新年快乐 (Xīn Nián Kuài Lè) means Happy New Year in Chinese 🙂 This year is the Year of the Monkey! I think tomorrow I will try to add a description of the Chinese animals theory to DeceptivelyBlonde 🙂
Anyway, Happy New Year from us in China! Here’s one of the beautiful fireworks that lit up the sky on New Year’s Eve 🙂 No one does firework like the Chinese!
I’ve added new terms to the list of Business or Corporate Governance Vocabulary.
Don’t forget, the Chinese translations come from the Chinese students rather than professional translators. While I believe they are accurate, you may want to consult professionals before using them for official documents. This is mainly intended to contribute to daily conversation between English speaking Companies and Chinese companies.
Abbreviations:
v. = Verb
n. = Noun
adj. = Adjective
adv. = Adverb
(c) All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to use this material. However, if you do end up using these definitions in your material (educational, informational, or professional), please include either a link to this webpage or the following reference: Blessing, Olivia. “Corporate Governance Vocabulary.” DeceptivelyBlonde.com. This is for two reasons: 1) I’d like to share the resource with others. 2) I created these definitions myself. Thanks!
by Scott Reyburn via “New York Times“
So now it’s official: The latest art market boom has peaked, according to figures from Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the two biggest international auction houses.
In late January, the companies released their 2015 results, with each reporting a slight decrease in year-over-year sales. It was the first year since 2010 that both failed to show an increase.
Christie’s, a private company based in London, reported auctions and private sales of 4.8 billion pounds, or about $6.8 billion in 2015, a decline of about 5 percent from 2014. Equivalent sales at Sotheby’s, which is publicly traded and based in New York, were $6.6 billion, about 1 percent less than in 2014.
Those figures do not represent a burst bubble, or even a serious correction, but they do suggest that 2016 is going to be a challenging year for the art market, reflecting the volatility and uncertainty of the wider world.
“The froth has been skimmed off,” said Paul Ress, the chief executive of Right Capital, which provides loans secured by art to dealers and collectors. Mr. Ress said that the collapse in the price of oil has taken “a huge amount of cash” out of the art market.
“There aren’t so many Russians and Brazilians involved now, and the Chinese slowdown has had a knock-on effect on the raw materials and equity markets,” he said. “The potential buyers in the art world won’t be feeling as rich as they did last year.”
An examination of Christie’s results reveals key shifts in the market in 2015. Bolstered by huge one-off prices in New York for trophy works by artists like Picasso and Modigliani , auction sales of Impressionist and modern art were up 57 percent to £1.3 billion, while those of postwar and contemporary art — the main driver of growth from 2009 to 2014 — were down 14 percent to £1.5 billion. Year-over-year sales of old master paintings and 19th-century and Russian art shrank 37 percent to £154.9 million. . . . .
Archaeologists have uncovered the world’s oldest set of tea leaves from the tomb of an ancient Chinese emperor!
Living 2,150 years ago in the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Jing was a major fan of the delicious drink. Like all the rest of us tea lovers, Emperor Jing understood the power of the tea leaf and its healing/renewing abilities.
The collection of tea leaves was 42 feet x 8 inches. That is a major tea haul! If you ever tried drinking tea from leaves rather than a lipton bag, you’ll know that it only takes a small amount to go a long way. This amount probably lasted him a long while in the afterworld!
This particular type of tea, Camellia Sinesis, comes from a type of small evergreen shrub known as a tea tree. The leaves and buds of the tree are used to create a special, expensive green tea. There are actually two varieties of the tree–one is used to create the Chinese teas (such as White Tea, Oolong, Pu’er, Green Tea, etc.) and the other is used to create Indian Assam teas. The leaves of the tree have long been applied in Chinese traditional medications and as a caffeine provider. I’m guessing it was pretty easy to bring the emperor over as a tea supporter 🙂
The tomb was located in Xi’an, China. Xi’an is now world-famous due to the discovery of the Terra Cotta army buried under the local hills and is only about an 8 hour drive from where I live! I’m really excited; maybe I could see this tea pile 🙂 Emperor Jing’s tomb contained “50,000” terra cotta animals and statues, along with other great treasures.
The extra amazing thing about the tea beyond its age is the fact that it is some of the earliest proof that researchers have about the Silk Road. It is believed that the emperor may have traded his tea with Tibet where similar tea remains were found dating not long after. This shows the the Silk Road probably moved thorugh Tibet at the time.
Resources:
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
Language Translation
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