the Czechoslovak economy in the 1960s was in serious decline and the imposition of central control from Communists. During this period, Alexander Dubček became the first Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1968. 

Dubček and other reformers started Prague Spring and sought to liberalize the Communist regime, creating “socialism with a human face“. During the Prague Spring, he and other reform-minded Communists sought to win popular support for the Communist regime by allowing greater freedom of expression, tolerating political and social organizations not under Communist control, and decentralization of the economy and democratization. Among the freedoms granted were a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel.

On August 20-August 21, 1968, The Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Germany and Poland invaded Czechoslovakia and successfully ended the Prague Spring liberation reform.

After the Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia remained occupied until 1990. During which period, Gustáv Husák who succeeded Dubček power, restored the political and economic values that prevailed before the reform period. The only property inherited from Prague spring was the federation of the country into two separate republics. 

A decade later, derived from Prague Spring, an analogous event Beijing Spring, a period of Chinese political liberalization occurred in China in 1977 and 1978. During the Beijing Spring, the public was allowed greeter freedom to criticize the government than before. Most of the criticism was directed toward the Cultural Revolution.

There was another new Beijing Spring starting from September 1997 to mid November 1998. During this period, Chinese authorities relaxed some control over political expression and organization, and also China Democracy Party was founded, etc.

By Tiara Lin, Emily Song, Bridget Zhang

Hong Kong-February 13-IJS-Global-Compared with western man who speaks out their love every now and then, the notoriously conservative Chinese man is the most unwillingly people to tell lovers the three magic words I love you.  What’s more, most Hong Kong women showed their indifference towards “I love you,” actually, they concerned more about real behavior instead of sweat words and honeyed-phrases.

Serena Cheng , 20, student of City Univeristy

She said that three words mean everything for her, “love is something you can never figure out…you give him a big hug, then he would tell you what you want to hear.”

Tony Cheung, 21, salesman

Tony said that three words never fall out of his mouth,”I never feel like saying it. It never happened.”

Meng kwan, 41, office staff

he has no plan of saying it on valentine’s day, “ I would take her out for dinner and shopping. Action speaks louders than the words.”

Bonny Lee, 22 , university student

Bony voices pessimism when it comes to love. She said she  doesn’t take that three words  seriously,“how do you know if  he really means it?”

Michelle Yeung, 20 , Student

“ I think men from Asian countries feel too shy to say “I love you” to their girlfriends actively,”

“One time after my boyfriend and I did shopping , he said “ I love you” to me actively, I felt very sweet.”

Tina Chu, 27, Singer

“ I don’t need my boyfriend to say “ I love you” to me very often,”

“The timing is very important. I believe my boyfriend will say “ I love you” at the appropriate time.”

Aggie Cheng, 20 , Student

“ I don’t force my boyfriend to say “I love you” to me if he has not done before. He said “ I love you” to me on my birthday,”

“ I believe what he does for me is even important than what he says to me.”

]]> http://emily33.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/no-three-words-no-matter/feed/ 0 Emily Song http://emily33.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/czech%e2%80%99s-chinese-woman-spends-ten-years-seeks-happiness/ http://emily33.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/czech%e2%80%99s-chinese-woman-spends-ten-years-seeks-happiness/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:17:11 +0000 emily33 http://emily33.wordpress.com/?p=30 ]]>

By Emily Song

Prague – February 12-IJS-Global- She gave up her restaurant of 5 years operation in Prague for sake of coming back to take care of her parents in China. Facing a zero start, she returned to Prague and began all from a start without regret. Ten years abroad life in Prague is uttered like a smoke from her mouth. This woman’s name is Jana, a Chinese woman living in Prague of Czech republic for ten years.

“I can’t be with my family this spring festival due to my work in Prague. I saw my parents through internet that they are getting older, and I can feel their loneliness. I feel ashamed that I can do so few for them. I cried a long time on spring festival’s eve.” Jana said.

Jana, a 36 year old Chinese woman, who came to Prague about ten years ago, is now in charge of a travel agency in Prague.

The reason she came to Prague was to pursue her love, meanwhile, she started her first career as charging a restaurant. Restaurant’s business is much more stable compared with my present job; on the other hand, it also cost more energy and time, Jana said.

But Jana decided without hesitation to end the restaurant business after a five-year operation and fly back home to take care of her parents as soon as she received the message that her parents’ health is not positive.

“I’ve no choice but to part my restaurant business with my parents whom I treasured the most.” She said.

In 2004, Jana returned to Prague with her boyfriend deciding to start all over again. This time it’s travel agency.

“Thanks to my boyfriend, he worked together with me and helped me to pick up this career.” Jana said with a happy smile and a little flush.

Their travel agency didn’t operate well at the very beginning that they had no guest, no business, and no way back. But gradually, they had attracted a few companies’ attention, and customer grew from few to many. Jana said she was interested in doing travel agency, and she loves her career. She sees the potential market of Prague’s travel industry.

“If I were given a second chance, I may not choose to live abroad. But I have no choice then, because my lover is already abroad.”

It takes you a very long time to adopt into a totally new environment, during which you will lose lots of precious things including your relationships with your family members, your old friends, and relatives etc. she said.

Jana said that were quite a few people who really made some money here, but compared with what they paid for, it is nothing. Furthermore, those who didn’t make fortune deserve more pity because they avoid going back home for fear of being laughed at by friends and relatives.

“I’m not that ambitious woman who seeks for money or career.” She said, “I came out for my boyfriend.”

Jana is happy with her present situation, a boy friend, and a job. In order to do more for her career and happiness, she is studying further on travel subject.

A little girl is giving Lai See to the Lion and Dragon dancers at the Hong Kong New World Plaza

By Emily Song

Hong Kong – February 1 –IJS-Global-Various Chinese official departments’ data show that the traditional celebration ways, new year’s eve dinner, Lai See, greeting by sending cell phone message, weren’t weaken but some amount even surpassed last year’s under the 2009 global financial recession. And according to AC Nielson’s survey, more than half of the web user said they arranged spring festival journey, and Hong Kong remains the most popular place.

“We have only one spring festival for each year, although it is under global financial recession, we still want to enjoy the celebration of a new year.” Zheng Yuanchang said.

Zheng, a worker of I.T. industry in Hong Kong, was asking his three-year old son to give the Lai See to the Lion and Dragon dancers at the Hong Kong New World Plaza on Sunday. Zheng showed me dozens of Lai See in his pockets, and said that he put into each Lai See 20 HK dollars, which is exactly the same amount of last year. And he said the total expense of Lai See was no less than last year too.

Lai See is a monetary gift wrapped in a red envelope and is given in Chinese society. It is called Lai See in Cantonese, and Hong Bao in Mandarin. Chinese believe Lai See can bring them happy, peace and luck in the coming new year.

And in mainland China, according to the Chinese financial department’s website, on the day of the new year’s eve, January, 25., the sale volume of the mainly monitoring retail sale enterprises of the financial department achieved 2.9billion Yuan, a 16.5 percent increase than last year’s volume. It also reported that the public dinning on the new year’s eve is hot during the whole new year holiday, that the volume of mainly monitoring restaurants raised by 11.7 percent than last year’s in the same period. Meanwhile old and famous restaurant, as well as special feature restaurant all saw a full seated business.

Represented by greeting through cell phone message, the thumb economy blossomed during the Lunar New Year holiday. The three telecommunication operations China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom estimated that in the week long spring festival holiday, the entire mobile phone users of China sent a volume of more than 18 billion messages in total. If calculated by 0.1 Yuan per message, that cell phone message has contributed 1.8 billion Yuan to China’s economy.

And also, according to AC Nielson’s web survey in the area of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, that more than half Chinese web users said they have arranged journey for 2009 spring festival holiday. Hong Kong remains the most popular destination for mainland tourist, 60 percent tourist targeting abroad chose Hong Kong as their destination.

(gz/es)

We are an interviewing group from Prague. We would like to write a feature story about a Chinese woman living in Prague for ten years.

2.       Why we choose this topic?

-          It is a phenomenon that Chinese immigrant to Eastern Europe, especially in ten years ago.

-          As a young woman ten years ago, she determined to immigrant to Prague on her own.

-          Through interview, we discovered the uniqueness of this girl. She is not that ambitious as most foreign country immigrants who struggle to earn a status or get identification in the country, she just stayed in Prague by chance not determinedly.

3.       What we will focus on?

-          Who is she? (general information about her)

-          We will draw a separate picture of her life ten years ago and present, including her own views toward her life and also her family’s.

-          We will focus on her most important life experience in ten years, and will give some touching points.

 Of course, there are various definitions of plagiarism. I’d like to give my version of plagiarism based on my reading and study experience. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or paraphrasing of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s original work.

Plagiarism is regarded as a cheating behavior, which means the dishonesty of taking another person’s mental work as his/her own. When someone steal something, it means someone take another person’s property secretly without permission or legal right; take dishonestly. This behavior can be sentenced to certain punishment in criminal law depends on the thing which he or she stole. The stealing behavior in academic field is called plagiarism. As intellectual property is regarded as the most precious property of human-beings’. Accordingly, plagiarism is considered a worse behavior compared with stealing.

On the other hand, different from physical objects stealing, plagiarism is easier, because you can easily reach school or library or bookstore where you get a book or your classmates work and take some parts of them as your own. Thirdly, for some countries, they don’t have a strict law on plagiarism, which lead to people’s unconscious about the result of plagiarism.

Avoiding plagiarism is very important. We should be aware that all intellectual work is created based on predecessor’s intellectual results. We should credit our respect to predecessor when we were using their academic property. In such a way, we can also distinguish

2. Can I legally post any picture on my blog that I have downloaded from the internet as long as I credit the source?

Generally speaking, it’s legal that you post picture on blog as long as you credit the source. The exception is that you use these pictures for business purpose. For example, you can not sell these pictures or make profit of these pictures. But it is acceptable, if you just download these pictures for study or discussion. And it is ok for you put pictures on your blog as long as you credit the source.