Archive for August 11th, 2008

Chinese Conversation – lesson 165

Monday, August 11th, 2008

网上聊天的经历可以是有趣又刺激的。通常各聊天室是按主题来区分,所以用户可以找到有相同嗜好的聊友。世界各地的人都可以进入同一个聊天室,所以很容易“遇见”来自不同国家的人。其实有些网友会在现实生活中见面而成为真正的朋友,有些甚至就开始约会了.

Chatting on the Internet can be a fun and exciting experience. Often, chat rooms are divided into topics so that users can find “chat friends” with common interests. People from all over the world can enter the same chat room, so it is very easy to “meet” people from different countries. Some chat friends actually meet in real life and become real friends. A number of others even start dating!

(Source: wwenglish.com)

Children Chinese – Two of Everything

Monday, August 11th, 2008

By Lily Toy Hong, Albert Whitman & Co., Morton Grove, Illinois, 1993.
… a funny Chinese folktale with a bit of wisdom.

Old Mr. Haktak found a large brass pot while digging in his garden. He drug the pot home to show Mrs. Haktak. They are excited over finding this brass pot for they are poor and have few worldly possessions. Before returning home with the newly found pot Mr. Haktak had placed his purse with their last 5 gold coins in the pot so as not to drop it on the way home. When he arrived Mrs. Haktak leaned into the pot to take a closer look and dropped one of her hair pins. As she reached for it she found another pin and two purses with 5 gold coins in each.They then began to drop items into the pot and soon had two of everything. One day Mrs. Haktak leaned too far into the pot and on pulling her out by her legs, Mr. Haktak found that he had two Mrs. Haktaks. This presented a problem. In his excitement he fell back into the pot and soon there was a second Mr. Haktak. The two new Haktaks became man and wife and friends with the original Haktaks. Soon the two couples built identical houses next to each other with identical teapots, rice bowls, embroideries, and bamboo furniture.

(Source: ancienthistory.mrdonn.org)

Beijing Olympic – Shanghai gives quake town a lift

Monday, August 11th, 2008

The Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute has won the bid for the final reconstruction plan for Dujiangyan in the earthquake-hit Sichuan Province.

Shanghai’s Mayor Han Zheng announced the start of 23 reconstruction projects in Dujiangyan Tuesday, marking the first step of a more than three-year aid plan to rebuild the popular tourist destination.

Shanghai pledged to offer facilities and equipment needed in Dujiangyan. Experts and professionals in education, medicine and talent training will be dispatched to the county-level city, Han said.

The Shanghai Public Health Bureau announced yesterday that 284 local medical staff would be sent to Dujiangyan before Sunday to help resume health services in the city.

Local health authorities said they planned to help Dujiangyan, the designated target of Shanghai’s help on reconstruction work, rebuild its health system, which suffered severe destruction during the earthquake.

Hospitals and disease prevention centers in the city have been designated partners in Dujiangyan, officials said.

“Under our schedule, all the city and district-based medical facilities and temporary shelters for quake victims in Dujiangyan should start to provide basic health services by next month and all temporary medical facilities should finish being built and begin proper operation by September,” said Song Guofan, a health bureau official.

Meanwhile, a team of social workers from the East China University of Science of Technology will set out to Dujiangyan to offer psychological aid at the shelters.

The team will stay in Dujiangyan for about a month to help the earthquake survivors reconstruct their social relations in the shelter, said Zhang Yu, vice dean of ECUST’s school of social work and public administration.

“We have been there to study the survivors’ psychological condition soon after the earthquake,” said Zhang.

“We found the families there have been greatly affected, even families whose members all survived the disaster.”

Farm machinery valued at 1 million yuan (145,560 U.S. dollars), offered by the Shanghai Agricultural Commission, will arrive in Dujiangyan today.

(Source: en.beijing2008.cn)