Famous Quotations from Chairman Baker

James Baker II, a US citizen, has been living in China for the past five years or so. Most of his stays in China are either in the city of Chongqing or Shenzhen. He had quite a lot of first hand experience and impressions of this country. I’d like to share his insightful visions with my Blog visitors as follow.

1. China’s a shithouse. Inside it, the deepest shit-pit is called Shenzhen.

2. Chinese women care nothing but money. They’ll rip off all that you have if possible. The most famous ones are those from Futian, one of the most developed District of Shenzhen Municipality.

3. In Chongqing, people rob you after they told you “I’m going to rob you”, seriously; while in Shenzhen, they rob you while they are smiling at you, cheerfully.

4. To get the truth about China is the easiest thing in the world. All you need to do is to pick up a newspaper, any newspaper, or turn on a CCTV channel, you’ll get your truth by simply converting all the messages you received from these media to their complete opposites.

5. When the Chinese government, central or local, is complaining about short of money to reconstruct the epic area of the Wenchuan earthquake, they actually have enough money to build a gold road from Chendu, the capital city of Sichuan province, to the epic center of Wenchuan. However, the reality is there is indeed NO road connection in-between the two places yet.

6. My heart has been stolen by Chinese. Now, I become a Chinese.

7. Bear in mind: never trust any people from this country.

8. One night, he called a home delivery from a restaurant. He ordered two garlic chicken and two chicken soups (hot & spicy). Out of respect for the local language, he chose to speak in Chinese: 我要两份咖喱鸡饭和两份垃圾桶. The waiter simply got lost, how about you?

9. In China, to have a better protection of yourself if you have to walk, walk in the middle of a main road. It’ll bring you more sense of security than walking on the sideways, which is the sole territory of motorcycles. 

To be continued…

Life on the Edge

Life’s getting harder and harder these days, and it’s been felt by people all over the places, of all trades, as is evidenced in the case of Mr. Alfred Bloggs.

Alf’s from Northern California. Just a few years ago, he was still a typical town boy. He attended a local high school, Lincoln High. For him, life in high school years was nothing but fun, lots of fun. He threw himself into varieties of extracurricular activities: playing tennis, basketball, baseball, a trumpet blower in the school’s marching band, just to name a few…and especially his membership of Lincoln High football team gave him lots of chances to be in the spotlight, to win applauses and admiration from his peers, especially girls…he’s proud of all these. However, he seemed to have forgotten about one thing, one crucial thing as far as a student is concerned: attending classes and getting honorable grades.

Although he’s been active in sports games, he’s simply not born to be a genuine material of that sort --- 5 feet 8, instead of 6 feet 9; strongly built? yet just not swift enough in moving about in court or field… in short, he’s simply not good enough to attract recruitment staffs from colleges and universities willingly offering him a position in college sports team, let alone reserving him a seat in an academic field!

As a result, Alf stayed in town as he saw off most of his high school buddies go to college.

Now he’s left with no choice but to find a job.

California is a well known high tech hub, not just in the US, but the whole world as well. With a high school diploma in hand, which was largely a recognition from the school for his talents and contribution in the fields, life ahead of him is definitely going to be a hard one!

Months later, he landed in a position with Ellesmere Corporation, as a trash collector!

Ellesmere is a major contractor with the local government, providing varieties of services for the community. Trash collection is only one of its many businesses.

Despite being out of the spotlight for quite some years, his strong sense of proud developed in those years stays. Now, being a trash collector really hurts. So, he always does his best to stay away from being recognized by friends or acquaintances while out collecting trash! As a matter of fact, whenever former buddies asked him what he’s been doing all these years, he simply told them he worked for Ellesmere --- trash-collection as a bread-earning means simply too hard to tell! Until this day, apart from his co-workers, only a handful of close friends know what he’s been up to.

As years go by, most friends have got married.

About a year ago, Alf met a lady when he was in a bar drinking and chatting with two close friends. He had a crush on her at the very first sight. Under repeated encouragement from friends and family, he started to pursue her. Although no easy task at all, he managed to persuade her to marry him half a year later!

However, one thing still troubles him a lot to this date, lingering in his mind and refusing to leave him alone: he hasn’t told his wife the truth of his job yet! In fact, whenever she asked about his job, he simply told her he worked for Ellesmere. To prove that he indeed hold a position with the company, he left home each morning dressed up in a fine suit, wearing a tie and, of course, a pair of shining leather shoes! Fully aware of his intention, friends and co-workers just love to help him keep the secret folded.

But, last Monday, this well-orchestrated scheme almost got burst.

This morning, like every other morning, Alf and three other dustmen drove their dustcart to the southern district of the city --- they were supposed to collect rubbish there that day. In their overalls, they had already finished collecting rubbishes behind several houses before they arrived at Mrs. Frost’s house, which is only a couple of blocks away from where Alf and his wife live.

Understandably, this is a risky area for Alf. So, he chose to stay in the dustcart, while two of his fellow dustmen started collecting trash behind Mrs. Frost’s house. What Alf did not know that day was his wife was visiting Mrs. Frost. Just when he was about to get out the cart and help the other two men get the job done quicker, his wife came out of Mrs. Frost house. He immediately climbed back into the cart and hid himself underneath the driving wheel. The other two men, seeing the photo of Alf’s wife before, quickly realized the seriousness of the situation. They quickened their pace of rubbish-collecting!

While they were busy with their job, Alf’s wife was talking to Mrs. Frost on the doorstep. Apparently she’s completed her visit and leaving. Meanwhile, Alf’s fellow workers finally finished their task and jumped back into the dustcart. They drove away just as Mrs. Bloggs came toward them! It was a close call indeed!

But, how long this is going to last? Alf asks himself repeatedly! Hard time indeed! Hard in more than one way!

An Unknown Goddess

Reuter news: a few weeks ago, a modern day Captain Cook, Jonson Kea, equipped with all his pre-industrial era navigational equipment and tools accidentally landed on an Aegean island which he just named it Kea.

Hearing the news, a team of American archaeologists, driven by their professional instinct, immediately decided to stage their expedition to the island. They flew to Athens first, then, hired a steamboat heading the island. Without much trouble, they landed onshore about two hours later.

Although much of the island has been covered by forest, especially its coastal ring region, these archaeologists didn’t hesitate a second to head straight to its ‘outback’ area. Not much to their surprise, they found an ancient city there.

After walking round the ancient city, the archaeologists didn’t find anything interesting or worth investigating. Just when they were about to pack and leave, one of them pointed to a theater-stage shaped, flat-topped “hill” and said to others “that is strange, isn’t it?”

Coming close, they immediately realized that it isn’t a hill at all, because on the other side of the “hill” they found a stone door, wide open. Inside, they saw quite few apparently religious activity related pictures and paintings on the walls. They concluded: this is nothing but an ancient temple!

 The main court of the temple is very big, and surrounded by some well-preserved, separate rooms. Some are quite big, others smaller. “These rooms might house real treasure”, someone said “we should go inside and take a look!”

However, initial exploration gave them nothing but disappointment, because most of the rooms were simply empty. Delight did not come until they came across some broken clay pieces in one of the rooms facing the stone entrance. While they were moving these “debris” to a corner of the room, a round plate gradually showed up in front of their face! Right in the center of the floor! “There must be something underneath!” professional instinct told them!

By carefully removing the plate, they saw a hinge-like thing. Through joint effort, they managed to lift another “door” linked to the hinge. Now, something really surprising came to their eyes: an underground room!

On entering the room, the archaeologists found piles of disintegrated clay fragments! But, they were all well-preserved, some even wrapped up in animal skins, and they were apparently parts of some statues. Who are they?

Now, their task was clear: to reconstruct the pieces!

However, that soon proved to be not a simple task at all, because the team members didn’t have a clue of which piece belonged to which statue at the beginning. But considering the fact that they were all experienced archaeologist, this shouldn’t be something inconceivable for them. Here they go!

First, they put all the heads of those statues together, 14 of them in all; followed by all the hands, all the bodies, legs, and feet… each of them being stacked in a separate place on the floor.

Then, based on their similarity in color or clay quality, matching or not in size or shape… they took one piece each from the fragment heaps and regrouped them into different “heaps” of statues. To make the reconstruction process more scientific, they also made full use of all the tools and devices they brought to the island, a portable carbon-dating device was among them.

Finally, they managed to separate all the fragments into fifteen heaps, each containing all the fragments of a complete statue. With the help of glue, adhesive tapes and other things, they completed their last step in the reconstruction journey.

Each of the fifteen statues looked different: some laughing, some serious, some thinking, some playing… still others with unbelievable modern looking. Now they realized that each of these statues actually represents a goddess, just like those goddesses in the ancient Greek mythology!

But the identity of one statue remains unknown to this date ------ despite all their efforts, the team simply couldn’t uncover its true identity for the simple reason that its head is still missing!

A Sticky Business

Somewhere in the Midland of UK, villagers of a small community of around 300 have lived a way of life that remains unchanged for centuries, well, almost unchanged: most families there lead a simple life: farming their inherited land, shopping in their local grocery store, schooling in their local school……and of course, a small church to go and pay their respect to their Lord.

Although people nowadays are getting less and less religious, villagers here seem to enjoy their continual singing a different tune from the rest of the UK. Religious services on each and every Sunday mean a great deal to them, old or young, men or women. Church and everything related to the church always occupy a prominent place in their heart.

However, something tricky happened to the church a few months ago: the church clock-bell suddenly stopped ringing! And nobody knows why!

The church was built half a century ago, and the clock tower has always been the proud of the villagers. It is not only the tallest structure in the village, its clock also, like an old friend, stroke the hours accurately, telling them time is up to do this, time is up to carry out that, reminding them to keep their promises should they have an appointment with someone. Now everything has changed.

Realizing the inconvenience it brought to his people, the church vicar started raising money in order to have the clock fixed someday. During the dozens of Sunday services he gave after the clock’s break-down, villagers voluntarily donated a handsome amount each service day and the grand total fast approaches the estimated figure big enough to build a new tower and buy a brand-new clock. However, the vicar still seemed reluctant to have a specialist come to check and fix the problem.

Under repeated urge from the villagers, our vicar finally decided to climb into the clock tower all alone and took a closer look at the clock himself last Wednesday afternoon. To his great surprise, he found out that the clock had been invaded by an army of aliens ------ the honey bees. On the back of the clock, he saw a huge beehive, about a meter and a half in diameter, and almost completely covered up the whole back panel and the top of the clock. Honey spread all over the places, making any attempt of his to get closer to the clock an ordeal. But, our ingenious vicar, covered with all the protection he could get, finally managed to reach the clock. Now he realized why the clock hasn’t been working for so long: the clock interior was full of spilled honey and wax!

The following day, our vicar called a professional bee keeper. With all the necessary tools and protective armor, he removed the queen bee. Once the queen is relocated, all the other bees simply followed and settled in a brand-new beehive specially built for them.

Our vicar, with the voluntary help of many villagers, collected all the eatable honey, cleaned up the tower floor, and wash-and-flushed the clock inside and outside. Now the clock works again!

By the way, many villagers happily joined in a honey bonanza the night the clock once again started to strike the hours!

My question is: What can you learn from the passage about the personality of the vicar? Never shy away from using your imaginative power!

Business English Writing Assignment

Melamine Milk Ltd. is a universally renowned dairy products producer. Neptune Ltd. has a great expectation for their sales on the Planet Mars for the entire Martian population. Mr. Jacob, Sales Manager of Neptune, therefore writes a letter to Mr. Toxin, inter-planetary Marketing Manager of Melamine Milk, asking for the brochure and price information of its complete lines of products and requesting to be its exclusive agent on the Planet Mars.

It's your turn.....

胡哥看球 

于日理万机中，胡哥抽空与夫人一起来观看中美女排比赛，好事一桩啊！我这里先做个臭嘴：中国女排输了比赛！大家猜胡哥会说些什么？或者什么都不说？

有一点可以肯定：那就是伟大的爱国愤青们一定会“代表”胡哥发泄哪怕是一点点的心中不满。胡哥是不会说什么的，最多是“努力训练、奋力拼搏、为国争光”之类的大路货；不过，郎平可能就要遭殃啦！相信网络留言足够郎教头喝几辈子的啦！  以后恐怕再也不会看到伟大的愤青们为铁榔头喝彩咯！   

相信胡哥选择观看女排比赛是经过深思熟虑作出的伟大决定！  这么做一方面可以作为回应小布什观看中美男蓝比赛的一个重大举措 ；另一方面，排球、篮球大小差不多，都是球类比赛，还都算大球，而且你布看蓝（男），我来看女（排），正好各自为两个半边天加油，不是很妙？！最妙之处还在于：你布什选择观看十拿九稳的男蓝，我胡哥就不能选择九拿十稳的女排？  

要知道，我朝保持了多年的举国办体育制度是被历史反复证明了的行之有效的金牌制造机制！前苏联如此，前东德如此，我朝也是如此！（是不是有点不吉利呀？怎么把自己跟已经不存在的东西比较，不会步后尘吧！  ）在动身之前，据我朝负责体育的二品栋梁们仔细而全面的评估，女排获胜九拿十稳，这不仅因为我朝女排实力本来就在美国之上，还在于美国女排现在还是由我朝的骄傲铁榔头执教，再者，我胡哥大驾光临必然大大鼓舞女排姑娘们的斗志！三种力量合而为一，加上让我朝十二分放心的现场爱国愤青们的热情鼓噪，美国姑娘们一定会吓得屁滚尿流，我朝女排岂有不取得胜利之理？！  

不过，大家现在都知道了比赛的结果啦，它可没有象胡哥来前精心策划的那样朝着有利于和谐世界的方向发展哟  ！中国男足可以做到90分钟不射！此乃我朝奉献给世界第九大奇观，难道这帮丫头们也要五个时辰还不兴奋？！

胡哥加油！你该不会是来给美国队加油的吧？！你看美国姑娘们多么兴奋啊（Inter-racial可是特别刺激哟！）！是因为你这帅哥出现的效应？还是现场愤青们释放的浓烈激素刺激了美国姑娘们？亦或是我朝培养的爱国榔头变了心，胳膊肘向外拐？   

另外，建议在现场看球的人用长镜头录下胡哥现场表现，再做个有心人，把录得的照片与小布什当美国啦啦队长的照片做个比较，一定很有趣！

胡哥万岁！美国队3：2胜出！      

贼国故事

（当年狂人现已转世，却不再写日记，改写博客了，下面就是一篇此狂人的日志，陆迅把它摘录、整理了一下，以飨读者）

在遥远的东方，有一个伟大的国家，有一群优秀的、杰出的国民暗熟撒谎的技巧，他们靠集体撒谎的方式统治着这个伟大的国家。

     这些国民随时随地都可以信口拈来一个匪夷所思、高瞻远瞩的谎言；

     他们可以把任何残盆破碗描述成世界一流的珍贵文物！；

     他们想人之不想，能人之不能；

     任何国家的最好律师都比不上他们的三寸不烂之舌，

     集体撒谎国有一个秘密——这些优秀的、杰出的国民大多数还有一个恶习——偷窃，他们的名字以贼为姓：贼公、贼婆、贼子、贼孙……他们都是集体撒谎国的“精英国民”，他们罩着印有“精英国民”字样的外套，做贼时，鬼鬼祟祟；平日里，风光无限。

     贼甚狂，平日行窃，明目张胆，见者甚多，然惧贼势大，隐忍不敢言！ 

     贼亦甚蠢，行窃时常恐忘记归路，故不忘标记于道，国民亦知之，然惧贼凶狠，亦隐忍不敢言！

     这些贼惟利是图，毫无道义可言：

     利之所趋，则成群结队，推杯换盏，颇有桃园结义之象，实则狐群狗党，蛇鼠一窝，窃取山河之资源、百姓之血汗。

趋之所利，则相互争竞，以至于贼公偷了贼婆、老贼偷了小贼、贼侄子偷了贼儿媳等等，骂骂咧咧，吵吵嚷嚷，倒也热闹非凡；

利尽则散，呼哨一声，如同鸟兽聚会遇袭，个个无踪无影，往日贼界精英，化做今日神行太保，惶惶似乌合之众，忙忙如丧家之犬，落荒而逃，惟恐滞后。

     集体撒谎国的其他国民大都认得这群家贼，极少数人有胆量掀开他们“精英国民”的外罩，证实他们披有贼皮，集体撒谎国的领导为了掩人耳目，便抓几个小毛贼，大肆宣传，以示廉政之决心。

     这些贼，还有一高超的计谋，他们总是在行窃时，留下一点点残羹冷炙，以便让其他国民聊以果腹，继续创造财富，形成可持续性行窃机制！

     有三兄弟，勤于耕作，奈何家中之粮种皆亦被盗，来年无以为生；三兄弟忍无可忍，奋然起立，发誓讨贼；众人闻之窃笑，以为异类……。