w w w . Y i L o n g W e i . com

Written by Anne in March of 2009

Different women are beautiful in different ways. In English, you describe different beauty by using the words  “cute”, “good-looking”,  “beautiful”, “sexy”,  “gorgeous”, etc.  But in Chinese, the words to express different kind of beauty are  in more detailed category.

“清纯” (clear and pure) is one kind of beauty people use to describe young girl who look innocent and pure. Not with too much make-up, not wearing fancy clothing.  Audrey Hepburn is typical example. “清纯” girls are like white lilies.

“艳丽” (strong and colourful beautiful) is another kind of beauty people use to describe girls or women who look like peony, full-opened, mature, strong colours.  Like Elizabeth Taylor.

“端庄” (dignified beauty) is the word to describe the ladies who have fine and solemn features, the motherly beauty. It was used as a standard to choose queens in ancient China. Like Nicole Kidman.

These are three typical types of beauty.  And there are also other words to describe different beauty, like  “清秀”,”俊俏”, “野性美”(wild beauty, like Angelina Julie) etc.

To describe very very very beautiful women, Chinese language has very imaginative words, like:

“沉鱼落雁,闭月羞花” which means “when fishes see the girl, they feel too ashamed of themselves that they fall to the bottom of the pool. When the swallows see the girl, they fall from the sky. When the Moon sees the girl, the moon wanes. When the flowers see the girl, they close up because they are so ashamed of themselves.

It is only used to describe very beautiful woman, and esp. used in ancient China stories. Another very strong word is “倾国倾城” which means the woman is so beautiful that the city and the country lean/collapse. Like Hellen in the Trojan War in history.

From our friends beauty, China, idioms, language, women

(Written by my friends, students from Wuhan, Huanshi and Xiaomeng on February 04, 2008).

Originally I wanted to describe the education system of China, but I found it is so difficult to tell you about it objectively when I was writting. It is so complex, yet the system is on its way of reforming, it’s changing all the time.

It is pretty hard to uunderstand the education system of China for a foreigner. And even me feel like a stranger when I look at the compulsory education that is taken on nowadays. It is quite difference from the past.

Many people will say that there is quite a lot of shortcomings of the system. But here I want to comfirm first that it is the best choice under the particular condition of China.

Nowadays, the children will go to the kid’s park when they got 3 or 4 years old. I didn’t. Because I live in the country, many kids went to the elementary school directly in that time.

The compulsory education in China is constituted of 6 years of elementary school and 3 years of the middle school.

The elementary and middle school are usually in different places. After the middle school, that is the 3 years of high school. Here you will meet the first important examination: the high school entrance examination. Usually, the students in one city will have the same pappers. Then according to the marks, different level means different high schools.

High school is surely the most important period of the whole system. That is all because the the College Entrance Examination.

When I take the exam, the number of students that attend the exam is 8,000,000. Just imagane it!

The marks will be devided into several class, and so was the universitise. Certain level of marks to certain level of universitise. According to the mark, you can choose the school and the major, then hand over the application.

That is to say, if many students hand their application to one university, and their marks are higher then yours, sorry, you are out.

That happened every year.

Every class you can have only one chance to make the decision.

So, pray to God after you hand over the application. If you failed this year, you can choose to try again next year, but that means you have wasted one year of you life. I’m one of that kind. So this examination is very very important to the Whole country.

Special measures will be taken to keep the examination place quite, dad and mom or even grandparents will waiting for you outside the door of school. Your whole life will be determined by this single examination.

Now I am in the University, I stilled know very little to it . So here, I can’t tell you about the University.

What you have read is just a very small part of the education system of China. Don’t give judgement when you do not the whole thing. And I beilive that the education system of China will be much better tomorrow!

From our friends

(Written by my friends, students from Wuhan, Huanshi and Xiaomeng on October 20, 2007).

As you know, China is a country with huge territory and population, so there are many different climate. It seems somebody have said that the different characters of different areas are decided by their different climate.

Now let us show you what that is like in China.

The northeast part of China, including Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning province, and the east part of inner Mongolia, is terribly cold in winter. It can get to -20 degree in average. People there like eating meat, especially mutton. They like salty taste and drinking strong clear liquor, women can drink too.

So you can figure that the man there are straightforward, hospitable, and happy to help others . If you were there ,you will not feel lonely . The food style of there is special, maybe you can have a try. In winter, Harbin, which is called The Icy City, is very beautiful for Ice sculpture .

The southwest part is lack of water, some places are arid. But there has rich resources, such as metal mineral resources. Because of the tough condition, people live a bitter life. People like eating acid food and Wheaten food. In history Xian is the Six Dynasties ancient capital, so the culture is rich.

But the unique history made the local people conservative disposition. Xinjiang province, as the border area of China thousands of years ago, has its own culture. The large temperature difference in one day, so they wear coat in the morning and wear thin clothes in noon, in the evening people eat water-melon sitting around the fire.

The southeast part, like Shanghai, Zhejiang and Fujiang. This part is famous for itsYangzhou cuisine, which has both exquisitely crafte snacks and main dishes. Maybe here people’s taste is too sweet. Steam mandarin fish in vinegar sauce, is one of the most famousfood.

This part is the historical granary of China. So people there have a good living condition. Now it is one of the quickest developing area of China.

In the central part of China, including Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Chongqing province, people is famous of the rude, bold and irritable. We think everyone lives in such a crowded city and has such an hot summer, it’s not surprise they will be like that too.

People here like spice and peppery, large amount of peppery. So it is often said that numbing, hot spices are the main characteristics of the Sichuan cuisine. So if you like hot food, you will find you have come to the right place.

There are many national minorities in southwest part of China.They are mostly doing very well in singing and dancing. And custom is different from nationality to nationality.

China is a great country that we can’t tell you all in one short article. You will understand it well when you are really in China.

From our friends China, provinces, regions