Snakes predicting earthquakes! With all that science and technology can do it is always nice to see that predicting earthquakes takes nothing more than a little instinct.
China has come up with an earthquake prediction system which relies on the
behaviour of snakes after two powerfiul earthquakes struck off neighbouring
Taiwan.

The earthquake bureau in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi autonomous region in southern China monitor snakes at local snake farms via video cameras linked to a broadband internet connection. If I had the address I would like to see it!

It doesn't surprise me because snakes whom have a large proportion of thier bodies in contact with the ground can sense far more than most animals. They can sense an earthquake from 120km away 3 to 5 days in advance.

Perhaps I should say that most animals can sense disaster approaching it is just that we humans have to be the weakest of all the mammals because we are so dependant on science and technology. Primitive human beings probably did the same but we have lost touch with our environment and consequently have become more powerful than our environment.

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I have taught ESL for well over six years in Canada, Japan, China and Taiwan to both adults and children.

When you teach for a living at an English school that does not allow for children's creativity to develop nor do they allow for any creative input from teachers - YES it is a very boring school and life does become boring as well, - I need something to take my mind off the daily repetitiveness of English.

I have often thought why learn or why teach English? There are plenty more very useful languages out there to learn/teach - Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Hindi to name a few of the world's more populous languages. Certainly they are more colorful in culture and history than boring old English, which is in fact a relatively new language.

English is just another imperialist language - just wait just as soon as the United States falls another country will take over and we'll all be learning another language. Just because we all want to suck up to the power. It has probably already happened to some degree such that most large corporations have moved from Europe and Japan to Mainland China because it is cheaper.

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For me there are really two kinds of blogs personal and commercial. There are ofcourse some personal blogs that advertise stuff for profit too. Personal blogs have never been a form of other peoples entertainment afterall who would want to know about the average life of so and so? No thanks. The odd post or two will often strike up interest for me or others to read more or even bookmark the page. Personal blogs are a great way of taking notes and ofcourse in an environmentally conscience way since it saves paper. After all it has been said that quite a number of blogs do become published hardcopy books. Not that I am planning to publish any of this crap. I have self published and I am aware of the work involved so not again, at least not until someone sponsors me.

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The new year is coming up as well as the lunar new year. I thought it was interesting to note that just like Japanese culture the house is cleaned on December 31, the same is done in China only the house is cleaned before the lunar New Year and a special type of couplet/poem is written and placed above the entrance ways.

Chun lian is a special type of duilian and is used only during the lunar New Year. While duilian is permanent, chunlian is a temporary decoration but with changing times some people may keep them up all year long. These couplets are written on vertical
strips of red paper in the best calligraphic style, and not made on Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks like these. But in these changing times I am sure it is no longer uncommon!

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