I haven’t written for a while because I was busy with some accounting courses and preparing for the exams in the past two months. But I like writing since writing could help me think about my life calmly every now and then. So I just continue writing as long as I have something to express. I am doing some financial management courses right now and I think I like them. Why some business courses? One important reason could be that I want to deepen my knowledge and get ready for a good financial position which I am qualified for in the future. Everyone knows that teaching others is not an easy task, especially when we are not professional teachers. I hope as soon as I start to work, I could be one of the best and able to be the person who teaches instead of being taught. Another reason could be that I would like to pass some basic professional exams in the field when I have some free time at this moment. Hah, everything is fine. Where and what kind of companies am I going to work? I have been thinking this question in the past few months. I don’t want to say I just like to work in one particular city. For me, because I am single so far, Beijing is good, but Xi’an or Wuhan may also be OK. As for the companies, hum, I have to admit that banks are preferable. However, this is not related to any kind of vanity because we all know that positions in banks are admirable no matter you are in the east or in the west. Relatively high salary, stability, good employment benefits are all tempting offers. These may result in higher requirements, especially when you don’t have some reasonable connections. But for me, working in banks can be a right choice because of my educations and personal preferences. I hope I could pass the exams and interviews and get a position I really like. Last but most important, traveling or walking in the park and enjoying the sight of beautiful landscapes are joyful in our life, reading and studying in the classroom are also meaningful and could also make us happy, correct?

Friendship is not that easy sometimes, and most of the time we expect even more from a love relationship. This made us usually incline to examine a love relationship with a magnifier and start to doubt: does a perfect love relationship exist? As we saw when we were young boys or girls, the lovers in the TV dramas or movies always suffer a lot, for example they may experience betrayals, hurts or heartbreaks, before they say they love each other and get together again. Later in the real life our own experiences might also tell us there seldom exists a perfect love relationship – in other words, we could always find out some minor errors there. People may say a good lover should know when and how to “forgive” or be “considerate” in a good relationship. Hum, this could probably make the love seem “perfect” because the relationship itself has been sublimated. We have to admit we are all looking for perfect love relationships deep in our heart. But on the other hand, why seek for a perfect love relationship anyway? William Shakespeare once said:” And ruined love when it is built anew, grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.” Perhaps living in a love relationship and cherishing everything more carefully is more important. As long as we have grown from a love relationship, I think it should be remembered, no matter whether it is perfect or not.

Being a lady sometimes has a lot of advantages. Take the hair styles for example, we could have long hair, or short hair, straight or curly. We like to change our hair styles now and then. Long hair normally gives people the impression of femininity and tenderness, and I guess that’s why many idol dramas’ female lead usually has straight long hair. For myself, I prefer to have long hair when I have much spare time to take care of them, and actually I enjoy the feeling of ethereality it brings to me. (August 2014, when I was in Hancheng) When you see a girl with short hair, most of time you would come up with the words like professional, dynamic or cute. Audrey Hepburn was once well-known for her extremely short hair. Most of the time a smart short hair can make me feel comfy and joyful. (September 2014, a creative BOB) I like my current short hair, and I start to miss my long hair again…

For the old generation Chinese parents, most of them prefer boys to girls. But nowadays parents also like girls probably they think girls are easier to be raised, for example more obedient and usually have more filial affections for their parents and so on. Apparently I am female, but I also admit that sometimes my personality has some boys’ characteristics, especially when I was a little girl. For instance, I really hate people around me like my family members or friends say I should do this or I shouldn't do that, although most of time I love them very much. Now I have grown up, I think I will never shout to them and reply: “It is none of your business about this!” But I think for most people, if someone forces you to do or not to do something, you would probably like to do the opposite. Let me elaborate this with more examples. Since now I am not working, my family members sometimes suggest me that I should get an easy job to do first and then see other opportunities, but the fact is that I want to do a job which has some career prospects, and I don’t want to become a “try and error and then try again” person. Also about my love relationships, some of my family members or friends would ask: “Why not have dates with that guy?” The problem might be that I don’t think he really fits me, and I would probably prefer to have a long-term relationship. Many times I really feel frustrated about their advice, although I think they may want to be good to me. I think I am a grown-up, most of time obviously I know quite much what I should do or what I am going to do next. So if you were me, what would you say to those you really love but with different opinions? Please feel free to share your ideas with me.

In this video I am trying to introduce the Bell Tower, Daming Palace National Heritage Park, the Ancient City Wall, Great Tang All Day Mall, De Fu Lane and Hot Rice made Pasta in Xi'an to all of you by words and photos. Hope you like it!

Yesterday I visited the tomb temple of Sima Qian in Hancheng. Most literati in China would look up to Sima Qian’s contributions and great achievements. His main work Historic Records is considered as not only a historic epic but also a marvelous literature. At the entrance, there is beautiful long stonework with different historic opinions. I took a picture with one of them. Are we now also living in a time of peace and prosperity? (See photo) The bronze statue of Sima Qian is at the end of entrance main road. (See photo) Behind the statue are a river and a hill, where the tomb exists. The memorial archway is the symbol of this tomb temple. (See photo) From here we can go upstairs to the tomb of Sima Qian. Here on the hill is the yurt-shaped tomb, also called Eight-Diagram tomb. (See photo) It was built by the emperor Kublai in Yuan Dynasty. In the museums there are good paintings depicting the whole life of Sima Qian and also a lot of stories from his book, especially the social Economy Commentary Section, which is also very valuable nowadays.

At the end of April I got to know this blog contest from ChinaDaily’s mobile newspaper, and I gladly joined the online activity. I began to write blogs in early May, and now almost three months of competition has passed. Without any doubt each of us has somehow improved our writing skills during this period. At least for me, I think I have broadened my vocabulary a little bit. The most important is that we’ve got to know many friends here, people share ideas together, and argue on hot or controversial issues in a friendly way with each other, all of these have made the blog area full of contributions like in a well-organized big family. ColinSpeakman and Cai-shen are two fellow bloggers that I have interacted the most. Although the round of blog contest for expats has ended some time ago, I notice that they are still writing blogs regularly and make comments for others’ blog actively. This can prove much passion from them for this forum indeed. I would like to show my gratitude to their guidance and a lot of comments. I am quite happy that I have joined this activity and write blogs in English here, and as I promise so far, I think I will keep up posting what I see and what I am thinking here at least in the near future. Hope more people would join us!

Normally I have one cup of coffee, ten cups of tea and two bottles of water each day. Tea became the quintessence of Chinese culture thousands of years ago, and I believe everyone in China starts to drink tea from a very young age. Tea has not only been a sort of drinks but also become a way of keeping good health, because as we know green tea can add elementary substances like selenium to our body, black tea can be good for our stomach and digestion, while chrysanthemum tea can clear heat and downbear fire. Tea could be a daily consumption, and it could also be an art. I began to drink coffee after I entered the university. Originally I drank coffee to keep away from sleeping, especially during the final exam season. But later, coffee, like milk tea, became a life style among college students on campus. We usually drank them simply because of their good tastes. And then I started to be able to distinguish the very good coffee from the not so good one. I cannot say I definitely prefer tea to coffee or the other way around. I think good tea and good coffee both can make us feel happy. Since so far I’ve had enough coffee, next time if you want to serve me some drinks, I would like to reply: a very good tea please~

This week I went to Huizhou again, and I was impressed by the beautiful scenery and Hui culture. I had a great time there with my sister-in-law and my little nephew. We are all Anhui people, so this trip was kind of “traveling in our courtyard”. Part one: Happy valley The main feature of happy valley is that it has a small stream flowing from the top of the hill down to the foot of the hill. It is clean and clear, bringing some sort of anima to this valley. (See photo) The hill is covered by some forests of bamboos. (See photo) Many things are made of bamboos there, including the rails along the road and some stages for the performances. There is a place presenting us the life and worship ceremony of Wa minority on the hill. (See photo) Ox is considered as auspicious in their belief. Part two: Yellow Mountain Ming traveler Xiake Xu once gave the Yellow Mountain his highest praise:” There are no famous mountains domestic or overseas which can equal the Yellow Mountain.” Nowadays it is ranked as one of ten most famous scenic spots in China. The Yellow Mountain is well known for its pines, all kinds of pines everywhere, straight or tilted. The guest-greeting pine is definitely a must see when you are on the mountain. (See photo) We all know that the four remarkable spectacles on the Yellow Mountain are strangely-shaped pines, bizarre rocks, sea of clouds and hot springs. Look at this rock, isn’t it like a fish? (See photo) People give it a good name as “the carp has leaped through the dragon’s gate”. At noon we were climbing over the Aoyu peak, undoubtedly a bit tired, have a short rest here! (See photo) The weather is really good. Though we did not see the sea of clouds, we were happy to have the blue sky and white clouds. (See photo) Not far away are the mountains covered by pines, ridge upon ridge. The highest peak is the lotus peak. (See photo) It is almost 1864.8 meters. We passed across its hillside. Late in the afternoon when we were at the exit of the Yellow Mountain, it started to rain. The dark light fog can be seen above the mountains, looking like a Chinese ink wash drawing. (See photo) Part three: Hong village Hongcun is a cattle shaped ancient village. It was built in the Southern Song dynasty and now it has approximately 900 years of history. It gives a great picture about how rich ancient Hui merchants were and how they lived at that time. At the entrance there is a big lake ---- the south lake. On one side of the lake are willows along the lake bank, while on the other side are the Hui dwellings. (See photo) Can you see the bridge behind me? (See photo) It was built on the south lake. It became well-known to us because it was once one of the places to shoot the movie “Crouching tiger, hidden dragon”. Around the moon pond there are typical Hui local dwellings. (See photo) The main characteristics of those buildings are that they used very few windows and the eaves were very high, thus the thieves could not get in easily. Most of the buildings had wooden structure, so every small stream can be seen at the front of each home in order to prevent them from getting on fire. During the ancient times the merchants usually had very low social class, therefore they tried their best to let their children have more education and become government officials, who were then considered noble and respectable. So the village had a very good dedicated school for children study. (See photo) We visited the richest family in the village. (See photo) Allegedly they had over 60 rooms together, for the owners, their children, their servants and their guests. Inside the buildings there are very delicate and precious wood carvings on the windows or beams. (See photo) Now most of them are very well protected by glass. There are 99 alleys in the village, with slate roads. (See photo) People say the village is like a maze, because you can easily get lost there. Just remember: go against the stream direction you are entering the village, and go down the stream direction you are exiting the village. Huizhou, a typical place on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, can mildly show you both wonderful scenery and its long history.