Speech first draft

When I first heard the topic "This I Believe", what popped into my head is the scene which my mom told me that "whenever you are tired or sad, your family will always be here and China will never move." Not until I arrived here, I noticed that China is the most unique and warmest part in my life. China, the huge country with 5000-year-old history, not only shows her differences and developments during the river of time, but also opens her warm arms and shows her welcome to both her children and people from the world. 

 

Mentioning China, I bet that most of you will come up with two things, the Great Wall and pandas. The Great Wall of China, the world's longest wall and biggest ancient architecture is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick,tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China in part to protect the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or forces. The first segments were built in the fifth century BC and the last contributions of the Great wall of China where build in the sixteenth century AD. Approximately 500.000 people take part in building the wall. (travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/) 

 

Not only protecting herself, China also dedicated her intelligence to the entire world in many ways. One of the most important contribution is China's four great invention. China's long history has seen some extremely important inventions emerge, most noticeably gunpowder, paper making, printing and the compass, which, in the words of Roger Bacon, changed the whole appearance and status of things in the world. Through the Arabs, Africans and Europeans then mastered the skill. The first paper factory in Europe was set up in Spain. In the latter half of the 16th century, this skill was brought to America. By the 19th century, when paper factories were set up in Australia, paper making had spread to the whole world.

Cai Lun, also known as Tsai Lun, was listed in the book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H. Hart.

 

What do you like most in your country? As for me, Chinese food must be one of the best parts which constructed the reasons for my love to China.  Development and diversity of the delights of Chinese cuisine are also representative of China's long history. With each dynasty new recipes were created until the art of food preparation reach its peak during the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). The dinner called Man Han Quan Xi that incorporates all the very best of Man and Han Cuisine is held in high esteem involving as it does countless dishes, each with its own distinctive flavor and appeal. This veritable banquet in its preparation and presentation typifies all of the culture and culinary arts that have been perfected over centuries and is a comprehensive amalgam of taste, instruments, and manners. Chinese can change nearly everything into food from sharks to worms which built Chinese's strong stomach.(http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine_drink/cuisine/)

 

Think deeply through your life, where is your "home" that you love so much no matter it is a place, a person or a certain small thing. Whenever your think about it, you will smile and be proud of it. People should always have believes. As for me, I don't believe in religions but believe in this  country and most of the things belong to it. As time pass, many things would change, even the most familiar things for us would be out of all recognition. Nevertheless, just like what my mom said, my family will always be in China for me, which I wholeheartedly believe and will never change. 

Let's Speech!

China, the big country with 5000year old history, is my hometown. She is forever the warmest place in my entire life since she is a unque country I have ever seen and lived in. 

*history

-Written records of the history of China can be found from as early as 1200 BC under the Shang dynasty (c. 1700–1046 BC).^[2] Ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and the Bamboo Annalsdescribe a Xia dynasty(c. 2100–1700 BC), which had no system of writing on a durable medium, before the Shang.^[2][3]

(http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/china-history.htm)

-25 dynasty ended in 1911

-British, France, Japan, America, Spain, Russia, Prussia, Italy...have invaded China before

*Food

Chinese people are really good at cooking

Different provinces have different feature of food.

 There are 34 such divisions, classified as 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5autonomous regions, 2 Special Administrative Regions, and the claimedTaiwan Province.^{[1](Taiwan and hong kong belog to China)}

From shark to worm.

 development and diversity of the delights of Chinese cuisine are also representative of China's long history. With each dynasty new recipes were created until the art of food preparation reach its peak during the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). The dinner called Man Han Quan Xi that incorporates all the very best of Man and Han Cuisine is held in high esteem involving as it does countless dishes, each with its own distinctive flavor and appeal. This veritable banquet in its preparation and presentation typifies all of the culture and culinary arts that have been perfected over centuries and is a comprehensive amalgam of taste, instruments, and manners.

Chinese can change nearly everything into food. 

(http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine_drink/cuisine/)

*architecture

-The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick,tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China in part to protect the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or forces. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC;^[3] these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall.^[4] Especially famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the firstEmperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty.

(http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/)

-Forbidden city

-panda

*Great Invention

-The four great invention

Compass, gunpowder, paper and movable type printing

China's long history has seen some extremely important inventions emerge, most noticeably gunpowder, paper making, printing and the compass, which, in the words of Roger Bacon, changed the whole appearance and status of things in the world.

Soccer... Although chinese play badly now..

CuJu was a kind of rubber ball made of leather outside and stuffed tightly with feather inside. Cuju means "kick the ball with foot". It was a popular sport played by ancient Chinese during the Qingming Festival. Legend has it that the Yellow Emperor was the initiator of cuju, who invented it to train his soldiers.

*Education system

Totally different

Plenty of students stay in one room, we don't change classroom or classmates. Students would spent time with each other for couple of years everyday. There is only one exam which could decide which college students can study in. This is really different. Senior year is pretty tough though. They are always under much pressure. 

Research of Galileo.

Galileo Galilei, a pioneer of modern physics and telescopic astronomy, was born near Pisa, Italy, on Feb. 15, 1564. In 1581 he entered the University of Pisa as a medical student, but he soon became interested in mathematics and left without a degree in 1585. After teaching privately at Florence, he was made professor of mathematics at Pisa in 1589. There he is said to have demonstrated from the Leaning Tower that Aristotelian physics was wrong in assuming that speed of fall was proportional to weight. He also wrote a treatise on motion, emphasizing mathematical arguments. In 1592, Galileo became professor of mathematics at the University of Padua, where he remained until 1610. He devised a calculating device now called the sector, worked out a mechanical explanation of the tides based on the Copernican motions of the Earth (see Copernicus, Nicolaus), and wrote a treatise on mechanics showing that machines do not create power but merely transform it.

In 1602, Galileo resumed his investigations of motion along inclined planes and began to study the motion of pendulums. By 1604 he had formulated the basic law of falling bodies, which he verified by careful measurements.

Late in 1604 a supernova appeared, and Galileo became involved in a dispute with philosophers who held (with Aristotle) that change could not occur in the heavens. Applying the mathematics of parallax, Galileo found the star to be very distant, in the supposedly unchangeable regions of the cosmos, and he attacked Aristotelian qualitative principles in science. Returning to his studies of motion, he established quantitatively a restricted inertial principle and determined that projectiles move in parabolic paths. In 1609 he was writing a mathematical treatise on motion when news arrived of the newly invented Dutch telescope. He was so excited by its possible scientific applications that he put other work aside and began to construct his own telescopes.

Drake, Stillman. "Galileo Galilei." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.

Critique of speech.

Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit.

http://youtu.be/C87OYed5K1c

Citation

As one of the most basic and accessible social codes, food has many social and cultural connotations. This article aims to offer a semiotic reading of ordinary Chinese meals. The three-meal structure and four binary oppositions (Cooked/Raw, Fan/Cai, Solids/Liquids, and Vegetable/Meat) are discussed. The laws that govern the Chinese meal system reveal how Chinese people see themselves and others, how they connect the past and present, and how they identify themselves with their culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

 

Copyright of Society is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Qin, Jie. "Food And Binary Oppositions In The Chinese Meal System."Society 51.1 (2014): 35-39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2014.

It is often assumed that Chinese people tend to have a more positive attitude toward aging and old age than Americans, due to the cultural generalization of collectivism versus individualism. This study aimed to critically examine this assumption by using first-hand empirical data collected in a Chinese and an American university (standardized surveys and in-depth focus group interviews). Respectively, 980 college students in China and 332 college students in the U.S. were recruited for the standardized surveys; whereas two focus-group interviews in each country (4 participants per group) were conducted to collect more in-depth information. Contrary to the common assumption, this study revealed that Chinese students actually hold more negative attitudes toward aging and older people compared to their American peers. It was also found that females tend to hold more positive attitudes than male students across both cultures, though American female students hold more positive attitudes than Chinese female students. Chinese students' interactions with seniors are often limited to their grandparents whereas American students tend to reach out to non-grandparent seniors in larger communities. Chinese students' more negative attitudes toward aging and older people may be a result of a combination of educational, social, and economic factors-a higher level of age segregation (geographically, socially, and intellectually) and a lack of gerontological curriculum in Chineseeducational system, the caregiving burden faced by the one-child generation compounded with lack of governmental support for caregiving, as well as the rising youth-oriented consumerist culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

 

Copyright of Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Luo, Baozhen, et al. "Ageism Among College Students: A Comparative Study Between U.S. And China." Journal Of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 28.1 (2013): 49-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2014.

Because of the factors influence such as the region, environment, custom etc., there are many food habits differences between China and America. I summarize several aspects as follows:

1. Americans like eating several meals one day; but Chinese are used to eating three meals a day.

2. Chinese are used to buying the fresh food every day; Americans often buy food for one week once and store them in the refrigerator, eat the frozen foods every day. As everyone knows, the tin and salting foods include more preservatives and pigment, it is harmful to health.

3. Chinese families will prepare a lot of dishes when celebrating a festival and it is a lot to entertain guests; but Americans never extravagant when entertain guests or celebrate a festival.

4. Chinese like vegetable oil such as the soya bean oil while cooking; Americans like animal oil such as the butter.

5. Chinese often put in more salt while cooking; but the salt that Americans put in is only Chinese half. It may cause all sorts of diseases to take in too much salt.

6. Chinese like adding the monosodium glutamate while cooking; but Americans do not use the monosodium glutamate. The monosodium glutamate includes sodium. It is harmful to health to take in too much monosodium glutamate.

7. Chinese eat fresh vegetables and fruits more than Americans; the protein which Americans take in every day more than Chinese, but the stomach function is influenced because of lacking cellulose in the body.

8. Chinese eat the viscera of animals such as the pork liver, intestine, lung, etc.; Americans do not have this hobby. Animal’s viscera contain a large amount of cholesterol and it’s harmful to health.

9. Chinese like to eat the ordinary rice and flour; Americans like eating the bread or cake that made of white flour.

10. Americans are used to eating sweet food after the meal; but Chinese are used to the eating fruit after the meal. But the nutritionist thinks that it is more beneficial eat fruit before the meal.

11. Chinese often drink a cup of hot tea after the meal; but Americans like drinking coffee after the meal. Tea can reduce cholesterol, but coffee will improve the fat of blood and stimulate the heart.

12. Chinese generally like soybean food such as the soybean milk and bean curd. It has not merely kept the nutrition of soybeans, and human body absorbs the nutrient easily. Americans have no interest to the bean curd.

13. Chinese get used to whole serving. Americans get used to the individual serving.

14. Chinese like eating the cooked food; Americans like eating the raw food. The raw food is more nutritious than the cooked food.

It causes the food habits differences between China and America that the factors such as culture, custom, history, nutrition values… It’s beneficial to our health if we can find some questions from it and learn other’s strong points objectively.

"Mysterious China Blog." Mysterious China Blog RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

Possible TED talk

#1 My hometown

#2 The importance of dream

#3 Good and bad of the Internet