http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/international/g20.reut/index.htm?postversion=2009092104

final blog entry

In 21st century, someone who wants to be a talent person must be bilingual. Currently, most of universities in the United States have foreign language classes and Study Abroad Programs, which is to cultivate students to be bilingual. I think I am bilingual now, and I do obtain some benefits from that; however, the process of being bilingual was painful and it is still a challenge to me.

There are many benefits of being bilingual: first, I am able to set up the communication with English speakers. I can learn foreigner’s opinions and attitudes; meanwhile, I set up friendship with theses foreigners, which extends my net-work. Second, I am able to study in foreign country. I can understand the instructor’s lectures, the knowledge from textbooks, and the information from hand outs. Also, I am able to understand foreign broadcasts and TV shows; I like singing English songs, and I like watching Prison Break. It is obvious that I have more chances to obtain a job because more and more companies would like to hire bilingual students.

I also suffered difficulties. I had done good work in high school English classes, but as I started to prepare TOEFL test for MSU admission, I knew how basic the language I had learned before. The period of time of studying TOEFL was nightmare. I read the passages in Study Guide again and again but understood nothing due to lack of amounts of vocabulary. I was thinking my English speaking was bad so that I was shy to talk to English speakers. Therefore, my English speaking ability was improved slowly, which caused I did not get good score on TOEFL speaking test.

Fortunately, I reached MSU English proficiency so that I could study in the United States. I found that passing TOEFL did not mean I could use English well. Right now I am learning English from TV, text books, and local people. I learned some slangs, and I am adapting local people’s speaking speed. It is a little struggle to live into English environment, but I believe I will learn English well and use it more accurate.

How does literacy shape technology? How does technology shape literacy?

On one side, literacy gives technology a push. It is because people are willing to show their literacy clearer and faster. This need forms a market so that corporations would like to offer more founds to scientists to research new literacy devices which will bring business benefits.
On the other side, new technology not only provides better literacy but also directs people into a new form of life. It may create new commercial trade so that more jobs are provided; it may also bring new trouble to our world, like people who works on computers more than 10 hours every day may cause eye disease, and their bodies are weak due to lack of time for physical exercise. We need to adapt the new life which the new technology bring to us, and when we are accustomed to the life, we are going to think the next new technology that can show our literacy clearest and fastest.

blog entry for lab on marth 31

News from institution with high reputation does impress me. News does not have many rhetorical sentences that wastes my time understanding what happened or what the true is. Instead, the format of news article is simple to be tracked: a short comprehensive topic sentence is usually in the first paragraph, which is easy to be located; the descriptions are arranged beginning the second paragraph. There are also comments from professors or researchers with high reputation, which can be trusted and considered.

I like a news with a live video that is higher convinced because a visual media can easily persuade me that I do see what is happening (I trust my eyes). Although videos are able to be technically edited by Photoshop or other computer programs, it is trusted that the video from official departments or reputational institutions are original and unedited.

The video is best to be taken in recent. It should be play continuously without cut. It should include the major incident and the surroundings to show a comprehensive view to the audiences. It should include the interview to people who are related to the incident.

Besides, a series of live pictures posted with news articles are helpful to convince audience.

The fifth personal literacy

My fifth personal literacy is doing presentation. I was not a good speaker, but last semester I got trained and had confidence standing in front of audiences giving out information. I took English speaking class last semester; one of the goals in this class is to teach students some strategies on presentation, and practice it in the class. To me this was really challenged because I had not had presentation experience before. I had felt nervous talking to public and had not been able to make the presentation logically. Fortunately, the instructor gave me a big push; he taught me that I must trust myself, and he suggested I could practice in front of mirror at home. These were really helpful to me, so the first presentation test I did well. However, I also had troubles on clearly speaking. To improve this, I read many English articles each week, and watch CNN news to adjust my pronunciation. I did an excellent job on final presentation test, I was fully confident that introduced my own tour experience to the other classmates. My presentation was logically, my speaking is clearly, and I had good eye contact with audiences. I obtain grade 4.0 on the final.


During this class I learned that if you believe yourself, you can accomplish your goal.

The fourth personal literacy

My fourth personal literacy is understands lectures in Microeconomic class. This semester I study microeconomics, which is a fifty minutes class in Wells hall. The professor does not take attendance, but I know I need to attend each class because it is important to understand professor’s lectures to prepare weekly quizzes. I capture the professor’s words, write down some essential definitions, and follow the professor’s instruction to draw charts like Opportunity Cost chart and Demand-Supply chart. The professor enjoys joking during the lecture (I do not feel funny when he is joking, but other American students laugh a lot), and he gives many realistic examples that help us better understand the knowledge. The professor also set up free review session on Thursday to answer Problem Set and student’s questions, which helps me a lot to maintain good grades on quizzes and assignments.


Catching up with the professor’s lectures during class time is an essential ability to students who would like to have more free time. That means if you understand and reply the information from the lecture in class, you do not need to spend much more time to review at night so that you are free to go to work out or watch movies. This is a good method that makes your time efficient.

The third personal literacy

My third personal literacy is understands descriptions and instructions when online shopping. The benefit of online shopping is that customers can just stay at home waiting their desirable products coming, instead of going outside, which wastes time. Also, the price of goods online is usually cheaper than the price sold in retailers. Amazon is a very famous online shopping website that provides all kinds of products you want to buy; what you need to do is input product name on search bar, and then you will see many options that march your choice. Last week when I decided to buy a Bluetooth earphone I searched on Amazon to look for offers. I read descriptions including technical Details and Product Details of one Bluetooth earphone, and then I decided to buy it. After that I followed instructions that inputted my credit card’s information, mailing address and my phone numbers. Finally I went over the information I inputted to make sure it was correct, and then placed the order. There are many advertisements showing discount and cash back; most of them are tricky because if you click their link your credit card information will be copied, and they will charge you each month, which happened on me last month that I was charged $11.99 for a service, which is I had never known.

the second personal literacy

The second personal literacy I have is interprets Chinese words to American students. I am glad to see that Michigan State University provides Chinese classes to students, and so many American students would like to learn Chinese language. A Chinese student created “language exchange club” last semester in Owen Hall, which is to provide an opportunity for American students to practice Chinese language, and an opportunity for Chinese students to practice English speaking. I am the member of this club, and each Wednesday I talk with many American students in basement of Owen Hall. These American students usually are taking Chinese class in MSU; some of them cannot express their thinking, others are doing good job that they understand what I say in Chinese and they can make an excellent Chinese sentence to express their ideas; there are few American geniuses whose Chinese speaking is almost perfect, even though they just learn this foreign language no more than two years. I am very happy to help them by interpreting some Chinese words and sentences. I also teach them some Chinese idioms, introduce lots of Chinese cultures, and provide assistance on their homework. The weekly meeting makes a lot of fun and helps me to make many American friends.

The literacy of understanding on investments

The literacy that is referred to my major is to understand stock data and charts on investments. Every day the first thing I need to do is open my Scottrade account to see stock market, and usually I would like to concentrate on one or two stocks’ quotations. I need to understand the price of Day High, price of Day Low, P/E ratio, and Earning per share ratio. Also, I anticipate stock price trend by analyzing stock chart, using many chart tools such as MACD and Bollinger Bands. However, these are not enough to earn money; the most important understanding on investments is to track stock market’s surroundings to know when the large investment organizations, such as mutual funds companies, decide to “raise” stocks price. What they usually do is attract other investor’s attentions on one stocks (they have many shares on this stock on very low price) by buying large amount of the stock’s shares at very short time, which leads to the price increasing; if successful, more other investors are willing to buy this shares, which pushes the price up; then these large investment organizations start to sell shares to earn money. To track this process, I need to analyze each day’s transaction volume from stock chart to make a decision that predict the period of time these large investment companies start this process, and buy the shares to follow them. I really enjoy doing this because I can obtain amounts of money without hard-work; I also have to take a few risks. Therefore, to earn money, I am not only able to understand data and charts, but also need to pray for luck.

what does literacy mean to you?

I think literacy is the ability of understanding, interpreting, and creating. Literacy can be words, symbols that are wrote down, or music and movie that are not recorded on the paper. Literacy is a method of transmission between abstract, like thought, and substantial, like documents.

GENRE MEMO for part 3

To: Franny Howes
From: [yadong li]
Date: [Feb 27,2009]

Re: Genre Memo for [Blog analysis]

Franny:
Part 3 is a blog analysis. The author is invited by Washington Post to write what is happening in China, and the relationship between China and other countries, typically a comprehensive introduction of China. I use rhetorical analysis to separately analyze purpose, audience, mode, and ethos of this blog.


Sincerely,



[yadong li]

GENRE MEMO for part 2

To: Franny Howes
From: [yadong li]
Date: [Feb 27,2009]

Re: Genre Memo for [photo analysis]

Franny:
Part 2 is a photo analysis. This is a living photo of two children from a poor family that lives in Yunnan province. I took this photo in my journey for recall as purpose, so the audiences are basically me, my family and friends. I describe the feature of these two children and the environment showed in the photo, and I introduce the difficulty of their live and analyze the issue which China is facing that related to this photo

Sincerely,



[yadong li]

GENRE MEMO for part 1

To: Franny Howes
From: [yadong li]
Date: [Feb 27,2009]

Re: Genre Memo for [video analysis]

Franny:
This video is a one piece of horror movie The Ring from YouTube. It is typically the best part scenes of this movie that audience may remember. The audience is the people who forgot this exciting scene and want to recall it. What I analysis is the difference of American horror movie and Asian horror movie, and I think this is due to the difference of Asian and American’s culture and way of thinking so that the ghost that they make is different to another.

Sincerely,



[yadong li]

papper #2 part 3 blog analysis

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/pomfretschina/2009/01/10_million_have_lost_jobs_in_c.html#comments


I would like to analyze a blog which names Pomfret’s China. This blog is under Washington Post website. The whole blog is writing about Chinese politics, economics, cultures… almost everything of China. The author, Pomfret, went to China in 1980 first time, then in 1988 and 1989 he was there covering the student-led protests in Tiananmen Square (this issue is complicated). After that he returned to China in 1998 and bought a house in Beijing as a place for accommodation. At that time he decided to open this blog to introduce China to the western. Most of article he wrote was about politic of China, the latest one is “A New U.S. Policy for China?” which was updated at January 13, 2009 (seems like he has not updated his blog for a long time).

The purpose that he opened this blog, I think, is to introduce a “real” China to the western. I believe before he first came to China he had read many news and articles about this country, but when he arrived at China, what he saw was different from what these western news and articles describe, and he understood that there was misunderstanding between this oriental country and the westerns, and he needed to be the man who stood out that tell people the truth.

The audiences basically are from the entire world (how I know? Check the names in comments, some of names are “weird”, so seems from Asia or South America or…). There are many reasons that people would like to read this blog: some of them may be students majoring Asian politics in colleges and they need citation of others opinion of China from the Internet for his or her research; others may care some hot topic of China like whether pollution happens in Beijing during 2008 Olympic games (the weather was good during that time). Also, there are a small group of Chinese student, like me, want to know how western think of China.

The mode of this text is definitely the blog mode, that is some websites provides spaces for people, let them post whatever they want to write on the Internet; the blog owner can set up if the blog is open to public; other people who have authority can go over the blog and make comment for each article. Currently most of website offers many accessories like able to add picture or music to make more fun of blog. On the Pomfret’s blog the background is blue without music and pictures. The owner is not editing it as a beautiful or cool one because the topic of articles is serious. However, there are too many advertisements on it which is not what the owner like, I think.

About the ethos of this blog, I think Pornfret’s article is unbiased, he is not criticizing or complimenting China; he just gives truth that what China is doing which may affect other countries, and questions that he thinks people should pay attention. Just like what he wrote in his blog:” China is an amazing place; there are many stories to tell. I hope we can tell them together”.

paper #2 part 2 photo analysis

I took this picture in July, 2007, the time before going to the United States. At that time I was traveling to Yunnan province which is located in the west of China. There was a Non Government Organization (NGO) that served Luku Lake area which was one of the places of interest in Yunnan. I contacted them by accident, and the leader Lao Zhai invited me to go to local family with him, so I accepted. From the conversation with Lao Zhai on the way of one local family, I knew that the NGO’s purpose was to help local family to find financial assistances for their children’s tuition fee, because their parents were unable to afford it. From the picture you can see that it was a beautiful place where the two children were on the half way up of mountain playing in flowers. However, their faces were depressed, without any smile, and even though living in the beautiful place it seemed like they were not happy. The children’s clothes were very dirty, and their hair had not been cut for a long time.
These two children are belonged to the family that we were going to visit. After a short conversation I knew that this family was struggled their live. Their annual income was approximately 5000 Yuan (about 700 US dollars), most of income was from farming, they only ate rice one time each week, and potatoes were their main food, let alone ate meat. They feared sick, because they did not have medical security, and they did not have money to go to hospital. Lao Zhai and I had a rest in their house for a while. I looked around and found out that there was no electricity provided in this house. I could not imagine how terrible it was that lived in the dark after sunset every day. This family was trapped, isolated on the huge mountain area.
This is just one small segment of the issues happened in current China that the development of west and east parts are unbalanced. The life quality in east area, especially in coastline area, is almost same as the quality in development countries. Nevertheless, as I have described, people in some east are still struggling on food, sick, water and electricity. To solve this problem, I believe more fundamental facilities need to be built, and children from poor family need more assistants for their tuition fee that let them be educated.

a typical day of my life

The day I describe is the first arrival in the United States. I recall that I was exhausted due to long flight time in the air. My first stop was Houghton,MI. I had imagined there should be many skyscrapers, but I just saw a few little houses which made me very disappointment(after that I went to New York so I know US does have some modern places). My luggages were delayed, I didn't know what I should do. Fortunately someone picked me up and provided food to me. I started excited because I saw so many Chinese here, which made me not feel lonely. At that day I knew I new life started, and I would do my best.

#2 papers part 1 Video analysis

Compare Japanese horror movies and American horror movies


Horror movie is one important genre in the movie industry. There is always a group of people that like to “abuse” themselves (that’s what my mother said to me). I watched many horror movies, especially enjoy Japanese horror movies, and I will introduce the differences between Japanese horror movies and American horror movies.


American horror movies use visual horrible scenes to scare audiences. In American movies, you always see the ghost’s terrible face through entire movies, and victim’s blood which is because they are slaughtered by monsters or ghosts. American horror movie, in my opinion, is extraordinary disgusting; in the movie, people are hunted and captured just like the quarry, and they are cut, boiled. A strategy that American directors like to use is that they give the face of monsters or ghosts a large feature, so that audiences could see their tooth, with the whole mouth of victim’s blood. However, you seldom see these bloody scenes in the beginning or the middle of the Japanese horror movies; instead, you are brought into a designed environment which is so common in daily life that you feel like you are truly in this environment when watching. Ghost is invisible or unapparent, but you know it exists and is watching you somewhere. The most extremely horrible scene usually happens at the end of movie when you are immersed and trapped in this story which is designed by the director. One example is The Ring, which is one of the most successful Japanese horror movies in the world. In the last part of this movie, the actor finally failed to escape from the curse; His TV turned on automatically and showed a video that a "girl" wore white pure dress who had died thirty years ago came out of a dumb well , scrambled to the TV, and finally moved out of show to be real! The actor was so scared that he was difficult to scream, he even could not stand up to run, but scrambled to the door for escape. You can see that the "girl" didn't crash to the man, but slowly walked with weired shaking. Compare to the American ghosts that are aggressively crashing to split out the victim, Asian ghosts, just like the "girl" did, are more likely to give the victim mental pressure, which makes Asian people more scared. I believe this is because Asian people usually think implicitly that are used to looking for something behind what they see, not like American people that think directly and decidedly.

photo analysis

http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=%E3%EB%B4%A8%B5%D8%D5%F0&in=24752&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=13&rn=1&di=817215521&ln=2000

this picture portrays Chinese premier Wen Jiabao consoled a child whose parents had died because of a earthquake happened last year in the west of China. the child was crying, and the premier had his arm around the child's shoulder; his face showed pity. There is a mirror behind these two people that reflected a flash from photographer and some people stood in front of the premier and the child, so it is obvious that this photo was not originally designed but was opportunely shot. This photo is sentimentalized. The photographer chose these guys to represent three groups of people: the child is the representative of people who lost their families and wealth felt desperate at that time; the premier represented the central government that will rescue the sufferers and give them hope and support; the people who stood in front of the child and the premier represented the mass common people who would give the suffer favors to help them. I can understand how painful the child was because he had lost his family. Also, I understand the central government will help the people like this child who had suffered disasters from the earthquake. This photo showed a hope that China had courage and confidence to rebuild it's land.

25 things

1. I want to learn how to play piano
2. I like to play starcraft
3. I like to watch movies
4. I am good at playing badminton
5. I went to women bathroom by accident last week ( I am a male )
6. most of time I am serious
7 I am waiting for starcraft 2
8. I decide to stay school during summer break
9. I like to read politic news, but I hate politics
10. I am gonna to prepare my resume this end of year
11. I hope the Chinese and US stock-markets go up this year
12. I like money
13. I like drive, but I am lazy to take care a car
14. I hope to be assigned into Business school this end of year
15. I don't feel comfortable in club, but I like dance
16. I want to learn dance, especially cha-cha
17. I am a good singer
18. I believe myself
19. Chinese restaurants in lansing sucks
20 I miss my mother's cook
21. I hate people are late for appointments without telling me in advance.
22. IM east are usually crowed in sunday afternoon
23. I have no plan for spring break
24. seems like it's difficult to get a job for finance major
25 I may not go to graduate school before 30

homework due FEB 16,2009

well, it's a advertisement of Adidas. This advertisement includes currently the best NBA stars that are well-known in the world. it's a short story that Kevin Ganett calls players practice basketball together. The main scence is in a basketball gym. Players run very fast, shooting and dunking the ball. The slot swichs very fast, which is to show "fast". Musics and some talking are embeded in the advertisement.

Can you escape?

you could escape temparary, but hte troubles, challenges and accidents are following behind you and eventually catch you. You must face your destiny, and you mush deal with it. Escape is a way that a coward always does, and I don't want to be a coward. I like challenges, which improves my ablities, and I win honor from it.

However, if the oppsites are really stronger than me, I may choose escape for a while, because it it not meaningful to fight with weak strength.

homework 4

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/business/worldbusiness/24power.html?_r=2&scp=9&sq=price%20controls&st=cse

social perspective

This article discusses a new Chinese “notice” to power generators, railways and coal industry to address a shortage. This “notice” relates to the whole Chinese families, because from the article I know that the electricity factories will shut down once or twice each week, which causes electricity is rationed to the families. I think one consequence is that due to high air-condition use during summer, some families will not get electricity for air-condition, so that they will suffer hot air and feel uncomfortable, that is to say people need electricity factory provide enough electricity for local family’s use, which means this new “notice” should be inefficient.

Another issue from the article is that Chinese central government do not allow local government charge tariff to the customers. I think this is unreasonable because the local power factories will suffer more debt so that it is difficult for them to run longer, which will cause them collapse and local people will not get power. Some factories may violate the “notice”; they may not shut down each week. To do this, they may use “special” way, which may cause corruption.

Mother's Tongue

To new immigration, language may be the first problem that need to be fixed. In general, it is so challenge to learn a new language when people are at adult age, becuause they are not borned in the environment with this second language. In the US, some of my friends, who are new immigrants, have very limited English skill, just like the writer's mother. However, their next generation have better English skill than their parents', but is also not well enough, compare to Americans who's family live here for centuries.

I think living in English environment in a period of time is helpful to improve English, because my English skill is improved when I have lived in the US since fall 2007. At the beginning I even could not speak a complete sentence, but now I can clearly speak some simple sentence, such as a request or questions, which is because I am listening what native speakers say, and try to imitate them.

Nevertheless, I don't think I will have same English skill like native speakers, whatever how long I live in the US, because English is not breaking into my blood to be part of my body. In my mind, I unconsciously think Chinese first, and then translate into English. what I can do is reduce the translation time, but I cannot competely absorb English.

capacity inventory

sports
football
basketball
soccer
ice hockey
hiking
camping
volleyball
tennis
badminton
table tennis
swimming
language
Chinese
Spanish
Japanese
Korean
French
German
study
thinking
communication
computer
check e-mail
reply e-mail
forward e-mail
log-in ANGEl
log-in LON-CAPA
check news ( CNN, BBC,SOHU,SINA,etc)
chat by IM messager
play online game
watch video on Youtube
make a payment online
write text in blog
cook
research
cooperation( team work)
planning

what's the relationship between language and how you peceive the world?

I like to visualize what I see and what I know about the world, and I think the relationship between languages and visualization is that they have adverse effects to each other that describe in different perspectives.
Languages can detailed describe what you want to explain. People can point out one thing explicitly by languages, and then can use words to describe this thing. In the case of illustration, people usually write down a paper in mechanical way, which can illustrate clearly.
Compared to languages, visualization is a way that is difficult to describe a specific thing, but give you a whole scene, so that people can consider a question or a issue completely. To me, it is faster to receive information by visualizing a picture than writing down few sentences.

There is another idea about languages and visualization. I consider them as a sort of media that help information stay in human's brain, and languages is more moden than visualization. Just like trade in economics, at the beginning people trade by substantial goods, and then developed money as universal equivalent, using it to trade products. Same thing, before languages invented, people record information by picture, which is what they see and imagine, then they found out it is more convenient to communicate if all of stuffs are recognized in the same sounds and writing, so languages came out.

welcome

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