Chinese Movie "Hero" Review

In google.cn, there are 59,000,000 hits when search with the key words "Hero Review"."Read on the Wiki".
Here are some parts of the critiques from the web, I didn't edit.

Hero is the masterpiece. It employs unparalleled visual splendor to show why men must make war to secure the peace and how warriors may find their true destiny as lovers. Time

Swooningly beautiful, furious and thrilling, Zhang Yimou's Hero is an action movie for the ages. Chicago Tribune

Led by director Zhang Yimou and dazzling cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the unseen Hero production team has made what just might be the most artistically sophisticated, most formally beautiful martial arts film the genre has seen. Los Angeles Times

Hero is an epic, evocative of another epoch and of landscapes beyond time. It's overwhelming. And yet I miss the animating anger of Zhang's early masterworks, in which penniless young lovers were oppressed by impotent old men.L A Weekly

In the end, the spectacular martial-arts epic seems to signify nothing much more than its own beauty, as brilliant and ephemeral as a fireworks display.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Generally, west critics are focused on the visual effect created by colors, costumes and cinematagraphy. But I goes more to this one.

Much of your ability to appreciate the finer points of Zhang Yimou's “Hero” depends on your knowledge of Chinese culture and history. This doesn't mean those of us completely unaware of the country's monumental struggle to unite itself under one kingdom, or the zenish notion of swordsmanship as an art form rather than a martial prowess, can't also appreciate the film. There's plenty to like about “Hero”, but unfortunately for anyone who has seen any number of Hong Kong swordplay film (or even Ang Lee's “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), there's nothing new here.

I have to say that the success of this blockbuster is much more depended on its pilot and characters portrayed in it rather than the picturresqueness. It shown care to the world we're living, on which war goes on endless; one part or another of the world seems have to fight for some reason unknown.

Note:In the movie, Qin Shi Huang (Emperor Qin), got the meaning of culture things. He said:" it is troblesome that nineteen different sayings just for one word-sword-and couldn't understood by each other," and want to unified them all. This is where I want to draw my idea from. The world now is just global village, and none of us want to bring about war. Understanding about each other is more essential than that of any other kinds of exchange. To do this, we should begin with the culture.
See difination of Hero on wikipedia.org or the Chinese version of it on baike.baidu.com
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A poem by Qu Dajun

Today I try to translate a poem written by Qu Dajun, a poet born in Guangdong province,Qing dynasty. He is a famous poet in the southern China. He and another two native poet was entitled: the three poem master of Lingnan.

Visiting the Green Bull Terrace on the Pengjin Mountain
         By Qu Dajun
By who the verdure of the lotus is carved,
On this peak stands a tower that is about to soar.
Mountains encaged the resting wild geese,
and the winding ranges took the shape of a gray dragon.
Sun shining on the sonw enmantled yellow river,
and bells ringing from the heaven palace.
Princes and lords forget to go home totally,
Green pines grows here eternally.

The original Chinese poem is here!

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Online resources for Chinese learner

I have cellected some online resource for you to learn Chinese. Make use of them and give your Chinese a chance to grow!

1.Public Chinese

http://www.publicchinese.com/
On this site they offer:
Online Course
Where students can enjoy free learning style without the restriction of time and location. In this section, students are able to take placement tests, set up a study plan, choose a different course level, evaluate the learning process and interactively communicate with tutors online.

Pod
A form of online radio broadcasting, with which students can listen to the radio programs to meet their own expectation. The program mainly contains Chinese music and other entertaining elements for Mandarin learning, showing to students in Audio (MP3), Video (WMV) and Flash formats. Among the services, ’Talk Show Chinese’ and ‘Music Enjoy’ are the most popular ones.

Language Buddy
‘Buddy’ provides students with a large platform for making friends. Here, they can find the ideal friends, and even learn the specific languages that intrigues them most.

Books
Tailored course books: Basic Chinese, Business Chinese and Traveling Chinese, are excellent Chinese Training materials, and ideal self-teaching tools for online students.Both wholesale and retail are available.

2. Hanyu (Chinese)

http://www.hanyu.com.cn/
where offers webcast, online cuorse , WebRadio ,textbook and downlaodings.

3.GChines.com

http://www.gchinese.com/
A English language forum for the foreigners who wanna learn or are learning Chinese.

4.Zhongwen.com

http://www.zhongwen.com/
A online Chinese-English Dictionary.

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Spring Festival vs. Christmas, Commons and Differences

The western customs are so different with that of our Chinese! In this article, I will try to talk about the commons as well as differences of how the two people celebrate their most important festival.

When that day is coming, the people from both side of the world are about to go home to be with their family members. A family reunion or get-together is so indispensable, especially in China, for the people who were apart from the family a whole year or many years because of working afar. They both treat that day most important day in a year that meant to be a day for entertaining themselves, presents are bought for families, friends and relatives, a big even a sumptuous meal is served for it. Neither the Chinese people nor the westerners have to work that day, for that is a day of holiday.

There also some difference between the way how Chinese celebrate the Spring Festival and the westerners do with the Christmas. In China, the adults often give the children a Hong Bao (red pack) with “lucky money” inside during Spring Festival, which promised luck for the coming year. We post a couplet and Men Shen (portraits of Guarding God) on the door to omen a good future and protect ourselves from evil, visit friends and relatives to have a homely talk and share our happiness and stories with each other. In west, a postcard often is sent to friends, a gift instead of lucky money is given to children. They have turkey and roast while we have Jiaozi.

From what I mentioned above, there are many common as well as difference about the way people celebrating the holiday.

Give me some advices to perfect this post, will you? All you have to do is to leave a message below!
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Go after money or for interest?

    When people are about to get themselves a job, two main factors are most considered. Go after money or just because love doing it. One chooses a job for a handsome paycheck whilst someone else enjoys doing what he/she loves.

When it comes to me, I’ll make the salary my priority and I’ll also show my reasons so as to make me less seemed like a greedy money-chaser or material-seeker.


    First, freedom, which is the most important, significant and magnificent thing we all chased and will chase in the future, only comes when you are financially free. I can’t bear the days in which I have to live up to someone else’s will because of not having enough money to free myself from the post or boss bored with some day. With money, we can choose the day and moment to leave any company without get one of my family members worrying about the living.

Second, we all got or will get a family to support, and as men, we should think the responsibilities before ourselves’ so-called interest even our felling. To be a responsible husband and a qualified father is more meaningful than to be a happy artist or singer or anything else.

Third, one can really enjoy what he or she like only when he or she got the money to free him /her from the bread issue. We can even say that the interest is for the privileged people.

In a word, I will give the money my priority because I don’t want to be cynical by claiming I don’t want that money to live a happy life while making my family worry about the bread things. Is my reasoning reasonable?

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Search and download music using Google

    When Baidu.com always be blamed for offering music search services in China, the Yahoo.cn offered this service in China too. Everyone knows it is really a profitable business here. So Yahoo.cn do business this way too in China. People here have no sense of IPR(intellectual property rights). Many Chinese people don't use the search engine giant Google because some competitors offered more FREE resources in the search results. The hollywood blockbusters can be downloaded from the website with a link in Xunlei.com search results within days after premiere in the theater. But Google has its own belief that make money without being evil.

    Now, in the Google search results I found music download links, see below:



    when clicked through:



     and even offered a hot list of music:



    Wait! The results are only link to only one site:www.top100.cn. We can either listen to the music online or download to our computer. This site claims that all the music offer online are legal and authorized. Here is its authorization announcement( in Chinese):



    The words in the picture translated into English would looks like below:

The Top100.cn (with a Chinese name means Giant Whale music network) tried its best to build a website on which we offers the legalized and authorized music for Chinese consumers. We make this announcement seriously that: All the musics on this site are authorized by the Copyright owners, but due to the information asymmetry, it's been very difficult in working up on a database which is Copyright clear-cut. So our company reiterate that if any third-party claims to be the Copyright owner of the music works offered here, please let us know, we'll try our best to protect copyright owners' rights and interests. Our gratitude gose to all the people with a passion on music,Thanks very much for your support.


    Whether the works on this site are really authorized unknown. But I had my confidence in Google (as Top100.cn claims itself as the exclusive company runs this service with Google.cn Music Service). I take this as a favorable beginning.
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Youtube is back after the meeting

    In China, it is common thing that the most excellent websites around the Internet are always end up blocked for some reason unknown (may be not). So we Chinese people have to live on with the GFW. May 4^th this month we seen the Youtube blocked in China. I guess the only reasonable reason for this is that we are holding the most important meeting in China. For a long time we cannot visit the Blogger powered blog on the Internet. The wordpress.com is one still in blockage.

    After a brilliant blog blocked in China, someone warned the Chinese webmaster(in Chinese) not to register domain in China, for the .cn or .com.cn domain are most vulnerable in web. Thank to the Google Reader, I can read some of the best blog from the outside world by subscribing the RSS feed. Like China blog host on the Time.com and hoffintonpost.com which of course was blocked back in China. One thing annoys me is that some of the Blogger dont burn the full text of their post. I hope those Blogger offer whole articles in the feed. So people like me can read it, and there are lot of readers like me.

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Eat Less, Live Longer

     Scientists have known for some time that laboratory mice on a low calorie diet live longer than mice that eat as much as they want. Now a researcher from Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, says a low calorie diet might be key to slowing aging in people, too.

     In a new study, Dr John Holloszy compared three groups of people: those who ate fewer calories than in the typical western diet; regular eaters who also did strenuous exercise; and another group of regular eaters who didn't exercise.

    He found those who were on a calorie-restricted diet had less of the thyroid hormone T-3, which regulates their metabolism. "This is not an abnormal decrease," he says, "and it's just a decline into the lower end of normal."

    In effect, metabolic hormones regulate the rate at which cells function. Scientists think this might be related to how fast we age. "So if you have high thyroid hormone levels," Holloszy explains, "you use a lot of oxygen, you have a fast heart rate and you need large amounts of food in order to maintain weight. If you have low thyroid hormone levels, your metabolic rate is slowed." He says studies on rodents have shown that skinny, long-lived laboratory mice had low thyroid hormone levels.

    Another group in his study ate what they wanted but exercised intensively. The exercise didn't seem to affect their thyroid hormone levels, which remained high. Holloszy says they are continuing research to see if eating less can slow aging in people as well as mice.

    "Determining whether humans on caloric restriction live longer is not something we're going to find out, at least not in my lifetime," he says with a laugh. "You know, that's a 50 year study."

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Cao and his dream of the red mansions

    Today I am going to introduce you the greatest novelist in Chinese literature history, Cao Xueqin, also known as Tsao Hsueh Chin , who lived in the Qing (ching) dynasty (1715–1763). He is the author of A Dream of the Red Mansions (or Story of the Stone; A Dream of the Red Chambers), which is considered China's greatest novel.
    After his wealthy and prominent family fell victim to an imperial purge in 1728, Cao's father managed to avoid enslavement and resettled them in Beijing. There Cao, poverty-stricken, worked on his semiautobiographical novel, which remained unfinished at his death. Edited and completed by Gao E (1740–1815), it is a masterful chronicle of  decline of four distinguished family, focusing on a triangular romance among the three main characters (Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai). The witty narrative, rich in naturalistic detail, emphasizes metaphysical themes of transience and the risks of passionate desire.
    The four great houses of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue described in this novel were typical basic political units of feudal society. Such families were linked with the court above and the local officials below to form a network of control with the feudal autocratic state power as its center.
    This book has translated into dozens of languages worldwide and adapted for films and TV serials in China, and also in China, even a specialized study was established focusing on this book called Redology(the study of A Dream of the Red Mansions).

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Top 10 Unique & Romantic Gift Ideas

Hi guys, as the Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, what do you want to give your valentine as a Valentine’s gift. Wanna make it unique and romantic as the day only once in a year. Thank Amy Cunningham from romancestuck.com . She singled out the most romantic presents just for you to make that day more special. So lets reveal it.

Top one: 24k Gold Roses

24K Gold Roses are literally a gift that your sweetheart will treasure forever. These real roses are preserved and covered in 24k gold and will last a lifetime! Each one is unique and each is handmade through a 40 step processes. Regular roses fade in days but these gold roses will last and be treasured by her forever. This is truly a one of a kind, unique gift that will show your sweetie how much she means to you. 24K Gold Roses last forever, just like your love for her.

Top two: Personalize Romance Novel

If you really want to surprise your sweetheart with something completely unique, check out YourNovel.com. They offer personalized romance novels ranging from "mild" to "wild". These romance novels allow you and your partner to star in your own exotic, steamy, and especially romantic love story. Simply provide a few details and select from 15 different novels and you'll have an incredibly romantic (and sexy!) gift arrive at your door. Now, get a special Holiday themed novel titled Season's Greeting, Season's Love.
To read the full list, please go to here
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