another example of the visual I used is in the interview essay. I used a photo i found on line about an economic company which shows how people works. Because i do not have a photo about the company which the business man i interviewed workes in. On the other hand, i think the photo on the person does not helpful for the essay, because it doen't show any information about the job. So, I found several pictures of people working in the company and ask Larry to find the one which has a similar working environment as his company.

Thus, because i didn't have a good writting skills for the 2nd and 3rd essay we did, and i got some problems because of the too many adminstration i used in the presentation. However, i think i always choose the most useful and helpful visual for my essay.

The Blog Assignment - For Group Presentation

Our topic for the group presentation was the stereotype: All Jews are rich.
As a group, we decided which part each of us will work during the class we got this assignment. However, we got to know that we need to use the research sources to find the results and find out the main points from the results. We could not use our own opinion during our body paragraph. [We had decided that each of us talk about one way on the stereotype, Just like i will would do introduction and the history part (to support RICH), Jia Tu will do Jewish lifestyle and education background (to support RICH), Hao Liu and other guys will do the part to support Poor Jews with a conclusion].
So, we changed our parts of working. Firstly, I will make the introduction, the history, where this stereotype can be found and my sources that will support Jews are rich. Then, other guys will use their sources to support their points of view. After all, we will send the e-mail of our main points for the people who make conclusion. Then, others will send their final points of view and sources better with pictures to me and i will make our power point. Finally, I need to send the poerpoint to each of my group memebers and make sure they agree with it or fixed the mistakes.

Answers for the assignment questions:
Our decision on each one's parts went well, However, the connect went bad...i haven't got all e-mail until Sunday for the PPT.
For the power point, because someone send me a clearly outline with pictures, someone send the slides they have done, and someone just gave me short ideas; so, the presentation didn't have equal slides for all group members.
For My presentation, I tried to give the speech without paper, and wrote some main points on the cards. However, that doesn't work well. As I always forgot what I want to say and because of some vocabulary of local area which hard to say.
Next time, I will use less information or talk lesser about the background which is hard to say and focus on the examples or statistic result more. In addition, I will type more words on the slides so that I can look at the power point to find the part I forget. That will make me don't stop the speech for remeber next idea.

The religions in China, and why the religion in China declined

Before European explorers arrived China. The most common religions in China were Taoism and Buddhism. Buddhism was first appeared in India and came to eastern Asia thousands of years ago. And Taoism was a local religion appeared in SiChuan, the place which had a huge earthquake last year in western China.

Buddhism was welcomed by the government of China thousands year ago. Because it always ask believers don’t against hardship, don’t against their lords. It told the believers: “The much hardship you have now, the better life you will have in your next life”.(As the rule of Buddhism, when a person die, you will have a new life as a new animal—maybe human, maybe birds, maybe fish.” In their mind, the hardship you have now is because of you were a bad person on your last life. As a result, the government liked it because it helps the government controlled the people easily. The rich people like it, because they can give the money to the temples, so the religion will let they have a better life. In addition, the poor people like it because they give hopeless to them, that they will have a better life after they die. However, in Qing dynasty, (The last dynasty before the civil war of China began) because the temples asked their believers to give lots of money and lands. Tens of thousands of poor people lost their home to collect enough money for the temples. On the other hand, the temples have had lots of money without gave any to the government. As the war began, the government destroyed thousands of temples to get money to solve the bad economic because of the wars.

Taoism was very popular, because its rule, “You will have longer life if you believe our religion”. When someone is rich enough and very powerful, they always afraid of death, because they don’t want to loss things they have now. In deed that the kings of countries don’t want to die, Taoism was welcomed by powerful and rich people. Taoism asked people to have a simple and natural life. However, as the technology developed a lot. People find many ideas of Taoism is not true, and Chinese people got interested in the new stuffs come from all over the world, they don’t want to have a natural or simple life.

In summary, all of the old religions in China disappeared in the history. Most of Chinese people believed the communist party after the civil war as the only religion they had. However, after so many people were killed during Cultural Revolution of China, many people lost their regions and didn’t know what to do.


Ps: you may get confuse on “Taoism”, the mysterious of it was come from the local environment, as can be seen on the picture above. Because of the local environment, those mountains were always covered with cloud, and the temples of Taoism were all located in those mountains. It asked people to have a simple and natural life, but as the people know more on our environment, they find out how those clouds come from. They don’t feel any mysterious from those temples anymore.
A good region always asks people to do good things, and make a better society. However, when people find the region he believed was wrong or bad, he will loss the way or don’t know what to do. When someone loss the way on his life, he may do bad things.

What is the difference between Chinese and Americans do during the festivals?

Chinese people and Americans do different things during the festival because of culture difference.
As everyone knows, there are many differences in our daily life. As an example, Chinese restaurant is so different than Americans. In China, people think a good restaurant should be lively. It also can be explained as “Lots of noise”, people think that means people like this restaurant so they come with their friends.

During the festivals in China, just like Middle Autumn Day, people like to invite their friends to a restaurant and have lunch with them. Then, they will have a dinner with their family (I mean all of the members: Grandparents, parents, uncle and so on). That is also a busy day because that is always the date for the markets to reduce their prices, and every stores open for the whole night.

In China, many cultural activities have been forgotten. However, the things on eating, just like what should we eat in a special festival once become the most important thing. I always feel having dinner with the my family means the all of the festival. During the festival, people need to spend twice as much as normal price for cooked cuisine only with nice name. (As an example, a soup worth 20 yuan , and during the festival, the restaurant will change its name to a good wish or others with a price 40-85yuan.)

Ps: Visual above shows the room for families have dinner.

The culture artifact---Taxi, How it is difference in China?

Taxi is one of the most important transportation vehicles in China. Different from the United State, the rate of car owner divide by the population in China has a huge different than the United States.

The vehicles for hiring were first appeared in England. In the early eighteenth century, a rich man will hire a cabriolet when he plans to have a tour. People use the abbreviate word “cab” as the vehicles for hiring. The most common cause of “Taxi-car” was a story in a spring evening in 1906. Aron went to see a opera with his girlfriends, and when he went back home, the driver of carriage let he spend ten times of normal fees. So that Aron had conflict with the driver because he don’t want to pay that much. Finally, he got hurt by the driver. When he recovers from hunt, he asked a watchmaker friend to make a count machine to cars and want to make “Taxi-car” to instead of the carriage.

Chinese people mostly use bicycles, bus or taxi as transportation. The huge population make it is impossible to allow everyone has their own cars. So that taxi becomes much important as the population grows. During the busy hours, the buses are always full and taxi becomes very popular. You can see so many people stand on sides of the street and looking for an empty taxi. However, the taxies are always full.

In the United States, taxi is an expansive transportation. Mostly be found in huge cities, train station or airfield. People need to plan or to call for a taxi in most places. In my opinion, that because of the expansive manpower fee and the huge percentage of car owner in the United States.

Thus, the taxi in China is a very important vehicle and I believe it will become much important in the future, because the population explosion is a huge problem that hardly be solved.

What’s the difference between Ghost Day in China and the Halloween?

My second essay was based on Halloween, and I described a little of a similar festival in China—“The Ghost Day”, here I will describe more information about ghost day and I will compare the similar and the difference between Ghost day and Halloween in details.
In China, there is a festival which has a similar meaning with Halloween. We call it “Ghost Day”. There are several Ghost days based on lunar calendar in China. The Ghost day can be explained as the festival of ghosts. The famous ghost days are: March the third, July the seventh and QingMing festival, October the first. In the southern east of China, people believe the ghost will come out on March the third and people set off firecrackers to get the ghost away. People in different regions focus on different of them. In my hometown, QingMing festival is a very important festival, people will visit a grave to cherish the memory of the dead in their family. (The graph on the left is what people do during QingMing festival.) On July the seventh of lunar calendar, people think the leader of the dead people will open the gate and allowed the ghosts came back to our world for a short time and enjoyed things they could not have at their world. People will prepare some food, cloth or money for Sacrificial offering those ghosts. On every October the first, there is another ghost day in which people think they should buried some winter cloth for the dead people in their family in the other world.
In summary, the ghost day in China is more liked festival of visiting graves and sadly festival, and mostly remember by older people. However, Halloween is more interesting and exciting to the teenagers.

What’s difference between Chinese and the United States Culture?

China has a long history, so that it has a self culture system, both on the value, tradition and also religions. However, the United State has a short history, and a mixture of so many cultures.
Since the first settlers’ boat, the “Mayflower” arrived North America four hundreds year before. More and more settlers came to this “New Found Land” from European, Africa and Asia for better life. The society tries to make all cultures work well. Different cultures start to have conflict and mixture because of different value or tradition. Finally, it produces a special culture: pluralistic culture. People from different regions, different cultures give the pluralistic culture power to develop, Americans tried to solve the conflict and find the common ideas.

However, China has its own culture system, and the long history make children have lots of literature and history to learn. Children learn lots of experience and get to know what they can’t do. On the other hand, it also make people don’t like changing. Thus, it slowed the developing of the society. That is one of the main problems make all of the countries which have a long history (Roman=Italy, Spain, Egypt, India, China…) becomes the “developing countries”.

In summary, the long history make China has its own value, tradition; and make Chinese people proud of our country. But it also affects the developing and the changing of the society. America has a mixture culture, so that it allows different values or traditions get together and absorb the good ways. The laws in the United states says “Property is a sacred and inviolable right” to make sure everyone from different cultures will work hard for themselves. In china, people think public property is the most important, everyone need to work for it. However, working for public property will be useful during the conflicts (just like war), people can get together because of it. However, when the conflicts end, people won’t work hard if they could not get themselves property. In China, we think a good friend is people who can pass hardship with you and enjoy riches with you. However, there were so many people can pass hardship with you but could not enjoy riches with others in the history of China. (Example: Lots of kings in China who begins a Dynasty)

For more information: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/swzl/rwzg/index.htm Cultural of China
Chinese Government, cultural of China: http://www.chinaculture.org/index.html

Education of Chinese University

China has a different education style as the United Sates.

In China, students studied so hard in primary school, and become harder in senior and junior school. However, when a student gets into a university in China, they don’t need to study as hard as high school. That because the huge population and the few university in China. Here is an example, if we suppose there is 100 primary school, then, there is 20 famous high school, and only 1 famous university. (The “famous” I used above means the school or university which is very good) As a result, students studied so hard when they were young, but when they get into the University, they don’t need to worry about high level schools and only need to study for graduate. However, Chinese university is very easy to graduate, different from the university in the United States, many undergraduate students in China do not taken classes everyone, and they often borrow the notes from the classmates and review them right before the final exam.

For those students who in Senior or higher in the university, they always spend time on finding job, finding girlfriends instead of lessons. One of my friends told me that university students always forget what they learned before, that make some of the university students have a lower score than a graduating high school student in the same quiz.

Chinese Dragon

Chinese Dragon, or "Lung (龙)" is a major part of Chinese cultural. It is different from the Dragon European knows on shape and meanings.

In China, Dragon has the head as a KyLin(an animal means good things in China, hard to transfer to english), ear as a bull, mane as a lion, horn as a deer,mouse as a tiger,body as a snake, claw as a eagle, scale as a carp and tail like a goldfish. Lung also has different colors, most famous of them is gold as the king, yellow as water (Because the color of HuangHe river, one of the main rivers in China is yellow, that's caused by the lost of soil in upper stream).

Lung in China means happiness, immortality, procreation, fertility, activity and so many good emotion. Lung is also the design of Han nation, the main nation in China for thousands of years. Chinese Dragons were believed to ward off evil spirits. Take a look at a Chinese city and you will see dragons decorating ancient monuments and buildings, sometimes playing with a pearl or thunder-ball. One can also see dragons on the garments of ancient Chinese generals. The Emperor alone had nine of them on his brocade.

The goldern Lung means the king, the son of the sky. Thousands of years ago, Lung has been the design on the formal robe for the King in China. At that time, only the King and the family of the king can dress in Gold, and only the king can dress clothes with Lung on it. If anyone did not follow this rule, all of your famliy will be killed because goldern Lung means the Imperial authority, the power of the king.

Thus, Lung does not only means the power, rich , but also the Symble of people living in China. Chinese people are all pround on the Lung. If someone insult on Lung, all of Chinese people will become so angry, because it has been the symble in our blood.