Music: ZhouZhou, an artist like no one else

I was clicking on my remote control of my TV when my eyes suddendly was attracted by a Chinese movie. The title of this Chinese movie was ZhouZhou. It is the story of a boy who becomes a chief conductor.

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Zhouzhou borned 1st of April 1978 in Wuhan. His father Hu Houpei - 胡厚培, musician in the city in the orchestra gave him the name of Hu Yizhou - 胡一舟, which mean boat, who drives smoothly his life. One month later, the doctors detected his trisomie 21.

When he was young, he joined his father to one of his repetition. Overthere he was imitating the chief conductor and have a real try with the group, and he was successfull.
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In 1997, Zhang Yiqing - 张以庆 a journalist from Hubei TV discovered him and made a 60 minutes documentary on him named: "The world of ZhouZhou".
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End of 1998, Liu Li - 刘理, the President of the Chinese Disable People Association watched the documentary and was very impressive by Zhouzhou. The same day, he contacted Zhouzhou to join his association to perform in the Spring Festival Gala. His excellent performance moved all the audiences including some important political leaders. In September 2000, he successfully conducted the world's top orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Then he became successfull and world famous as we know.

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He is the only chief conductor who can't read music. He moves his arm when he hear the synphony of the music.

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I found people like Zhouzhou does not have any chance in our society since they always depend on someone for their whole life. His life can be an opportunity for these people to open the door to our society especially in China.

Zhouzhou experience also shows that anyone have an opportunity to be good at something, famous or not, and we just need to discover what it is, whoever we are, whatever our skills are.

China & Christmas

Today is Christmas, and I do not feel as usual. I have been spending the last days in Asia until now. I have been missing, to spend this moment with my family, the snow, the decoration, candles, all the christmas trees outside, and most important the food. All these elements which make me feel the Christmas magic period.

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In China, few cities have few decorations in their buildings but it will never be has in our Western countries. More and more Chinese people celebrate Christmas in the cities. In the villages, they do not even know what is Christmas. I just feel something uncompatible between the Chinese or Asian culture and the Christmas celebration. But I guess only Chinese kids really appreciate this moment getting their gifts. It may be a new way to consume in China during that period.

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It could be interesting to know how Chinese people celebrate Christmas: like a new year ? with their friends? just give gifts between them? whereas for us we focus on the family moment and meal, and exchanging all our gifts...

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Then I guess for Chinese people how hard it could be to celebrate their Chinese New Year in our western countries: missing family, foods, the famous CCTV show. For us, we just have a quick intention on that but do not really focus on it and have just a party! Maybe this is how Chinese people do during Christmas...

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Merry Christmas to everyone of You

Chinese Society: Chinese Parents and their Childs

When I was talking to my friends from China about boyfriends, girlfriends, wife, or husband, I found many of them were having a difficult time to deal with the relationships between their parents and their love ones. It is either the parents do not approve their partners for the relationship/marriage or their partners do not get along with their partners.

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My friend A is with her boyfriend for 3 years, but the parents of her boyfriends disapproved her after viewing her picture. Now, many of us have gotten married, she is still waiting for her boyfriend to persuade the parents for the marriage though they are living together already.

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My friend B, got married for a few years, but was not able to get pregnant. The mother in law was always accusing her for this, cursing her to die so that her son can marry another woman. They had a serious fight before the mother in law finally left my friend's house.

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There are many of such cases which made me to think why the Chinese parents are trying to intervene their child's life so much.

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On the otherhand, the western parents are much more relax on the child issues once they are considered aldults. A few days ago, a chinese lady in USA wrote about her American friend accepted the boyfriend of her 15 years old daughter lives in their house. The reason is because the boy's mom are always shifting as she is not able to pay for the house rentals and the boy is tired of changing schools everytime. Many of the Chinese mums are shocked after hearing of this story. Not only because it is the relationship between two only 15 years old childs, but the boy's family background. In China, no parents would not accept a boy from a such family background to be their daughter's boyfirend.

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Loving the childs is one aspect, interfering the childs' life is another. Really hope the Chinese parents could distinguish these two and make both their lives and the childs' one easier.

Freeze-frame: My little Red Panda

My little Red friend - A Red Panda in Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center

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Take a Break: Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center

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Located just 10km (6miles) away from downtown Chengdu in Sichuan, China, the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center has been created and imitated the pandas' natural habitat in order that they might have the best possible environment for rearing and breeding. The Center cares also for other rare and endangered wild animals. The Research Center covers an area of 560 mus (92 acres), 96% of which is verdure. Giant pandas, lesser pandas, black-necked cranes, white storks as well as over 20 species of rare animals are fed and bred there throughout the year. Verdant bamboo, bright flowers, fresh air, a natural hill scene and a beautiful artificial view are merged ingeniously at the base.

Singapore: Ministers ready to decrease their Salary

Salary of the ministers in Singapore, one of the highest in the world, is going to decrease next year due to economical crisis by 20%.

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Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who earned 2,46 millions of dollars this year (2008), 5 times more than George Bush - President of USA, will get his salary decreased to 1,99 million.

Singapore is a city-state, 707.1 km2 small island only, with 4.8 millions people!

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The salary in Singapore is the highest in the world, in order to avoid corruption from politicians. And it works, because Singapore is the 4th country in the world for the countries less corrupted in 2008. Click here to see the general table.

This is a good idea from Politicians who needs to give a good example of themself and their actions, especially during this period of crisis. We are waiting now for our own politicians to do the same thing.

Carnet de route: EmeiShan or the Beauty under Heaven

My trip to Emeishan was made at the same time as Leshan Giant Budha site. Emeishan is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, which is similar to Taishan by its temples and stairs but also different being classified as a Taoism mountain (The group associated with Taoism is known as the Five Great Mountains, whereas the group associated with Buddhism is referred to as the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism).

Emei Mount is located southwest of Emeishan City and 200 km southwest of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, China. EmeiShan was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 thanks to its breathtaking scenery, mysterious natural wonders, and historical Buddhist sites.
The full day's hike to the summit is an unforgettable experience undertaken by many, but minibuses and cable cars make faster alternatives for travelers short on time. .

Since ancient times Emei Mountain has been described as "Beauty Under Heaven".
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On the top, you will find the Golden statue of Puxian at Emei Shan summit, clouded in mist.

My story

When looking the tourism map, you will find that everything is closed and seems easy. This day, I decided to treck on Emeishan with nothing except my bag of clothes. I knew that I would be able to visit on my way many temples, where they offered food, drinks or bed to sleep. So I had nothing to worry about except climb thousands of stairs once again. I met on my way to the top, a young couple of Chinese student and another student. Four of us, went on the half way to the top together.

We decided then to separate and use different way to reach the top. I was faster and I arrived before the night to the top. I could finally find a room to sleep for the night but it was difficult for me to bargain as usual since the hotels were already full. When I was back from my diner and it was really cold outside, I met my young friends sleeping in the lobby of the hotel. They arrived late in the evening. Many of them could not find a room that night and they decided to sleep inside the lobby. Outside was too cold to sleep. I kindly invide my 3 friends to share my room for the night. We played cards and have fun to talk stories. We woke up at 5 am in the next morning day to try to enjoy the sunrise. Unfortunatelly the clouds were too high to enjoy a wonderfull sunrise! Nevermind, the Golden statue of Puxian at Emei Shan summit, was shinning.

Another trip to heaven...

Freeze-frame: Human force to move things

This is also another way to move things. This picture was taken in Shenzhen while we were waiting to go inside our customer facility. It shows again that with little thing we can move a lot of things. No truck, no petrol, just human force...

China: Hard time for fresh graduates

This is the next step of our story regarding the thousands of companies closing in China and also unemployment for Chinese People.

Let 's take a look in Guangdong: in Guangzhou, for example, fresh graduate queue 3 hours for submitting 1 resume as you can see on the pictures. This day there were 15000 trying to submit their resume.

This year, Guangdong arranged 44 career faires only! As the students need to queue a long time to submit resume, one day, they are only able to submit 2 and after submission, majority could not get the interview chances.

The past 2 years, there are 4.8 millions students who didn't find a job. In 2009, there will be 5.6 millions. So, in year 2009, there will be more than 10 millions graduates from University who will need a job.

All over China, a lot of them chose to take the exams for being a government servant. They said, till 26th of October, there are 1.04 millions students registered for the exams, and the government will only need around 14,000 people. So the reject ratio will be 98.7%!

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Now we can wonder the future for them. Going back in their hometown may be possible, but they may move in other provinces where there will be able to find a job. China anounced a stimulus plan, it will be more than urgent to help this young people to find a job and to prevent any crisis in China.

For my Chinese friends or fluent Chinese, you can watch the news:

For more details, click here or here.