The Important Chinese Holiday in Fall

In Taiwan there are three most important festivals in the whole year, such as the Chinese New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. We have a reunion in the Mid-Autumn Festival. The special food we have to eat is moon cakes and pomelo (or shaddock). When is the Mid-Autumn Festival? It is on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. The moon will be a full moon. Currently, families will find an outdoor place to have a BBQ and hang out with each other. We enjoy the glorious full moon and have good food with our family members. After BBQ, we eat moon cakes and pomelos. The government will have a beautiful firework show that night. That night will be a beautiful night because we can get together with our family, have good food and amazing fireworks under a bright full moon. In this busy society, we don’t have time to relax and hang out with family. We all cherish this festival in the fall season. This is an important day for Chinese people.

Holiday (Fluency Ex.3)

My favorite holiday in Saudi Arabia is Ramdan holiday and it starts on the 18th day of Ramdan until the 7th day of the next month, which is Shawal. The best part of this holiday is the last day in Ramdan and the next seven days of Shawal because we usually celebrate the first day after Ramdan with the whole family, including relatives and neighbors in one house. Then we travel to our farm, which is far, about 140 miles from Riyadh where I live. Before we go there we know how many families are coming and we usually invite relatives, close friends and neighbors to spend a great time there. There are the main house and some other small houses around it for the guests. We have many activities to do there, but the amazing part is when we ride the horses and challenge each other, especially my cousins because we used to do that when we were children. Other things we enjoy very much are when we play volleyball, soccer, and drive the jeeps in the middle of the desert with the soft sands. At night we usually make a big barbecue party and there are many kinds of foods we eat like kabab, reish, awsall, kabsa, homos, and magloba. After that we light a fire and stay around it talking about many important topics, having funny discussions and making a strong challenge for the next day. Finally, I really miss this holiday this year because I am in the US, but on the other hand, I am investing in my mind and my knowledge, which makes me feel fine in different ways.

Friendship

Hamad
Mr. Leverett
Fluency Ex#2



Friendship is important to people; that means nobody can live without friends in life. There are many friends we can see in life. For example, some of them just need me for personal interest; after they finish and take what they need they will leave me alone. Others are different, they are like my brothers but are not my brothers. They are beside me when I need them. They help me when I need help, if I need any service they just do it for me. They respect me and respect my family and country. I remember some story, which is when I was in high school, two friends studied in the same class when they began school. Their names are Ali and Nasser. Ali was from South Saudi Arabia; Nasser was from east Saudi Arabia. Nasser had a big family and his father was sick; during the last level his father died and he got low grades, because he was busy with his father. His brothers and sisters were smaller than he was and his family income was low. He tried to find a job. However, he did not find it. His friend Ali’s family had a big company; when Ali learned Nasser’s story he helped Nasser by giving Nasser a job and gave Nasser a loan to improve his situation, feed his family and buy a house and car to make Nasser’s family happy. That story was a good example of friendship. I hope everybody could be similar to Ali.

Music

Music

In the modern world, music is a fashionable culture or style. Most of teenagers, young and older adults like music. There are many different kinds of musical styles such as pop, country and rock. My favorite style is pop music.

I love music because it does not make my life boring. Music also helps me to release stress due to studying, and it leads me to follow the fashionable direction. For example, when I hang out with my friends, we turn on the radio or CD player and dance together with music. Moreover, if I feel stress from studying, I will listen to music and forget a lot of unhappiness, which makes me more comfortable. Next, I can learn more fashionable information from musical singers such as clothes and musical style. Finally, music is an important part of my life and I like it.

How technology changes our life and communication

Gin

EAP2

Technology

As long as time has passed, our technology has been advanced more and more in many fields. It not only helps our life become easier but also changes it a lot in different ways such as traveling, shopping, communication and so on.

To travel from somewhere to somewhere else has come to feel shorter, although the distance has never changed on the map. People started traveling much more, and met friends more often. It was a good big jump for all people; however, until the advent of internet, it completely washed out our everyday life. We shop through our finger tips. We click a key, then we can watch movies. We can find anyone for chatting. The internet pulls everyone closer in communication and makes it easier to chat at any time, but makes people be social less and less. Especially, the majority of internet heavy users have hidden behind monitors. In Taiwan and Japan, we call these internet heavy users dwelling men or dwelling women. It means staying in the home all day long, doing everything, and doing work at home, shopping at home and neglecting social affairs. Those people who neglect a normal society become clammy and cold for everything. They lose their social abilities. They do not even know how to read a person’s mind by their face changes and body language. They may also believe everything is true which shown on internet. The worst thing is their population of dwelling men and women is increasing.

Technology’s progress makes our life easier such as by internet and makes us get more resources, and communicate with someone easily. If we are not able to control ourselves well and use the internet in a good way, the technology will endanger us.

The Moon Festival

EAP2
Gin

The Moon Festival

There are many festivals in Taiwan and most of them are interesting such as the Chinese New year, Rice Pudding Festival and the National Birthday. Of course, all Taiwanese can get days off with pay. It is a little bit hard to pick the one that I like most from them; however, if we only focus only on the fall season, I would like to say “Moon Festival”.

Moon Festival is a really important day for Taiwan. It has been counted by the farming calendar. It is celebrated on August 15th. Most Taiwanese have 2~4 days off and a bonus from the company for it. It is like a second New Year of the year for us because all of the Taiwanese will go back to their home to see parents and relations. It does not matter where we are. On this day, Taiwanese have a big feast, moon cakes and a special fruit in its eve. Some people will choose to B.B.Q outside. During the feast, we would like to tell others what we have done this year, what will be our goal in the future, and exchange some of our current information, job situation or just chat.

We usually do fireworks on the eve night of this day, too. In Taiwan, it is legal to do it anywhere. As you guess, it is also the busiest day for fire fighters. If you conceive in the Moon Festival that every shopping mall and department stores are closed on this day, you are totally wrong. In Taiwan, Taipei is a sleepless city. Those stores and companies operate 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, but they only take a short day off; it is just about 4 hours of break and then they reopen before 12 o’clock at night. After the dinner, we will probably go out together to watch a special TV program, to see a movie, to go to Karaoke for singing songs and just lay down on the grass or ground and watch the Moon and stars. These activities will be continuous until the mid night.

The Moon Festival has also a special meaning for me. It is my birthday, too. My family and relations always celebrate my birthday for me. That’s why I love to have the moon festival from all holidays.

A New Communication Way Among Youths (FE3)

It is doubtless that today younger people are influenced by computers, and that computers have become one necessary part in their lives. Youths meet people and seek information through the Internet. Moreover, they love to share their lives and characters with their friend in a virtual world. According to all these reasons, youths develop a way to communicate easily and quickly, in secret, and hide the side from their parents or family.

The one reason is that teenagers have their own individuality and sometime their thinking is hard to accept by adults. Therefore, spending time with the same generation is the only way to seek the identification for adolescences. However, some people claim that young students are confused with the new language and correction. In my point of view, it is hard to define how serious the problem is.

Another reason is for saving time. The meaning of communication is letting people who talk with you understand what you want to express. For example, when some people chat with their friends on MSN which is communication software that connects people who are in different places by the Internet, they use “U” as “you” or “coz” as “because”. In the present day, time is money. Definitely, using specific and short words instead of long one is a very helpful tip for saving time to do other things or chatting more.

In conclusion, the new communication way is accompanied with the advancement of the Internet. People can find one private place they can focus on without disturbance. The new language may be one part of my life in the future.