English Learning Blog

Although Suzhou has a very nice leaning tower, the city is actually famous for gardens. Every Chinese student should have read the well-known article “Suzhou Gardens” in their middle schools. Suzhou almost equals to gardens, and vice visa.

There are three kinds of gardens in China: Royal gardens, private gardens and temple gardens. Most gardens in Suzhou are private and were built by wealthy businessmen or retired officials.

There are four most famous gardens in China, Suzhou has two of them - Liu Yuan (Lingering Garden) and Zhuozheng Yuan, both of them are also world heritage sites.

You can find more info at here and here.

Liu Yuan was built in Ming Dynasty (1573—1619).

Bonsai is a very important element in gardens:

You can also enjoy tradition Chinese culture here:

Guzheng - Chinese Zither

By looking at the beauiful girl in Chinese traditional costume and listening to the flute, I felt the world was pretty unreal.

Suzhou Pingtan

In Shanghai, the typical turn-around time:

- To get an ID card: 70 days

- To deposit an international check in Bank of China: 40 days.

Usually if the government or a company with government background is involved, you have to be very patient to get things done. Fortunately I’m in Shanghai whose government is one of the most efficient ones in China.

The abbreviations of Chinese Pinyin may get funny results from an English speaker’s eyes.

There is a famous stock broker company near my place. I was waiting for someone today in front of its main entry and had a close look. First I saw its website address “www.gf.com.cn”, and then found its English name, which is even funnier “GFBF Securities“. Doesn’t it sound like a company which offers love relationship insurance?

The complete Pinyin version is “Guadong Fazhan Bei Fang Zhengquan”.
Guadong Fazhan: Guangdong Development Bank
Bei Fang: Northern
Zhengquan: Securities

The plane, on a flight from Moscow to Irkutsk, veered off the runway as it was landing at about 7:50 a.m. local time (2250 GMT Saturday), hit a concrete barrier and burst into flames, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said.

Russian news reports said that many children were among the passengers. They were traveling on vacation on Lake Baikal, which is near Irkutsk, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

More details are available at CNN.

I’m a little afraid of flying and feel very bad about any plane accidents. Usually I will read every bit of information about an accident and follow the investigation for weeks or months.

Chinese government seems to keep the course of air accidents as top secrets. I can’t understand it. As far as I know, the investigations of Chinese airline accidents ended in two ways:

- Prohibit the media from talking about the accident in one or two weeks.
or
- Give a ridiculous result which only fools would believe.

A former US soldier, Steven D. Green, was recently arrested on charges of raping a 15-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family - Her parents and a 5-year-old sister.

This is probably one of the most horrible news I have ever heard.

Read it first on a popular Chinese website, but I couldn’t believe it until I read some English source. There are also lots of blog posts about this tragic case.

Abeer Qasim Hamza, I wish you and your family happy and safe in a free world without fear and war!

For myself:

Rule 1: Try to lose less other than earn more!

Rule 2: There is always a better price to buy a stock, do not rush.

I’m not a soccer fan because I only watch the World Cups. I enjoyed many great games at 1994 and 1998 world cups but missed 2002.

So far, I only watched the second half of two games - Brazil vs. Ghana and Germany vs. Argentina. Brazil sucks and they left; Germany played very hard, I’m happy for them.

In 9 hours, 3am Beijing time, Germany will fight with Italy. I’m on the German side, I lived in Germany several years and I am typing this post with a German keyboard.

Viel Glück, Deutschland!

Update: Italy scored two times in the last 2 minutes. Germany played a great game, although they lost it. It’s a pity not to be able to enjoy another cruel penalty shootout.

I do not like weekends:

1. Stock market closes.
2. Website income is only as half as weekdays, because people go outside.
3. Too many people outside, I like to be quiet.