The Business of Nostalgia

NOSTALGIA usually refers to a bitter-sweet mood in which one remembers "the way we were." Older people are prone to it, but recently, ersatz nostalgia has become a trend with the younger genera-tions born in the 1960s, the 1970s, or even the 1980s. Each age group has its own past to be wistful about. Retro ele-ments are in fashion, in entertainment, in f ilm and television, and in literature. It has become the critical yeast in the bread of commercial promotion.     

Boom or Bust?

China has become the largest cotton importing country in the world, while its own industry has atrophied With Chinese textiles widely sold around the world, raw cotton, has become the most salable agricultural product in China. Today, the country is the biggest cotton buyer in the world, and the United States has become the biggest supplier of cotton to China. According to U.S. official statistics, China imports half of America's     

The Mainland and Taiwan:Economic Relations Enhance

From 1979 to 2001, the accumulative total number of the Taiwan investment items in themainland has reached 50,820, the contracted capital has amounted to US$54,73 billion, amongwhich some US$29,32 billion has already been put into use. Whereas in the same period, thenumber of Hong Kong-funded projects in the mainland had exceeded 172,000 enterprises, withactual investment amount reaching US$112.2 billion, accounting for 57.4 percent of total foreigninvestment. Compared with Hong Kong, Taiwan has its unique style in terms of economic strength,industrial structure and mutual complementariness with the Chinese mainland economy. Taiwanbusinessmen still have tremendous potential to invest in the mainland.     

Dreamer Liang Bing

BROUGHT up by bee-keeper grandparents in Zhenjiang, JiangsuProvince, Liang Bing believes he has something in common withbees: he is always busy in some pursuit or other. Liang has animpressive resume. He moved to Beijing wishing to make true hischildhood dream to see the Tian'anmen Rostrum, and joined the army outof a long-standing reverence for the PLA. He later enrolled in the EnglishDepartment of the Beijing Foreign Languages University, to satisfy hisyearning to try the college li…     

Building Genuine Prison Security

The No.4 Prison of Henan Province has enabled in mates to genuinely reform themselves through effective education, thereby achieving maximum security for the prison by eliminating or holding in check any lawless mentality and intentions on the part of the inmates. For 16 years no inmate has ever attempted to escape from the No.4 Prison. The prison has won the ＂National Civilized Unit＂ title. The prison has done work mainly in the following fields：     

Revised Budget Law——A Reflection of Transformation

THE revisions last August to China’s Budget Law were the first since it took effect in 1995.It has thus taken more than a decade to revise a law so important it has been dubbed the"Economic Constitution."Response to the Demand for Change China’s Budget Law was promulgated in 1994 and took effect in 1995.Over the ensuing two decades Chinese society has witnessed dramatic changes–in economic development,state governance,and also public opinion and understanding of the budget.Social progress     

How People's Democracy Works in China

正When King John of England agreed to the Magna Carta in 1215 to make peace with the rebellious barons, the royal charter was meant to protect the nobles' property rights. The primacy of the privileged has since become a hallmark of Western democracy. When Austrian-American political economist Joseph Schumpeter espoused an elitist model in 1942, he argued that given the incapacity of ordinary people to make intelligent decisions in politics, it is necessary to leave governance to politicians chosen through competitive elections, and his theory has gained broad acceptance in the West.     

PRESERVING A TRADITION

COVER STORY The Chinese art of paper cutting has long been a popular pastime in the country's rural areas.For more than 1,000 years,farming families have used it as a method for decorating their homes,but the tradition has struggled for survival in recent years.In Yanchuan County in China's northwestern Shaanxi Province,however,the art form has experienced a revival thanks to the efforts of a local woman.Paper cutting master Gao Fenglian has invested her own money in establishing a paper cutting gallery in the region.The craft's growing popularity has also fuelled a new wave of people wanting to learn how to cut.More than 10,000 of the county's 200,000 are now skilled in the ancient craft,and its revival could serve as a model for the preservation of other Chinese traditions.     

THE MARKETS

ZTE’s Ambition Chinese smartphone maker ZTE Corp.has plans to dominate the Philippine smartphone market through the creation of affordable handsets in the next three years.The telecommunications giant has already become the world’s fourth largest mobile phone manufacturer based on 2012 sales.But it has yet to be a big player in the Philippines,having only entered the Southeast Asian nation a year ago.At present,the company has manufacturing plants in China,Venezuela and Kazakhstan,     

DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS OVER 70 YEARS

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), a period in which the world has changed rapidly. China has played a significant role in that change through international relations and global governance. It has m oved from standing up to opening up to growing rich and strong.     

MARKET WATCH

The hottest financial market topic of the moment could be the subprime loan crisis in the United States. The crisis has stormed the U.S. stock market, dragging it to its biggest falls in a single trading day. Other markets, such as Japan's, were also vulnerable to the crisis, but the Chinese stock market shrugged off the U.S. nightmare and continually hit record highs. Several big Chinese banks were involved in buying subprime mortgage securities and their profits could be affected moderately. Lenovo Group has a new ambition to acquire the high-end European Packard Bell PC business but is facing strong rivals. The Chinese Government is trying to revitalize the old industrial base in the north- eastern provinces. In the meantime, it has promised to invest more to maintain food safety. Foreign capital flowed into the property sector, jacking up housing prices on the mainland.     

A Successful Visit

A state visit to China during the first year in office is unprecedented for a U. S.president, but Barack Obama has made it. Moreover, the fact that President Obama spent four days and three nights of his seven-day visit to four Asian nations in Beijing and Shanghai has demonstrated the importance his administration attaches to China and to Sino-U.S. relations in its global strategy.     

Furious About Rude Insults

Incensed by biased Western media coverage of the riots in Lhasa,Chinese people have taken to the streets abroad to protest Western media coverage of the Olympic torch disruptions and riots in Tibet has angered ordi- nary Chinese people. Cable News Network(CNN)in the United States has come under particular criticism.Chinese people lambasted CNN for twice referring to the Tibet Autonomous     

Tales of two cities

Railway construction in recent years has opened up many formerly inaccessible parts of southwest China. I mentioned in a previous article how Guangdong's San-MaoRailway greatly improved travel in the province's southwestern areas. The project has helped to shorten journey times to Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, from the Pearl River Delta. For many years that city's main line was the one from Beijing to the Vietnamese border - indeed, there is now a 'through-train' to Hanoi. Its role as a rail hub was enhanced with the completion in 1998 of the 'Nan-Kun' Railway to Yunnan Province's capital, Kunming.     

The Dawn of Peace?

The recent memorandum of understanding between the Israelis and the Palestinians has restarted the Middle East Peace talks,but is the road to lasting peace in sight? Peace talks between Israel and Palestine during the past several years have not been as crucial as other Middle East issues such as the Iranian nuclear issue and the war in Iraq.During this time,the peace process has not made any progress and the situation in the region has not improved.But in late November,the world was surprised to see lsraeli and Palestinian leaders meeting in     

MARKET WATCH

OPINION A New Momentum of Growth The financial crisis deriving from the United States in 2008 has not only trapped the global economy in a cycle of recession, but also greatly changed the structure of the global financial market. This change has also expanded to China. China’s financial market has transformed from a traditionally bank-dominated one to a     

Lost Childhood

正EVERY school day Dongdong wakes up at 6:20.Still half asleep,his mother has to force him to drag on his clothes and brush his teeth.Within 15 minutes he has to be in the car,ready to leave,which means his breakfast has to be consumed on the way.If it is winter,the sun has not yet risen.     

Looking for the Next Blockbuster

More and more Chinese films are following the track of big investment. But can they attract more audiences to the cinema? The renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou has been in the limelight in the entertainment news: he has joined forces again with Gong Li after an 11-year breakup. The former "golden couple" is now devoted to a new movie set in ancient China, which has attract     

学生对大学英语课堂语码转换的期望调查研究(英文)

Code-switching in the English as a foreign language(EFL) classroom is a disputable subject in the academic area. There are two main schools of thought toward English-Chinese code-switching. One holds an opinion that the code switching as a barrier for the first language may produce interference and negative transfer, while another argues code-switching as a facilitator for the first language may provide the most effective meanings of learning. The focus of the argument is to use or not use the mother tongue. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate whether it is necessary to use code-switching in the college English class from the perspective of English learners. By doing so, a questionnaire has been made to reveal the expectations of students with different English proficiency toward code-switching. And then the paper has provided suggestions on the way of using appropriate code-switching strategies in class to facilitate EFL learning.     

The NBA＇s ＂China Derby＂

IF the sheer number of deals the American National Basketball Association （NBA） has with Chinese television stations around the country is anything to go by, basketball is big business in China these days. In addition to arrangements with 51 local and regional broadcasters in China, the NBA has concluded marketing contracts with 20 major Chinese companies. Millions of Chinese watch NBA games, and 30 percent of the traffic to NBA.com originates in China.