Letter17: St. Patrick’s Day

           
It's really special to listen to the inspirational history behind St. Patrick’s Day. I have to say, people in Taiwan realize Christmas and Thanksgiving very well,but few of them can describe St. Patrick Day in detail . This kind of holiday might only appear in English textbooks. In fact, I didn’t know what's the differences between England and Ireland until at the age of 15 I learned about Europe geography. If you didn't tell me this story, I might thought St. Patrick Day is an English holiday. Much to my interest, many sections around the world seem to be similar, but actually they are totally different from each other. For instance, Taiwan and China, North and South Korea, Spain and Catalonia……people will get confused if they don't inspect them further. I have never knew in fact Irish are forced to become a part of the United Kingdom, their patriotism really touch me, and they never gave up being independent from England. I have no idea what's going on between England and Ireland, but after I google something about it, I found the modern celebration of St. Patrick Day really attract me. These day, not only in Ireland but England, Canada and America celebrate St. Patrick Day. I think Boston may be one of the city highly related to St. Patrick Day the most. Their local NBA team even features the green clover. According to the Internet,people will wear green clothes, hats and shoes, drink green beer, and parade on the road. The pictures of St. Patrick Day look so great. Hope some day I will go to Ireland.

Letter 16 The Great Panic of Toilet Paper in Taiwan

     
Good to see you, Tim! You must be surprised to know mere toilet papers should strike such an sensation in Taiwan,and it even hit the headline of news. It’s hard to believe, but if every newspaper report a swarm of people in the supermarket contend for daily commodity and someone get hurt, you'll know how seriously Taiwanese think about it. The trend also encourage our Chinese teacher to purchase six hundreds box of toilet papers for fear of not having enough paper to use, meanwhile sell them at higher price, and benefit herself from this crisis. This is really out of control and perhaps the silliest thing I’ve ever experienced. Taiwanese absolutely know what they are doing, but they still keep stocking up those stuffs because they don't want to get behind the new model and minimize the cost as possible. Chinese ethnic has some extraordinary characteristics. We extremely care about money and always imitate public movement. I would recommend you to watch Fresh off The Boat, it conveys lots Chinese thoughts. You probably say they are just the instincts of human beings. Notheless, only Chinese can do to this extent. We don't want to lose any penny, and enthusiastic about big sale, while we are emotionally impulsive, wasteful, and not environmental-friendly.
Though not everyone is doing this, I still expect this tragedy will stop.

Letter 15 Winter Vacation

Long time no see! It’s been a while since last time we met. Although I'm extremely unwilling to farewell to my dear holidays, I'm pretty expecting to share with you my life during this precious break. There is no need to say that it's so hard for all the student to be adapt to the original school life. The day during our winter vacation was so relaxing and there was no assignment, teacher, or exhausting study plan chasing after me. Oh my Jesus! I miss it so much! After I come back to school, I have to be awaken by the alarm at 7 o'clock, listen to some disgusting theories created by Newton, and tons of things like issue research or school club are waiting for me. I'm so regretful that I wasted the whole vacation, that is, this should have been the moment to prepare for our future, but I just kept using my smartphone instead. I was once trying to make my own study plan,but I still couldn't resist that temptation. Truly, my holiday life is totally far away from the school one. I guess, you must wonder how Chinese people celebrate Lunar New Year,assuming family will get together, make a delicious feast, and broadcast New Year song, just like Christmas in Western. I have to clarify that,however, lots of thing change as time goes by: we are gradually losing our New Year spirit(年味 in Chinese ). That doesn't mean we don't value Chinese New Year, but some traditions are not as usual as in the past. Nevertheless, quite a few interesting phenomena also occur in Chinese New Year. Spring Festival travel rush(春運), for instance, one of the largest scale of population migration on earth. Can you imagine how those people get on the train? Transportation innovation and refrigeration technology also bring a lot of change. Currently, we purchase food for Chinese New Year and other related stuffs on online shop. It's really weird, but it's just the way we celebrate Chinese New Year!