6/24/2014 The Differences between Eastern and Western perception of beauty

 

    

        These years, more and more Chinese girls became famous super model of the world. But some of them are not beauties for Chinese. This appearance attracts many people’s interests. Chinese are eager to know the perception of Chinese beauty for westerner.

 

      Yan Lv is a really typical character of the difference. Super Model---Lv, Yan

   Lv began her modeling career in 1999, in which she was spotted by famous stylist Li Dongtian. Lv, with small eyes, a flat nose and a freckled face, is by no means pretty by the Chinese standards. However, the "ugly girl" grew up to become a supermodel on global catwalks. Lv went to Paris in 2000 when she was only 19 and rose to fame. In 2000, Lv won second place at the International Supermodel Pageant, the highest-ever ranking for a Chinese model in an international contest.

 

 

 

 

       This different perception also happens on Chinese. Anne Hathaway, an American actress. Chinese think she is so beautiful and looks like an angel. But after I ask many American girls opinions about her, I got deceptive. They told me they think she is good, but she is not a real standard beauty for America. So does Daniel Wu, a Chinese actor. Chinese girls are crazy for him! He is so hot. But American girls just think he is ok and cute, and not handsome.

          Although there is big difference of eastern and western perception of beauty, and is also really hard to define beauty. But everyone should know that confident people are most beautiful. We all should love ourselves and be confident.

Here are another things that western and eastern are different: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cytr0MOH4tY

6/22/2014 Qi Pao, the Chinese traditional costume

Qi Pao, also called "cheongsam", is a body-hugging and one-piece dress, it is one of the most typical, traditional costumes for Chinese women.The name "cheongsam," meaning simply "long dress," entered the English vocabulary from the dialect of China's Guangdong Province (Cantonese). In other parts of the country including Beijing, however, it is known as "Qi Pao", which has a history behind it.

Introduction of Qi Pao

Qi Pao appears in Qing Dynasty (1644). It’s the daily costumes of Manchu people (Manchu is one of Chinese nation). At that time Manchu people governed Qing Dynasty. On1645, the empror of Qing Dynasty required every person wears Qi Pao, and it becomes adopted by Chinese in the next 300 years.

But in 1949, Communist Revolution ended the Qi Pao, but the people in Shanghai, emigrant and refugee brought the fashion to Hongkong where is remained popular.

Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer Chinese wear Qi Pao in daily life. They prefer to get fashionable dress. But, in fashion show, people put more and more the element of Qi Pao to dress, like Louis Vuitton and Dior.

Barbie dolls wearing Chinese Qi Pao dress

With the change of hundreds years, Qi Pao becomes shorter and the opening becomes higher. Its neck is high, collar closed, and its sleeves may be either short, medium or full length, depending on season and taste. The dress is buttoned on the right side, with a loose chest, a fitting waist, and slits up from the sides, all of which combine to set off the beauty of the female shape.And I think, to protect the traditional culture, we should wear more traditional costumes. It is also accumulation of hundreds years of cultures. The last picture is I and my Chinese friends wear Qi Pao.

6/19/2014 My Opinion about How to Be A Good Reporter

        As media students, we all want to work on journalism, and be a good reporter. How to achieve that? After I take this class and search it on the internet, I get some information.

        Write every day, read newspapers or magazines every day, watch the news to keep up with current affairs and be devoted to literature. If you don't enjoy writing, reading, meeting new people, being under pressure, well then you've come to the wrong article and career choice, journalism is all about writing. As international students, English is the most important part of our challenges, and if you hate English class with a passion, then this is not the right career for you.

        Most well known journalists had diaries when they were younger to practice their writing skills. It doesn't matter what you write about when you're starting, practice makes perfect. It will help you get into a habit of writing every day. 

        Nowadays many journalists are trying to add more skills to their self. If you have a flair for photography, it can help you a hell of a lot in this career, journalist's are always taking pictures to put in their articles.

        You never know when a newsworthy story will come up. Take notes if you find a good story. At least try and write the main idea or points as and when they cross your mind so that you won't forget. You never know! It could be the best story of the century. Get it down on paper before you forget it.

        This is what journalism is all about. If you feel you are incapable and uncomfortable with meeting and talking to different people and strangers, you need to work on this problem NOW. All good journalists are not afraid to ask anything to the interviewee.

       Do not, under any circumstances tell lies, twist the story and make up your own side of the story. Nowadays, there are too many sleazy journals and newspapers out there and if you want to be successful, you need to stay true to the interviewee.

        Read the daily newspaper. Your short story will not be nearly as exciting if every character walks everywhere and says every line of dialogue. Be sure that you are using words correctly. Some of the alternatives listed in your thesaurus may not have the right shade of meaning or be appropriate for the level of formality. Look up the word in your dictionary to be sure, and if in doubt, use a word that you already know.

6/18/2014 Friends

 Jun and Chris are both exchange students from Korean for 1 year. We knew each other on the school shuttle bus during first Walmart trip served for international students who has no car last year. At that night, they invited me to their room to have dinner with them. It was amazing that you have totally different background and nation with someone, but you still have endless topics to share with them.

After that talk, we became close friends very soon. I still remembered my 20^th birthday two week later—I was moving by surprise they gave me.

Time flies, their exchange program ended in May and they would go back to Korea after that. At the end of spring semester, two of my Korean friends, Jun and Chris, went to First Baptist Church in downtown, Troy, to have a music performance with their classmates. They invited me to there, so I dressed up and arrived there on time. 

In their eyes, this music concert was a special way for farewell to the wonderful small city and their friends.

The performance was really successful. 

I was proud of Jun and Chris. After that concert, we walked back to campus while talking from downtown. Although it was not close, we were happy and not felt tired. 
I was sad because they will leave me soon. We meet countless people in our whole life. Some people just like the passengers that you would forget them soon; but a few people just like the tattoo on your body, they would become part of your life that you never wipe them off. Although we had met only for one year, the feeling just like we were old friends and had known each other for a long time. And I promised them that I will go to Korea to visit them with my parents in July. Can’t wait for that trip. I think We would be friends forever wherever we are. 

06/13/2014 Chinese Restaurant

        I am an international student from China. With the half of a year studying in Troy University, I really miss Chinese foods. I do not really enjoy the food from other country. It is OK for me to eat hamburgers sometimes, but if have that every day I gonna cry. I think many international students have the same problem, so I want to introduce some Chinese restaurant in Troy.

Golden Crane

Golden Crane is the most popular Chinese restaurant with Chinese students in Troy. Many Americans also like it. Although this is a Chinese restaurant, the most popular choose is Sushi. But I recommend you to get some real Chinese dishes, like Chilli Beef, Toufu Fish and Shredded Potato. Shredded Potato is really different from American fried fries.

Jing Xing

   Jing Xing is a Chinese restaurant that you can get the food “to go”only. The food in there is not too hot. It is Cantonese cuisine. The cooks in there are from Mexico, so I do not think the food in there is so traditional. They always put much sauce in dishes. But maybe it is more suitable for Americans to try.

China Town

This is not a real town. Chinese Town is just the name of this restaurant. To be honest, the food in there is similar with the Chinese food in Trojan Center. But the soup in China Town is really yummy! The soup called “Sour and Hot Soup”. If you get any combo the soup is for free.

If you have a car, I recommend you to go to Atlanta to get more traditional Chinese foods. There are much more Chinese restaurants in Atlanta. You will love it after you try.

06/11/2014 Backpacker

      A silver jewelry box is lying on my table. The carved patterns on it seem to tell a story about an unforgettable and special backpacking trip to Tibet and Nepal. 

I love traveling, but I hate traveling with the travel agency because of a past awful experience. I prefer to hang out alone or with only few friends, not too many people. In the winter vacation before I graduated from high school, I saw a documentary from the internet. It showed me sights and culture in Nepal, a mysterious country at the foot of Himalaya mountain. Even though Nepal is the neighbor of my mother country, I didn’t know anything about it, so I was attracted by its mysterious atmosphere of religion. I became eager to go to Nepal by myself, but I did not dare to tell my parents, it is really adventure for a girl. As expected, my best friend supported me and she wanted to go with me. We began to make plan in secret. At first, we must get over the problem of money, because we did’t want our parents to know until we set out, so we found a part-time job to save money. Meanwhile, gathering information and making travel line took us a long and hard time. After preparing for half a year, we were ready to go in summer vacation. I never forget the expression when I told my parents what I will do only one week ago before setting out, it was difficult to make sure what they thought. To my surprised, they didn’t go against it and my father gave me his new Digital Single Lens Reflex without words.

 We two girls, set out at 6 a.m. in a rainy Monday with big backpacks and no luggages. We took the train to Xi’ning, capital of Qinghai province, which is close to Tibet. Because we would like to spend less money as we can, so we choose a long but cheaper distance to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, via Xi’ning. We have decided to go to Lhasa to get the visa to Nepal by bus before we met an old couple when we were having breakfast. We were discussing our plan when they walked toward us and talked to us. They both were Chinese American but did the business in Lhasa, after they knew we were on the way to Tibet, they invited us to get a ride of their truck. Although they were stangers, I don’t know why we trust them very much. It was really lucky and incredible to met them because they not only took us to Lhasa, but also gave us some advice to get to Nepal. Maybe it was a good beginning.

 Good times don’t last long. The first trouble came to us after we setting our foot on the way to the border. As we know, Tibet lie on Tibetan Plateau, called the Roof of the World because of the highest altitude, altitude sickness is very common for a person who come from low altitude area just as me. I felt uncomfortable and dizzy, even can’t walk, and the worst was that Herba Rhodiolae didn’t work on me. At last, we found a really small inn in the wood and decided to have a rest. We didn’t realize that the danger was just around the corner, two strange Tibetans followed us for a long distance until this inn. The landlady whispered to us that two strange men stared at us very suspicious which made us feel frightened and want to escape from there, but we haven’t known their intent and I had no power to walk, so the landlady promise to help us pay attention to them. We locked the door and got to sleep quickly because of altitude sickness despite the danger. Maybe one or two hours later, a knock at the door awakened us. That two men was coming! We were afraid to open the door. Fortunately, the landlady with her husband came soon when they heard the huge sound. To our surprised, that two men ran away quickly when they saw someone coming! I was sure that they had guilty consciences. This accient really scared us but we didn’t have any wish to give up, on the contrary, we perfered to challenge more strom just as in life.

 The success appeared to be very close because we were close to Nepal. One day, we lost way and got into a place that be around of many huge stones with Tibetan, prayer flags and Buddha. Local people told us that there was the place for Celestial Burial, a religious, mysterious and scared burial in Tibet which the bodies are exposed to birds of prey. Although I knew this traditionl, it was the first time I saw Celestial Burial. Local Tibetans cut the body and put it on a sacrificial altar, then many vultures came to eat. It was very holy in local Tibetans’ eyes and their religion, only people who has important status could be treat like this. The situation scared me and made me realize that human was really insignificant in front of nature. Maybe we can’t fight against nature, so we must enjoy our life.

 It was a beautiful dusk when we arrived at the border, the moment that I set my foot on the land of Nepal I had a sense of achievement. There were still some accidents on our way such as miss the bus from the border to capitai, etc, but the rest of time fulled with happy and excited in our memories. The most precious present in my trip was got a friend in Nepal. She is a Nepali girl who was born and raised up in Kathmandu with her father and had an English name Wennie. We met Wennie in her father’s restaurant. We three girls had so many topics in common to share even nationality and background were different, it was imagine as I think. The most happiest time in our trip was went to many beautiful places with Wennie, she became our excellent tour guide at last. We climbed the snow mountain, went shopping to buy some special local product in the old market, visit some old temples and even went adventuring in forest. My camera couldn’t store all of this happiness.

 After staying at Nepal for a month, it was time to set our foot on the way home. Wennie and her father drived a car sending us to the border between Nepal and China. It was really a hard time to say goodbye，we exchanged E-mail address and promised to keep in touch, I’m sure we will meet again in the future.

 We came back to Chengdu via Lhasa by coach, just to thank the couple for their help and give them a gift from Nepal. Then, we went straight home with lots of gifts, photos and beautiful memories. I think this journey just like our life, not only have happy time, but also have some trobles, dangers and sadness. In addition, we have known the truth of life and met some people and even got friends just as life. I keep in touch with Wennie up to now I came to the US.

         I want to give thanks to all the people gave a hand to us even we didn’t know most of their name. Although this tour not went well all the way, we met many troubles difficult to details, I dreamt of traveling again like this. Maybe someone think it is impetuous, but Follow my heart is my motto.

I look forward to the next traveling far away.

6/5/2014 Adults' Actions for Children

Last week, a car accident occurred in my hometown that caused several fatalities. One of my friends died in that accident which made me upset for the whole week. The driver who was drunk drove his car across the avenue, and ignored the red light. In China, drunk driving is a serious criminal act. The drunk driver’s criminal act ended several people’s lives, and caused several families much grief. The driver comes from a single family and his mother left them because his father always drunk.

According to a survey, many criminals come from single family or the family which has criminal record or background. As we know, education for children is a problem which caused a lot of argument recent years. In general, imitation from adults is an important part of the early childhood education. Children copy adults’ actions which just like the models to build their own thinking of this world. So in my opinion, adults should be more mindful of their actions when they are around young, impressionable children.

“Children have stronger study ability but weaker cognition ability than adults. They are too young to distinguish what is wrong or what is right” (Jonathan). However, most of adults don’t pay attention to their actions such as spitting, smoking, speaking loudly, speaking dirty, and doing so many other acts of incivility in public places when they are around young. They don’t realize that children can study both positive and negative information from others. Children can easily study the incivility from parents or other relations because they do not know what is right and wrong. The reason why I write "easily" is because children have strong study ability. Children like learning from imitating. According to an article titled "imitation"(Talaris Institute, 2011) said "Imitation is not a skill babies learn – it is an ability they are born with". Thus imitation is an natural ability. Children see and imitating adults..."This ability causes the Children to imitate the rude acts from surrounding circumstance unconsciously because they do not know what right and wrong is. One sentence from "Imitation"(Talaris Institute, 2011) also mentions "Children store in their mind both positive and negative images that may be imitated or tested at a later time" which also agree with me. It is obvious that the incivility is caused when we was young because we liked imitating both positive and negative acts during that time, so we can even say that adults’ actions which around young determines their whole life.

We learned the rude acts easily from adults when we were young, and the imitations then developed into habits which are hard to eliminate. Adults’ actions always leave a deep impression on children. Your kids will imitate youI want to use my personal experience to prove it is true. I can still remember that my little cousin liked imitating his father when he was a three year old child. At first, he truly just imitated his father's rudeness for fun. He imitated spitting in the public place, speaking dirty, and speaking loudly in public. His parents thought it was cute, and it was normal for a child to imitate adults, so they didn't pay more attention to their rude acts. They realized their acts was wrong when they knew my little cousin also did rude acts at school. However, it was too late. It already had developed into habit. They tried different kinds of methods to prohibit his acts of incivility. These methods could only ease the frequency of rude acts. It is obvious that the incivility is caused while children learned rudeness from adults when they were young. Then it causes this to become into the habits which are hard to eliminate in the future.

According to the Bobo doll experiment which was the name of a famous experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and 1963 that studied children's behavior after watching an adult model act aggressively towards a Bobo doll, we can know “people not only learn by being rewarded or punished itself (behaviorism), they can learn from watching somebody being rewarded or punished, too (observational learning)” (Jonathan). These experiments are important because it proved how children can be influenced watching violent scenes. It is the same as influenced by adults’ actions because of watching.
Bobo Doll Experiment

Thus, adults should pay attention to their actions when they around young. It is because children are weak in distinguishing right and wrong, they like to learn from imitating, and it gradually develops to be a habit which is hard to eliminate and destroy their future. As we know, parents are the best teacher for a child, so I strongly recommend parents to care more about their children and be mindful of themselves, and stop their rude acts to become a good model for children.

6/3/2014 Chinese Paper-cut

Hello China---Chinese Paper-cut

Paper-cut is a very distinctive visual art of Chinese handicrafts. It originated from the 6th century when women used to paste golden and silver foil cuttings onto their hair at the temples, and men used them in sacred rituals. Later, they were used during festivals to decorate gates and windows. After hundreds of years' development, now they have become a very popular means of decoration among country folk, especially women.

     The main cutting tools are simple: paper and scissors or an engraving knife, but clever and deft craftspeople are remarkably good at cutting in the theme of daily life. When you look at items made in this method carefully, you will be amazed by the true to life expressions of the figure's sentiment and appearance, or portrayal of natural plants and animals' diverse gestures. Patterns of chrysanthemum display the curling petals, pied magpies show their tiny feathers and others such as a married daughter returning to her parents' home, or young people paying a New Year call to their grandparents.

Although other art forms, like painting, can also show similar scenes, paper cutting still stands out for its charm - exacting lines and ingenious patterns which are all hand-made. To make the three-dimensional scenes pop out visually from the paper, as they are usually in monochrome, engravers must exert their imagination. They must delete secondary parts and compose the main body properly, abstractly and boldly. Though simple, the color then appears charmingly bright.

The image of an ethnic minority girl cut with paper It is easy to learn about cutting a piece of paper but very difficult to master it with perfection. One must grasp the knife in an upright fashion and press evenly on the paper with some strength. Flexibility is required but any hesitation or wiggling will lead to imprecision or damage the whole image. Engravers stress the cutting lines in several styles. They attempt to carve a circle like the moon, a straight line like a stem of wheat, a square like a brick, and jaggedly like the beard.

Chinese Paper-cut Lesson---Double Happiness

    People find hope and comfort in expressing wishes with paper cuttings. For example: for a wedding ceremony, red paper cuttings are a traditional and required decoration on the tea set, the dressing table glass, and on other furniture. A big red paper character 'Xi' (happiness) is a traditional must on the newlywed's door. Upon the birthday party of a senior, the character 'Shou' represents longevity and will add delight to the whole celebration; while a pattern of plump children cuddling fish signifies that every year they will be abundant in wealth.

Immigrant Hopes to Revive Chinese Paper Cutting

5/29/2014 Development and Problems

I was born and grew up in Chengdu, the largest city in western China. I have seen the development of this city for many years. In my opnion, the proudest development is that of public transportation for more than ten years, especially in the past two or three years. Chengdu was backward in the past, but now, it becomes an International city with convenient transportation. There was always some surprise waiting for me each time although I just left for several months. For example, the new wide roads, the latest metro line that has a station close to my house, or the longer bus route. Chengdu completed the most revolutionary construction before I left for the US two months ago, that is city viaduct. It is no doubt that we should develop our public transportation in order to become more convenient, but on the other hand, the rapid development has brought to us many problems. Construction in entire city has affected air quality and environment.

When I was a child, my father took me to the kindergarten everyday by bicycle. I loved sitting at the back seat of the bicycle and listening to the story from my father which is really one of the best memories in my childhood. Private cars are not very popular at that time in China, especial inland city just like Chengdu. People had no choice to take bus or bike everyday, taxi is too expensive for most of people. Each time we went to my grandparents’ house, we must took a long time to transfer bus on the way, because there were only few bus routes in this city and no direct route between this two streets until I graduated from primary school. Beijing, the capital of China, has compeleted the first metro line in 1969, but Chengdu didn’t have metro until recent four years. The first time I took the metro was five years ago when I went to Beijing to see the Olympic Games. Metro used to be very fresh for people who lived in Chengdu. Chengdu is a plain located in the Sichuan Basin, it was difficult to get in and out of the basin since ancient times. In the past, Chengdu only had few highways and railways to another cities or provinces.

The quantity of private cars has becoming more and more in Chengdu since the 21th century because of the increasing of salary. Almost each family has their own car that makes people go out more convenient. The government invested large sums of money on the City Bus System. Now, I can spend less than 30 minutes from my house to my grandparents’ by bus. Franking speaking, the bus network has covered the whole city. Chengdu used to be a big city without metro, but now, everything is changing. The metro network is developing and we already have 3 metro lines, the others is under construction. People have more choice when they want to go out such as bus, metro, taxi, bicycle or private car. If you want to go another city or province, you can choose not only highways, but also high-speed rail. In 2013, Chengdu compeleted the city viaduct which greatly shorten the distance between two place.

In the past, the undeveloped public transportation led to the undevelopment of business. But on the other hand, Chengdu had the best ecological environment and air quality even called the most livable city in China because of the low price of house and daily life at that times. At present, I feel sad that the air quality of Chengdu can not be optimistic because of construction in the whole city even though it has already become a highly developed commercial city, the price of house and daily life is not low any more. 

    Changes happen in Chengdu everyday, maybe it would have a great surprise when I back home next summer vacation. The development of public transportation makes Chengdu become an international city especially after hosting the Fortune Global Forum. I am really happy for my hometown’s achievement, but I think the government must take some measures to solve the environment problem at the same time. It is no doubt that we should develop our public transportation in order to become more convenient, our living environment is also important.

5/28/2014 The Car as a Status Symbol

        Recently, I am planning to buy my own car. Because I move out of campus in this month, if I have no car, it is very inconvenient for me to go to school. So I think much about this transportation in my free time. 

        Car is very important in our daily life. I used to read an article named American on Wheels told me that American is a country on wheels because people can’t leave their car wherever they are. In China, there are more and more families own a car or more. It is very convenient to hang out when you have car. You can go anywhere you want and no need to worry about you will miss the train or bus and then wait for a long time. Otherwise there are more and more people get rich now. The cars are not like before that only a few people can afford. And some people used to think get a car is a sign that you are one of the rich guys. Maybe the car is not a sign of richness recent years, but a premium and luxury cars still could be the status symbol especially for men. 

        I don’t know much about America, but I know China and some other Asian countries such as Korea well. Sometimes we can judge the level of a man's income and status by his car. Although private car is very common in modern society, the guy who has a better car would be more popular. Society is cruel because almost all the girls prefer to date with the guy who has a better car. If he wants to marry, he must have his own car and house firstly.

        Many Chinese students have their own car at Troy University. As I know, most of the students who have premium car already have girlfriend and be active in Chinese students’ social circle. All of the abroad Chinese students’ social circles are the same. One of my friends told me that sometimes the car is more important than a man’s look. To be honest, I think this society is morbid. But this is reality. The car is a status symbol though I don’t want to admit. 

        The car is playing an important role in our daily life. In my opinion, it just a means of transport that we don’t need to regard it as a burthen or status symbol. Ability is the most important thing for men.

04/27/2014 My Passion

I’m an exchange student from China. When I studied in China, my major was broadcasting and hosting. But I was not satisfied with listening to the director’s requirement and reading or broadcasting the ready-made draft just like a doll. I want to be a journalist who not only can be the anchor or hostess, but also can write the stories, do the post-production, etc. So I changed my major to broadcast journalism in there. Now, journalism is my passion.

In my eyes, good journalists can do everything by themselves—interview someone while shooting, write and dub the voice-over script, do the post-production and broadcast the story—even though they don’t need to do all of them. That is not easy but interesting. I used to have an internship at a TV station in my hometown. I witnessed that stay up late was very frequent for media workers, but when we saw our product on TV, it was too hard to express how happy and excited we were. Sounds strange but the feeling just like giving birth to baby and then raising him grow up! 

  In addition, journalists can travel to many different places. One of my dreams is travel around the world to meet different people and see different scenery. But I don’t have enough money and time to do that. I wish I could be a journalist of international affairs even though it is a difficult task. I enjoy the process of travel that broaden my horizon and gain the knowledge. "What should a journalist do sounds not like the work, but it is incredible fun work," Tom Clifford, the editor of Montgomery Adviser, said when he came to my reporting class last week. “You can talk with many kinds of different people and go to many places.”

For me, journalism is not only a major, it includes many things. Each journalist should know about many things such as marketing, computer science and so on. You don't need to learn it very well, but know what it is at least. Because your story may be contain much knowledge. 

Journalism is my passion. Although the media industry is competitive, I would never give up my dream job.