The Czechoslovak Communist Party reformist Slovak Alexander Dubček lead the experiment in “socialism with a human face”, and tried to liberalise the country’s communist regime by introducing free speech and freedom of assembly.

Dubček also federalized the country into two separate republics; this was the only change that survived the end of the Prague Spring.

However, the reforms failed and ended when Warsaw Pact troops invaded. A large wave of emigration swept the nation.

More than 100 people were killed, and the Communist leaders, including Alexander Dubcek, were arrested and taken to Moscow.

After the invasion, Czechoslovakia entered a period of normalization: subsequent leaders attempted to restore the political and economic values that had prevailed before Dubček gained control of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

Hong Kong – Feb.13 — IJS-Global — Hong Kong people is usually obsessed by its heavy traffic. Here are some reactions from people interviewed about which transportation means they prefer to choose.

Sin Meiyi, 40-year-old custom service assistant

“I usually choose bus for work because it saves a lot of time. Although metro is convenient to some extent, the station is far from my working place and walking up and down, in and out always tires me very much. I have to spare time in waiting, though, I still prefer bus to other means of transportation. ”

Mok Kapo, a nurse working in Hong Kong Baptist Hospital

“I go to work by train every day. I live in Hung Hom, since there are two stops to Kowloon Town Station, the train takes me only ten minutes to reach here, and then I could just spend another ten minutes to the hospital. So it is much faster when compared with bus. On the other hand, I don’t have to be bothered by the heavy traffic jam.”

Yip Yee Ching, 12, middle school student

“I usually take bus to school and to go home because it is the most convenient vehicle for me. Because I go to school at 7am and go home at 3:30pm, which are neither in rush hour, the traffic is good. It costs me nearly half an hour on the way, and the bus stations are both near to my school or home. If I take metro, although I spend just 15 minutes on the metro itself, I need more time to walk from the stations to my school or home.”

Mr. Leung, 35,  office clerk worked in Central

“I like metro. It’s so fast and. It takes the least time for me to the office. But when transfer one line to another line, I have to walk for a while and there are so many people forcing their way. So I feel a little inconvenient.”

Nancy Ng, housewife

“I usually drive to pick up children. The traffic is often good because I don’t drive in rush hours. Although it’s often hard to find parking space in Hong Kong, driving is still my first choice. We don’t take metro often, because it is always crowded in the rush hour, and my children are so young that I don’t want them to be crowded.”

Mr. Lee Kwai Tak, 52, security guard

“Metro is always my first choice. My work starts from 7 o’clock. Metro is very fast and punctual. So I can just leave home at 6:30,and won’t be late. Otherwise, bus cost me one hour on the way. And metro is also more environment friendly.”

Prague - February 10 – IJS-Global – As most Chinese people in foreign countries think, running a Chinese restaurant is the best way to make a living. In Prague, without exception, catering industry is the pillar industry for Chinese people there.

In recent years, Chinese restaurant developed rapidly in Czech Republic, the number of which increased to more than 600 from dozens in ten years starting from the early nineties. In Prague, Chinese restaurants can be seen almost every streets in the scenic area.

However,this industry,which has passed its prosperous period,now was facing more and more problems, such as fierce competition, higher tax and declined quality. Chinese restaurants struggled desperately to their survival.

“The competition is so fierce.All are Chinese restaurants nearby now. But new immigrants were keeping throwing themselves into this industry,without thinking.” Tang Shengfa, the aged man worked in Datang Restaurant in Prague said. Czech official statistic in December 2006 shows there were 4200 Chinese legal resident in the Czech Republic, but for more than 600 Chinese restaurants.

 

Yang Jindong, the owner of Hang Zhou restaurant told,”after Czech joined European Union, our restaurant tax from 5% rose to 19%.Now under the economic crisis, we are under a tremendous stress andhave to face to the coming challenge.”

 

“Actually, most of our guests are Chinese,”said Huang Xingquan, the manager of Hongshun Restaurant, which was a small one near the national museum. “Czech people just come to have Chinese dishes sometimes.” Hongshun Restaurant was not the only one which mostly service Chinese guests. Most of Chinese restaurant faced this situation, including Peking Restaurant, this kind of high level restaurant.

 

“Several years ago some restaurants was ordered to close by Czech government because of sanitation problems, which had a far-reaching effect for all the Chinese restaurants.” Chen Jiangyi, who worked for several Chinese restaurants over ten years said. “We have to ensure the quality of food and make Czech people trust Chinese restaurants again.”

 

Facing the bad situation,Peking Restaurant, has opened 15 years in Prague,insisted on their typical high level state. It focus on special dishes cooking,and supplied the food quality and service in high level. Besides, the restaurant was decorated as a special Chinese style with rosewood chairs,red curtains and a figure of the Buddha in the hall. “When people sit here, they will compeletely feel Chinese style.”Hu Xiaorong, the worker in Peking Restaurant said. Other big Chinese restaurant, such as China Fusion, Huanghe Restaurant also followed this way.

 

The hall of Peking Restaurant was decorated in the Chinese style.

What’s more, to keep the healthy competition and maintain the quality of Chinese restaurant together,the Czech Chinese Restaurant Association was founded inPrague on May 29, 2007. The members are all the middle and high level restaurant in Czech Republic. The keepers communicated about the management reguarly and helped each other when facing problems. Wenzhou Chamber of Commerce was another similar group, whose member were all businessmen from Wenzhou City in Zhejiang Province.

However, many small restaurants didn’t attend these associations.“I just want to run my restaurant in my style,” said Wong Dayong, the owner of Huang Shang Huang restaurant which located along the river near Charles Bridge. And Wong’s style was supplying diversifying food to attract more customers. When meal time, the restaurant sold Chinese dishes, while in the afternoon,it also supplied ice-creams and desserts in Czech style. Till night, it became to a small bar,where sold drink including Chinese and

European one.

As to the food, beside of the traditional Chinese dishes, the restaurant also sold cheap Chinese fast food.”Customers can choose different food in different prices, not only for Chinese people, but also for Czech people.”said Wong.”many people like the fast food.” 

There were many small restaurants tend to sell fast food like Huang Shang Huang. In Wang Zhong Wang, a restaurant in the old city town, people can have Chinese fast food by only paying 50 ~ 80 Korunas, more cheaper than traditional Chinese dishes.

 

While,other small restaurants were playing the price game, like Hangzhou Restaurant. It give familiar customer a special menu where wrote the set meal in special offer around 100 Korunas.

 

“What we want is we can overcome the problems.”said Wong Dayong.

Huang Shang Huang offered both Chinese fast food and dishes.

Hangzhou – February 5 – IJS-Global – Spending more on food and entertainment instead of shopping, the people in Hangzhou enjoyed their Spring Festival in 2009, temporarily forgetting the financial crisis.

During the festival, the spending on restaurants, tea houses, Café and KTV in Hangzhou were keeping growing, even more than the one in last several years.

Most traditional Chinese restaurants, especially those special on Hangzhou dishes, were full of booking. Xu Yilin, the Food & Beverage Manager in Xin Kaiyuan Hotel said all the seats were booked two weeks ago. Even most western restaurants, which are more expensive than traditional restaurants are mostly booked.

“This evening is the busiest eve during these years,” Wu Minjuan, the manager of the western restaurant in Huachen International Hotel said.” Many customers are old people, who are carried by their children. They also love our buffet dinner.”

Meanwhile, tea houses, which Hangzhou people’s favorite places in holidays were also popular. Even most tea houses were full of people early in the morning, including those unpopular ones in usual.

“I tried to book the seats in many tea houses yesterday, but can’t find any one.” Zhang Hongchun, the mid-aged woman left He Tea-House disappointingly, “I have thought I maybe can find seats. Too late! This tea house is always free in usual, but not today.”

Besides of eating, other kinds of entertainment such as KTV, café and foot bathing became popular as well.

 ”These days we’ve got averagely more than 200 people every day, which is 120 percent of last year.” Lai Zhenping, the vice manager of Zongan Bathhouse said.

The waiter in one of Starbucks Chen Xiao told coming customers, “without booking, you have to wait for at least one hour.”

On the contrary, the situation of the shopping malls was totally different. After experienced the climax of selling before the Spring Festival, shopping malls showed more quiet with a little people doing some window shopping.

Most people were willing to spend money on food and entertainment, but not on shopping.

“I lost a lot of money on the business last year, so I don’t want to do any shopping in the beginning of the year, “Zhu Wenjie, one of the customers in the western restaurant said. “However, the dinner on the eve is most important for the Spring Festival, which can bring me good luck. I don’t mind to spend a little more money on food.”

Li Guosong, who was spending three hours in KTV said, “This Spring Festival is a little special for all my relatives and friends who lost money in stock market. So we decide not to travel. Instead, stay at home and watch TV, or go to KTV or Tea-House, Eating and having some entertainment cost little, but let me forget my lost money.”

In addition, to promote the consumption during the Spring Festival, Hangzhou government has sent out gift coupons RMB 10,000,000 to students, retired people and laid-off workers. But most people chose to use them in supermarkets to buy some food.

Definition of Plagiarism

In the guideline of the university, plagiarism is defined as “taking someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own”by Tony T.N. Hung. And the University of North Carolina Honor Court defines plagiarism as “the deliberate or reckless representation of another’s words, thoughts, or ideas as one’s own without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise”‚in the handout of its writing center.

Both of them consider it’s the act of stealing other people’s work, including words and thoughts. Here the things people stealing is what we don’t know before we read their work, different from the common knowledge which we already know as a common sense. And without attribution is absolutely not acceptable. Peter Eng said “it’s one of the worst ethical mistakes in journalism” in his book”Reporting and Writing news.”ƒ

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

First of all, crediting the source is most important and necessary. But it doesn’t mean in this way I am allowed to use other people’s picture. I think it depends.

For one thing, if the picture is related to some events which should not be open or may cause huge influence, such as the disorder and national security, we should ask the author and who concerns for the permission. And when we use the private pictures of others, get the permission is also necessary.

Secondly, if I use the picture for money making, I should not only inform the author and get the permission, but also pay him/her copyright royaltys.

Thirdly, if the condition doesn’t include all above, and I just write an article to express myself, it will be ok to use their pictures by crediting the source.

____________________________________________

Tony T.N. Hung, Avoiding Plagiarism, Hong Kong Baptist University,2008,P4

‚University of North Carolina Writing Center, Plagiarism,1998,http://www.unc.edu  /depts/wcweb/handouts/plagiarism.html

ƒPeter Eng & Jeff Hodson, Reporting and Writing news,2001, The Indochina Media Memorial Foundation

TOPIC: “Chinese food earn its survival in Prague”

GROUP MEMBERS:
ZHU JINGYAN:
GUO MEICHENG: http://guomeicheng.wordpress.com/
DU RAN: http://cierbinma.wordpress.com/

OUTLINE:
1. Brif introduction
Give the brif introduction of the Chinese restaurant in Prague according to our information gathering and seeing in Prague: Number, size, location, service style dishes, customers, prices etc.
Some over-arching perspective about not only how many restaurants there are, when they first started opening in Prague, how many new onesopen each year (on average), etc.

2. Background
·The introduction of Chinese food and Chinese people who tried to earn their life in Prague
·Explain the reason why the Chinese restaurant mushroomed in Prague.
·Why Chinese restaurants are obviously popular among Czechs.

3. Development and current situation
·Development of different levels of restaurants and stratigies of developing.
·Current situation : Czech’s joining in the EU, competition among different restaurants and among Chinese restaurants themselves,

4. Different solution:
Different restaurants chose different solution:
·some try to move together to form a Chinese Restaurants Association(e.g Peking Restaurant);
·some still insist to live on their own.(e.g Huang Shang Huang)

5. the future: How the Chinese food culture earn its survival in the western world?

Hong Kong – January 16 – IJS-Global - Feelings shouldn’t be put into the report, a future journalist who is studying in Journalism in Hong Kong, said yesterday when combining her internship experience with the things she learned in class.

The student, called Yu Jinyuan, Rebecca, is from Nantong of Jiangsu Province in Mainland. She used to be a journalist for internship in Nantong TV station and now she is studying in Hong Kong Baptist University.  When talked about the knowledge she learned in class and internship, she thought one important thing for journalists is taking away feelings. “As journalists, we should not use our feelings to affect the audiences.” Rebecca said.

 When she interned in Nantong TV station, she interviewed a criminal with his son. In the end of the interview, she was told by the producer that do not put the criminal’s son on the camera, which may cause an incorrect emotional effect.  Rebecca said, after learned from the class, she finnally understood why. 

“What journalists should do is to show audiences the whole fact instead of what we are thinking,” Rebecca said. “It’s the standard of the journalist.”  

In the spare time, Rebecca likes reading. She think it is helpful in the report for gaining the knowledge from the books.

Rebecca’s blog : http://rebeccayu.wordpress.com   

I’m from Zhejiang Province, mainland.

Email: zhujy2007@hotmail.com

I went to Prague this winter.

I’m in Friday’s class.