Blog for luy5

How surprised I am when I find that I am in the newspaper. Actually , I have never been reported in the newspaper in China. But in America---the first time I have gone to America ---I go so far as to the newspaper. What a wonderful experience to me . And I am sure my parents and relatives will feel happy and surprised too . To be frankly, during this one mouth time, America , VCU and all the inters give me pleasantly surprised one after another . The clean environment of the city, comfortable living condition , friendly American people and hard working inters all give me a great impression and change my original opinion about USA. And I finally know why USA is the most powerful country in the world . The reason is highly developed education producing high quality people. If China wants to catch up , we should pay more attention to our education. Only the quality of people is improved , the country will flourish. Finally , I want to say I appreciate all the receptions here, thank you for all inters’ help. They are so nice .

My summer school program in VCU will soon come to an end. The day after tomorrow I will depart VCU for New York . How excited I am now and I cannot wait any longer to fly to the big apple. New York---the biggest city in USA ,also one of the biggest cities in the world ---is the economic ,culture , finance center of USA and even of the world . Various cultures and religious come together in this place sparking vigor and glamour of this city. What attracts me most is the diversity of this city. The people there come from different continents and different countries .They speak different languages and have different living style. But no matter how different they are, one point is the same ,that is to seek the dreams of themselves. And this city offers equal opportunities for different people only if they work hard. New York is similar to Shanghai. Both of them are the economic and finance center of respective countries . Of course , New York has a lot of advantages that Shanghai can learn from. I think mutual learning is benefit to both cities and countries . I love Shanghai and the live style there ,so I think I will also fall in love with New York.

Considering how jazz is transcribed in Chinese (jueshi), you may be misledsintosassuming that it is an aristocratic cultural form. Nothing could be further from the truth. It originated among black Americans at the end of the 19th century, at a time when they occupied the very bottom of the American social heap.
So how has something that was created by a once downtrodden and despised minority acquired a central place in today's American culture? Mr Darrell A Jenks, director of the American Center for Educational Exchange, analyses the phenomenon for us here. Jazz: the soul of America
Perhaps the essence of America is that you could never get two Americans to agree on just what that might be. Certainly things like individualism, success ,innovation and tolerance stand out. But these things come together because of the ability to work with one another and find common purpose no matter how diverse they might be.
Some, like African-American writer Ralph Ellison, believe that jazz captures the essence of America. For good reason,for in jazz all of the characteristics I mentioned above come together. The solos are a celebration of individual brilliance that can't take place without thesgroupsefforts of the rhythm section. Beyond that, though, jazz has a connection to the essence of America in a much more fundamental way. It is an expression of the African roots of American culture, a musical medium that exemplifies the culture of the Africans whose culture came to dominate much of what is American.
Jazz brought together elements from Africa and Europe, fusing themsintosa new culture, an expression unique to the Americas.
Out of this fusion came an idea that Americans believe central to their identity:tolerance.Americans acknowledge that in diversity is their strength.Jazz music is the embodiment of this ideal, combining elements from African and European culturesintosa distinctly American music.
Jazz reflects two contradictory facets of American life. On the one hand it is a team effort,swheresevery musician is completely immersed in what thesgroupsdoes together, lis-tening to each of the other players and building on their contributions to create a musical whole. On the other hand, the band features a soloist who is an individual at the extreme, a genius like Charlie Parker who explores musical territoryswheresno one has ever gone before. In the same sense, American life is also a combination of teamwork and individualism, a combination of individual brilliance with the ability to work with others.

I visited an ordinary American family yesterday. Carman Glass, the hostess, is a teacher who teaches Spanish in VCU. Her husband---ken is businessman. They have three daughters---Anna,Dania,Christina .One of them is 16years old. The other two are about 20 years old. The three girls are all pretty and beautiful but the youngest one was a little shy to us . However, it doesn’t matter, we enjoyed a wonderful time in their family.
The whole family was so kind and hospitable . They treated us just as their family members. They prepared a lot of dishes for us . I had a wonderful dinner or maybe the best dinner since I came to USA. The hostess leaded us to walk around the community. I was impressed by the beauty of surroundings. How I admired that one day I could live in such a community to enjoy my life with my family. They raised a female dog named lisa which was a good girl. Though I am afraid of dog , I also made friends with lisa. Their house was a typical American style. The parents respected the decision right of the children, so all the living rooms of their daughter’s were decorated by their daughters. We enjoyed the different styles of different rooms. I think family democracy is a good way to keep harmonious relationship between parents and children. After dinner , the hostess taught us a kind of American card game which name was “spoon”. What a pity I failed at last but I enjoyed myself.

In today’s lecture, senior director Yang Szu-Sung gave us some useful suggestions about culture adaptation. This is an important issue that everyone who is abroad will encounter. How to adapt the other culture quickly is essential to the people who wants to study , work or live in the other country. Culture shock cannot be avoided. What we can do is not to ignore it , but face it and capture it.
So in order to adapt the other culture well and quickly, two things should be taken into consideration. The first is language ,the other is communication.
To learn the other language well is the first step to adapt the other culture . It is impossible for a people whose language level is low can adapt the other culture well. When we learn a foreign language , not only we learn the spell and pronunciation of words but also learn the origin of this language as well as the origin of some key words. By dong so , we can understand the culture better because language is the reflection of the culture.
Only learning language is not enough , we should communicate with local people as much as possible . Do not be afraid making mistakes. We all humans , that is to say mistakes cannot be avoided . To some extent ,mistakes are the must presupposition of promotion and success. So ,just devote ourselves to the local community , that is the bigger classroom for us to learn language and adapt the other culture.

Material wealth is probably the most widely accepted measure of social status in America. Rejection of European class structure and the adoption of a more classless society saw the emergence of a substitute for judging social status. The quantity and quality of an individual material wealth became that substitute. However Americans pay a price for this: hard work. That is also the essence of America dream for many foreigners.That is to say if you want to be success,hard work is requested. The land and other rich natural resources were exploited by hard work as was the industrialization of America. The wealth generated was and is still converted into material possessions and a high standard of living. Hard work has rewarded many. Material possessions are the tangible evidence of this.
During the past few days, I have witnessed the flourishing and rich of this country. There are various villas along the road. Almost everyone here owns at least one car. The whole city is clean and I can hardly see any pollution everywhere. The relationship between people is in harmony. I think that all of this mentioned above are the fruits of hard work of America people. Our country—China, is under the way of developing. Though the economy is increased significantly , the problems and crisis are revealed. For many people of China nowadays, the only goal of their lives is money . They want to be rich ,want to have an American style life, but they ignore some very important values during this process as justice , morality , conscience. Many of them make a fortune by cheating not by hard working. This kind of fortune is not what we want. Any one who has conscience should blame it or else our country will have no future.