Luxury fever among young people in China

Purchasing luxury goods among young generation in China has been a new popular phenomenon nowadays, especially in some urban areas.

According to Mysite, China had already become the world’s second largest luxury market, with a trend of younger luxury consumers in particular.

Referring to the causes and motivations contributed to those young people’s luxury consumption, there are three common psychological values overall.

First of all, they regard luxury goods as a fulfilment of their dreams of living a ‘quality life’.

Secondly, they are under a great influence of Western culture, hence to enjoy current life as much as possible is what they firmly believe under hedonism.

Thirdly, since most young people are the only child in the family, they use luxuries to call for attention in the society.

2012, a touching disaster movie

Spectacular stunts and touching stories are what you can expect from the movie 2012.

This movie is a disaster movie, which is directed by Roland Emmerich.

The story is mainly around what human beings will do on the doomsday in terms of several small stories, expressing humanity when facing death.

The movie scenes are fabulous and true to life. No matter the flood or the collapse of buildings, both of them will make you feel like a real world.

Apart from the great pictures, what is more impressive is the plot.

The audiences can find many plots so touching.

No matter Jackson, the hero in the movie was almost dead when he tried to get the map for his ex-wife and children, or the president of the US told his people the truth of doomsday’s coming, they both could win your tears.

“At least if they know, families can say goodbye to each other, mother can comfort her children, and father can ask his daughter for forgiveness.”

It is one of the most touching parts in the movie when the president of the US giving the last call to his daughter after he decided to give up his chance to live, but to stay with his people for death.

Actualy, living or dying is far less important than living or dying with whom.

The sexiest Chicago

Having received more than 50 international awards, playing in more than 200 cities all over the world, and around 18 million people have seen it. Chicago is already one of the world’s most classical musicals.

Dressed in highheels, black fishnets, stocking and suspenders while singing and dancing, here comes the sexiest musical in the world, Chicago.

Plot

It tells the story of Roxie Hart, a woman with great ambition to be famous, while being sent to prison because she killed her lover; and Velma Kelly, a vaudeville star who shot her husband and sister after catching them in bed together. Both of them compete for their place in the spotlight.

Scenery

The stage scenery is pretty simple, which makes the performance itself even more prominent. The orchestra made up of 15 members is sitting on stage for the entire show facing the audiences.

Music

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a story of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery. All those things we hold near and dear to our hearts." The show starts with a fascinating introduction to attract every audience’s full attention..

The music itself is really great. The first thrilling moment is “Cell Block Tango”, when those six “merry murderesses” tell the story one by one of how they were sent to prison, full of repression and anger.

There are only six chairs as the props. Every “merry murderess” defend herself for killing her husband singly at first, and then they shout their great anger together. It is simple, but strong enough to shock all the audiences, which led to thunderous applause.

“Roxie” is Roxie’s starring moment in the show, when she lives in her fantasy about her own vaudeville act with a group of boys revolving around her all the time. Roxie always calls them “my boys” with a flirtatious glance.

Every boy bends over backwards to please her. No matter whispering or shouting, the only word comes out of their mouths is “Roxie”. The fantasy ends up with Roxie holding a piece of newspaper entitled with “Roxie rocks Chicago” as the top story.

Amos Hart, Roxie’s husband singing “Mr. Cellophane” is another most impressive moment. He gives such a big surprise to the audiences as he is so ordinary at the beginning.

The fatty actor stands in the middle of the stage, singing and waggling like a lovely non-downable doll, but his face shows his fear and tension.

Along with the words, he waves his hands in white gloves gently. It looks like he wants to attract someone’s attention. But when the audiences were all overwhelmed by his great singing, he turns into real Mr. Cellophane again as he finds it uncomfortable.

Dark humour, great songs, fantastic dancing, interesting plot, and sexy costume, anyway, you will find your reason to go for Chicago.

Profile on Qian Hao

Picture taken by Jingjing Li-30/11/09

“I believe journalists should always have the sense of responsibility to the public,” said Qian Hao.

Qian Hao, a female journalist from China has reported many significant public issues such as SARS and Sichuan earthquake, as well as some interesting topics like transsexual person during her seven-year journalist life.

“I believe journalists should always have the sense of responsibility to the public,” said Qian, “when you come to report big public issues, especially a matter of life and death for human beings, that feeling is much stronger.” Her sound is not that loud, but firm.

She graduated from the university in 2002. She is working as a financial journalist in China Business News in Shanghai now. Before that, she worked as an emergency reporter in a local newspaper in Jiangsu Province for two years.

“The stories I covered at that time were not that big, but I gained much experience which benefited me a lot later,” she said sincerely and pushed her glasses as usual.

Referring to the reports done on SARS in 2003, Qian has a deep feeling towards that, “It was really dangerous for us at that time, there were only few people in the streets, everyone stayed away from others, even when we were going to interview the doctors and patients in the hospital, the taxi driver just sent us to the place that was five-minute walking from he hospital.”

Being asked whether she was scared as well as the taxi driver, she said with a big smile, “not at all, it was the first time for me to realize what a big responsibility I had had as a journalist, I really love this feeling.”

During Sichuan earthquake last year, Qian and her fellows also went to Sichuan to do reports. Finding so many people all over the country coming to the ruined town to help the victims, she was deeply moved; again, the sense of responsibility for a journalist came out. “I have to do the reports, and when you do the report, you should be moved firstly, you could not make others feel moved if you are not.”

Metro analysis

Here is the analysis of Metro website on 23th Nov, 2009.

First impression

· The top story is not attractive enough to get readers’ attention at the first sight. The picture should be bigger, and the headline should be more bold and heavy to differ from other stories.

· The advertisement on the front page is even a little bigger than the picture of the top story, which really distracts readers’ attention. Readers could not get focused.

· The banner is clear and attractive, with “Metro” in bold, and the colour is also comfortable for readers’ eyes.

· There is a wide space on both sides of the website, which could keep readers focus on the web, and is easy to read for people who get small screens as well.

Presentation

· There are basically three columns, and the sentences keep short, no more than seven words each line, which is easy for scanning.

· All headlines are in bold, which is easy to identify.


Navigation

· The navigation is basically organized well, being put on the top and divided into 16 different sections, which is easy to find information for readers.

· For navigation, when you click different sections, it will turn into different colours, which is a little annoying (see image 2&3)

Content

· One idea, one paragraph

· The sentence is short.

· It uses simple words.

· When click the top story, the picture related to the story is much bigger to attract attention.

· There are also related articles in each story, which is easy for people to get the previous reviews.

Respect needed

At 4:30am this morning, I was waked up by an extremely loud noise outside my room.

It was people screaming and shouting, as well as blasting the balloons in the corridor.

It's not the first time for the noise made after midnight, but not as late as this time.

In the residence hall on campus, everyone should learn how to get along well with others, and show respect, especially in cross-culture communication.

The residents here are all from different countries, having different cultural backgrounds, as well as different personal habits.

However, when we all live together, the residence is no longer the place where you can do whatever you want without any considerations. It is not your own house, while it is a shared space.

Respect is particularly needed among the residents. You can do whatever you want as long as not disturbing others.

H&M opens in Ningbo

The first H&M store opened in Ningbo yesterday, on 18 November.

It is located in Tianyi Square, which is the most flourishing and busiest area in the city.

Luo, a young lady working in the hospital said: “It’s great news for me. Previously, I needed to go to Shanghai or Hong Kong to buy products of this brand, but now I can shop in my own city, which is obviously more convenient, and I have already bought a coat and two jeans.”

“H&M always has an excellent design, but sells at a relatively low price. I can hardly afford a luxury brand, but at H&M, I can have the same fashion style,” said Zhang, an university student.

Besides consumers, other competitors in this fashion industry also pay high attention to its new opening.

“H&M has two big advantages, one is excellent design, and the other is high speed for updating. It only needs a couple of weeks to finish the design, and updates the products half a month on average,” said Weiguang Huang, the general manager of Ningbo Oriental Shooping Mall.

He also indicated that compared to traditional department stores, this updating speed was highly competitive as consumers could have more choices.

“It only takes half a month to make design papers into ready-to-wear clothes, this kind of ‘fast fashion’ is worth to be learnt by Ningbo fashion industry,” said one staff in Ningbo Peacebird Garment Company.

Since the first H&M store opened in spring 2007 in Shanghai, there has been 21 stores distributed throughout 9 cities in China so far. With such a high expanding speed, more stores are under negotiation.

Sales in 2008 in China was SEK (Swedish Krona) 881 million including Hong Kong.

H&M is a Swedish clothing company, known for its fast fashion. It offers clothing to women, men, teenagers and children.

H&M has more than 1,800 stores in 34 different countries up to now.