http://www.ijs-global.com/class09/bridgetzhang/tomorrow/

Canteens in Hong Kong Baptist University

http://www.ijs-global.com/class09/molly-zheng/publish_to_web/

By Bridget Zhang

The Prague Spring , a political liberalization campaign originated by the reformist Slovak Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, began on January  5, 1968 and ended on August 21 of 1968, when the Soviet Union and members of its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the country to halt the reforms.During the era of liberalization, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia wanted to carry out reforms in order to reduce the power of Stalinization. Finally, the campaign was unsuccessful. 

By Tiara Lin, Emily Song, Bridget Zhang

Hong Kong-February 13-IJS-Global-Compared with western man who speaks out their love every now and then, the notoriously conservative Chinese man is the most unwillingly people to tell lovers the three magic words I love you.  What’s more, most Hong Kong women showed their indifference towards “I love you,” actually, they concerned more about real behavior instead of sweat words and honeyed-phrases.

Serena Cheng , 20, student of City Univeristy

She said that three words mean everything for her, “love is something you can never figure out…you give him a big hug, then he would tell you what you want to hear.”

Tony Cheung, 21, salesman

Tony said that three words never fall out of his mouth,”I never feel like saying it. It never happened.”

Meng kwan, 41, office staff

he has no plan of saying it on valentine’s day, “ I would take her out for dinner and shopping. Action speaks louders than the words.”

Bony Lee, 22 , university student

Bony voices pessimism when it comes to love. She said she  doesn’t take that three words  seriously,“how do you know if  he really means it?”

Michelle Yeung, 20 , Student

“ I think men from Asian countries feel too shy to say “I love you” to their girlfriends actively,”

“One time after my boyfriend and I did shopping , he said “ I love you” to me actively, I felt very sweet.”

Tina Chu, 27, Singer

“ I don’t need my boyfriend to say “ I love you” to me very often,”

“The timing is very important. I believe my boyfriend will say “ I love you” at the appropriate time.”

Aggie Cheng, 20 , Student

“ I don’t force my boyfriend to say “I love you” to me if he has not done before. He said “ I love you” to me on my birthday,”

“ I believe what he does for me is even important than what he says to me.”

 

Thief, trickster and sex maniac appear in 4 days’ Prague trip

By Bridget Zhang

 

Prague-February 10-IJS-Global- As one of the most beautiful and popular travelling city in the world, Prague, the capital of Czech Public attract different tourists from different countries. After about 15 hours’ airplane journey, we arrived in the Prague and began our 4 days’ study trip with sightseeing. Though it was only 4 days, we have had interesting experience and saw some inharmonious atmosphere under the beauty of Prague.

Watch out all your belongings

On the streets of Prague, we are foreigners to local citizens because we have Asian faces and Asian eyes. Though we can speak English very well, we can not communicate with local people in Czech. It is easy for local citizens to find that we are from Asian countries.

 

Five young ladies including Alice Li, Grace Zhu, Sophie He, Yvonne Yang and I were in a group travelling in Prague. Before the trip, we had had some information about thieves in Prague so that we have vigilance to take care of our all belongings. But actually, thieves appeared in our trip.

 

One night, we had a dinner in a fast food restaurant McDonald in downturn Prague. When we had a dinner, we also talked with each other happily and shared interesting studying experiences. At this time, 3 men entered the restaurant and sat down behind our table. They did not buy any drinks and foods but they just sat there like waiting for someone. One of men took off his jacket and hung on the back of Yvonne’s chair. Before that, Yvonne hung her satchel on her chair. Obviously, the man’s jacket covered Yvonne’s satchel.

 

Grace became aware of the man’s unusual behavior with the help of a mirror beside her. She asked Yvonne to take care of her satchel. At this time, Yvonne put her satchel back on her knee as soon as possible. The strange man had to put on his jacket and stared at us for a few seconds and then left the McDonald.

 

Fortunately, Grace found these three thieves’ strange behaviors early so as to prevent unhappy thing from happening.

 

There is no such thing as a free lunch

In the train station of Prague, all information relating to train was shown on the screen of television in Czech. How do tourists read it? It drove us crazy. We bought tickets to other place for sightseeing. however we did not know which platform we should go and what time we should leave.  While we were confusing, a man dressed like a train staff talked to us with a friendly smile.

 

“ Can I help you?” He spoke English very well.

 

“Yes. We don’t understand the information from the screen.” We answered.

 

“Don’t worry. I will remind you to get on the train. You can sit there to wait for my reminder.” After he looked at our tickets, he said to us.

 

In the beginning, we believed that he was a good guy to do us a favor actively without any attempt.

 

After 20 minutes, the man guarded us to the car we should sit, according to our tickets. We thanked him so much. At that time, he did not leave the car.

 

“Tips please.” He said to us.

 

We opened our ballet to look for 50 CZK (17RMB) and gave him.

 

“ Not enough. At least 120 CZK.” He said to us seriously.

 

“That is impossible because we did not ask you for help firstly,” Alice Li said angrily.

 

“You provided help to us actively. I think the tip is enough.” Alice added.

The man had no words to say and got the tips and left the train quickly.

 

It is very common for people in western countries to give tips to others who help you. But it is really up to us that how much money we want to give. The man like a swindler swindled our money

 

As a famous saying says, there is no such thing as a free lunch. We should pay anything even the so called kind help.

 

Protect yourself

Sophie He is a nice and pretty lady and always with a good smile in our group. As we walked around the downtown Prague at night, a sex maniac went close to her and pinched her bottom. At that time, she was so frightened and could not recognize who did it.

 

I think it is an isolated event, or some events to me and my group, but 3 days in a row seems like a pattern to me,” Sophie said.

 

“ So if I go to Prague again I’ll be more careful and be more prepared.” Sophie added.

 

Travelling is an enjoyable experience for every one. We do not want to see and have any unhappy experience. But we must remind every lady that we must do enough preparation and research to avoid thieves, avoid tricksters and avoid maniacs before you travel some places. Have a nice trip , have a safety trip.

Five Flower Markets open in downtown Guangzhou

By Bridget Zhang

Guangzhou-Jan 24 2009-IJS- Global.com  Five flower markets opened Friday in five different districts in order to attract more people to buy flowers and also celebrate the 2009 Lunar New Year, according to the Guangzhou Daily.

Different gates of flower markets were decorated with various ox models to grab people’s attention. People crowed around the gates and took photos.

Fresh flowers, paper cutting, crafts, toys and other commodities were sold at the flower markets. In order to create the ambience of the Lunar New Year, series of cultural activities including Guangdong music and folk music performance had been arranged in the Tianhe Market and Xihu Market.

Chinese flowing crabapple not sold well in flower markets

By Bridget Zhang
Guangzhou-Jan 24 2009-IJS- Global.com “Forever Enthralled” directed by a Chinese famous director Chen Kaige was released before the Lunar New Year. The film focused on a great Beijing Opera performer-Mei Lanfang’s life.

Chinese lowing crabapple was shown in this movie. Though the movie was popular in mainland China, the movie did not help Chinese flowing crabapple sell well at the flower markets. The price of this flower was much higher than other flowers because it usually grows in northern part of China. It was the first time for flower sellers to sell Chinese lowing crabapple in Guangzhou’s flower markets.

A flower seller said she imported 50 pot plants of Chinese lowing crabapple but she only sold 20 of them.
“The reason why I sell Chinese lowing crabapple is because this flower is fresh and not many people have seen it, but people can not accept the high price,” She said.

“ The bigger one cost at least 500RMB, but the smaller one cost 300RMB around.” She added.

Most people preferred taking photos of Chinese flowing crabapple to buying it. But some people wanted to own one.

“I know Chinese flowing crabapple from the movie “Forever Enthralled” and I like this flower so much,” a Guangzhou citizen, Holly Zhang said.

“Though the price of it is even higher than others, I still want to buy a small pot plant of it because it was a new flower different from other flowers at Guangzhou flower markets.” Holly added.

Prices of some flowers drop more than 30% this year at the flower markets. Before people bought flowers, they bargained with flower sellers so that they can buy more flowers with same budget as last year, according to the Guangzhou Daily.

Senior school students as bosses in flower markets

By Bridget Zhang
Guangzhou-Jan 24 2009-IJS- Global.com A senior school student, He Zhen with his five classmates invested a store in flower markets and sold toys and other commodities in order to gain more work experience from the business.

“Once the spring holiday commenced, we planed to do business in flower market so that we can gain some work experience,” He said.

“My parents supported me with 3000RMB to invest this store, other five classmates also got 3000RMB from their parents.” He added.

In their store, they decorated with different toys and cute decorations to attract more buyers.

“ It is the first time for us to be bosses doing business. But we are very interested in it,” He’s classmate said.

“We imported theses commodities from a terminal market and sold them with a little higher price in flower market.” He added.

Six students all dressed up with toy and other decorations and hard sold their commodities.

“Even though we can not earn much money from the flower market, we did not care because we cherished this work experience,” He expressed.

“My friends and I try our best to do what we want and we experienced the hard working time.” He added.

This trip is so interesting. But my group members and I experienced something unhappy. That may because all our members are ladies. So in order to draw ladies’ attention when they travel abroad, I tend to write a travel note with 3 angles including avoiding thieves, avoiding tricksters and avoiding sex maniacs。

 

I want to describe what we have experienced and remind ladies to protect themselves when they travel abroad. There are 3 stories. Each story has one angle. I hope my overseas reporting will helpful for those ladies who decide to travel abroad in the future.

By Bridget Zhang

Hong Kong-January 16-IJS Global  My classmate Lin Meilian comes from Shen Zhen which is the southern city of mainland China. Her English name is Tiara. After she graduated from the University of Shenzhen in 2005, she obtained a job as a researcher of  Tokyo Newspaper in Shang Hai for one year. She can communicate with her colleagues in Japanese because she majored in Japanese and advertisement at the university. 

” It was interesting and challenge for me to work for Japanese newspaper,” Tiara said.

” As a researcher, I must read chinese newspapers as many as possible in order to gain interesting news stories.” Tiara added.

She said she illustrated stories to her leader and discussed them and then to decide which would be allowed to be translated into Japanese news.

“Sometimes my leader gave me some news ideas and asked me to do interviewing and write news stories,” Tiara said.

“One time I had to write a story relating to residents affected by World Expo Shang Hai because they had to move to other places so that there would be a building for World Expo Shang Hai.”Tiara added.

Tiara thinks that it is difficult and challenge for her to do interviews without any contact information.

“I must overcome this difficulty and I try my best to look for interviewees , such as the Internet, talking with residents living  in that place,” Tiara pointed out.

This June Tiara will graduate from HKBU as a postgraduate. She said She was looking forward  to be a newspaper journalist in Beijing.

Hi Everyone,

I am Bridget coming from Guang Zhou, mainland China.  My email is sasa_bridget@hotmail.com.  This holiday I went to the Prague and Paris with my classmates for a study trip.

Welcome to my blog!