Tag Archives: culture

Happy Single's Day!

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Today, I'd really like to introduce a very funny festival in China – The Single's Day(aka 光棍节). It's Nov 11, the famous Single's Day in China - a festival for single person 'invented' by some Chinese college students. (They picked up Nov 11 since 11-11 have so much 'single's)

The first time I knew this was in 2002. My freshman year in HUST. I do remember that night, after lights out, guys in our apartment started to shout and throw stuff outside the window to celebrate (in fact they are just having too much hormone #lol). Luckily our apartment was just next to a girl's apartment and they even shouted back. Then some of the guys got extremely excited and as you may guess – they almost threw all the stuff in their room then could throw, including a CRT monitor!! Hoho…no one had a good sleep that night…

Why Chinese people are so creative on this? I think, in western countries, people fall in love and even have sex at a much younger age than us. In China, due to our restricted traditional culture and college-entering pressure(actually very stupid and time-wasting education program), it's really hard to think about love in high school. So when the boys and girls enter a brand new pressure-free place, they would really find some way to change their poor life.

Frankly I'm really too old and too 'sweet' to celebrate, but Single's Day is really a good festival created by Chinese college students, so let's bless the singles :)

They Look Like Lesbians But They're Not.

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It's very common to see girls hanging out together and looking so closely. Sometimes, you will even doubt that if they're lesbians? In Singapore, when you go walking, no matter where you go, seeing boy-boy or girl-girl thing is not strange.

I have a girl classmate and she has a girlfriend. Her girlfriend dressed like a boy and looks like a boy(she's a handsome girl by the way :P ). They always stay together, even after class, her girlfriend will go and pick up her almost everyday. They call each other "Dear". In an English speaking country, it isn't a big deal ?!

"I don't know, I just feel good to stay with her..feel safe..." she explained to many of us.... "I think I'm straight.... there's nothing wrong with us. We're just good friends..."

Also, boys who dress like a girl, do make up and stay with girls and even behave like a girl are a common scene here.

Now, I'm very familiar with this kind of culture and society. However, if they live in China, maybe things are different.

Anyway, Singapore is a very small country, however, people here  are very open-minded, especially the young.

Hypocrisy culture around us

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Update: The news on Peiyi Yang and Miaoke Lin are all removed. I just hope they are really protecting the children, not themselves. Though 80% I may be wrong.

(Picture via Baidu.com, Miaoke Lin and Peiyi Yang)

It's the best time, it's the worst time. When I was told that Miaoke Lin(aka 林妙可) did NOT really sing the song in the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, I was shocked. I was strongly shocked. It was sang by another 7 year old girl, Peiyi Yang(aka 杨沛宜) I want to say something. Though I really love Olympic Games and I am watching almost every match of China, I have to write this post.

The first time I heard about "hypocrisy" was in 2000, when I was a high school student. In that year, Lun came back to China and stayed in my place in Wuhan.

One day, we were talking in my room. He told me that many westerners thought quite a few Chinese are hypocrisy. Though growing up in Austraila, Lun really speaks good Mandarin and knows many Chinese phrases. However, that day he's just wondering what was "hypocrisy" in Chinese (language). So I looked it in my dictionary and found it. There is, of course, a word(伪善,Wei Shan) in Chinese for "hypocrisy".

I was not so sure about that, but as soon as I started my college life, I'm afraid "hypocrisy" could possibly be around me.

The situation in a university is totally different from that in high school. The people and relationships are like wheels within wheels. Some people don't like to tell the truth, especially about themselves.

Almost everyone was saying, he's poor, he's just earning his living. Or someone would tell you that it's too difficult for him to learn Calculus. Or even lots of people would pretend to be paying a lot of attention to someone needing help. But on the contrary, The guy who said he's poor was driving a car to the dorm. The guy who said he's doing bad in Calculus got great score in the final exams. Those who "paid" a lot of attention to someone just forgot what they were talking about in the next day.

I was really confused that why everyone's pretending to be so weak, so poor. Though I was not a rich guy, I never said I was poor. Though I just did normally in the exams, I never said it's that hard to learn something.

As for those talking in that way, I didn't think that's a lack of confidence.

Maybe the word "hypocrisy" can somehow explain it. Maybe that's just a formed culture around us, which makes everyone think it is not so hypocrisy. That's a little weird, but that's really the truth.

I hope we can be actually better inside, not just as being looked outside.

Websites On Chinese Culture

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I would like to introduce two english websites on Chinese culture for you guys. Have a quick view on them will help you understand the culture of China and how people live in Beijing better.

The first one is China Culture Information Net.

http://english.ccnt.com.cn/

Most of the Chinese traditional festivals and folk arts are assorted.

Another website called Chinese Literature Classics.

http://www.chinapage.com/classic1.html

I bet not every Chinese native has gone through these mater pieces.

Try talk about Yijing or SunZi's Art of War with your friends, they gonna be jealousy for your range of knowledge.

:-)

PS: I just cann't write long, but I am trying.