Sunday, February 8, 2009

Quality Fireworks at the Click of a Button

(original article appeared in eBiz is aAsy )


In Boryeong City in South Korea, people watched a beautiful fireworks display after the annual Mud Festival. When asked, locals would say they could only get to enjoy such displays during festivals or lunar New Year celebrations. Fireworks are too expensive for their own private celebrations.

In the United States, anyone can buy fireworks at such magnitudes of display, but would need the proper permits from the ATFE or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Avoiding such hassles, people resign themselves to wait for New Year, 4th of July displays, concerts or go to theme parks like Disneyland to witness amazing fireworks shows.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Getting the Best Deals in a Beijing Market

©2009 Peter Mariano
Links2Prosperity


The 2008 Beijing Olympics came and concluded with a loud bang. New records were made, not only in athletic feats, but also in the grandiose architectural wonders and technical innovations created in this great city. People flocked to Beijing not only for the Olympic event itself, but also to taste some of the city’s wonders and delights. Topping these visitors lists are the markets where everyone would love to explore and sample what Beijing had to offer. For travelers who would want to return to Beijing, or will be going there for the first time, the markets are one of the places everyone is looking forward to.

For travelers who want to get the best deals in any market around the world, haggling is still the best way to do it, particularly in markets around Beijing. In order to get leverage to haggling in Beijing, it pays to have good English to Chinese translation of words that the traveler will use in achieving that great buy. The following are ways on how you could actually do that.

To get good Chinese to English translation while being engrossed in shopping, having a reliable Chinese interpreter with you will give you an advantage over other buyers. Before embarking on a journey to Beijing, the traveler should do some research on how to get the services of a Chinese translator, without being scammed. A lot of certified companies are available that provide personal tourist guides who doubles as a Chinese interpreter.

Get feedback from people who have gone to Beijing and explored these services. Great information as well as insider tips and advice can also be obtained from travel forums, particularly for previous travelers to Beijing. It would be great if you could get hold of a guide that is not only an excellent Chinese to English translator, but is also a good source of information on where to get the best bargains and deals from the Beijing market.

If your travel to Beijing is a spur-of-the-moment thing, or was an unexpected gift from a boss or a friend, and you don’t have time to prepare and get the services of a Chinese interpreter – there’s no need to worry. Alternatives abound with this sort of thing. Instead of a live Chinese translator who would accompany you in person, you could employ the services of a Chinese telephone interpreter. These services offer Chinese to English translation and vice versa, through the phone or mobile. They can even do teleconferencing, should you need a translation from English to Chinese while talking with a Chinese counterpart on the phone. The great thing here is that you could get their services from anywhere, even while you’re already in Beijing!

Of course, self-study and research always pays off, particularly for Caucasians and African-Americans. They are most vulnerable and who almost always are the targets of marketers with ridiculous mark-ups on their products. Get prepared by writing English to Chinese translation of key “haggling” words in index cards. There are a lot of sources and websites that offer free translation from English to Chinese, including proper pronunciation and characters. You could also record phrases and snippets in MP3 players which you can pull out anytime in preparation for that great buy.

So, if you’re planning to go on that once-in-lifetime journey to this wonderful, ancient city that you’ve only seen in magazines, the news and Jet Li movie reruns, be prepared in the area of communication. Make the choice as to which English to Chinese translation services you’ll need that will suit your lifestyle, and budget. Doing so would help you on the road of getting those best deals from the Beijing market, and from your vacation as a whole.


Regards,


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Peter Allan C. Mariano

Talakayan at Kalusugan - DWBL1242 4-5pm Mon-Fri
The Big NM - Network Management for Filipinos
Links2Prosperity - Web Marketing : Web Content : Web Design

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Sunday, December 21, 2008

Colorful Nigerian Weddings

For months now, my sister has been endlessly talking about her friend’s wedding, complaining about the design of the dresses that they have to wear as bridesmaids. Well, after seeing the contraption, I could not agree more.

It got me thinking about those wonderful and colorful African weddings I see in the Discovery channel. Browsing through the internet, I landed on a page with an interview with Mohammed Babangida about his matrimonial with Rahama Indimi in Nigeria. Wow! These Nigerians surely have very colorful weddings, which I find very exciting and not so boring.

A photo of the newlyweds (courtesy of ibrahimbabangida.com)

The Bride and her sisters (courtesy of ibrahimbabangida.com)


The prelude to Nigerian weddings is called the Introduction, which is quite similar to the Filipino’s “Pamamanhikan” where both families meet with a visit to the bride’s family. They bring along with a formal letter asking for the daughter’s hand in marriage. The only difference is the dowry that the groom’s family would provide for the other family. This is followed by an engagement ceremony where family members are formally introduced to one another. These ceremonies are celebrated with traditional food and drinks.

Then comes the wedding day, which is quite similar to weddings around the world. The only difference is that the bride is taken back to her parent’s house so they could pray over her, before they finally return her to the husband. What a touching thought that would be. The day ends with, of course, a party in honor of the bride and groom. The night party can go on until morning with non-stop dancing with music coming from a live band.

Mohammed Babangida is a special advisor to the Santa Isabel Petroleum Company, where he serves as liaison to government agencies in behalf of the oil company. Incidentally, Mohammed is the son of Ibrahim Babangida, more popularly known as IBB, who was a former military ruler of Nigeria.

Cheers to Mohammed and Rahama!


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Peter Allan C. Mariano

Talakayan at Kalusugan - DWBL1242 4-5pm Mon-Fri
The Big NM - Network Management for Filipinos
Links2Prosperity - Web Marketing : Web Content : Web Design

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The Tribe of the Marathon Runners

In my first installment of Culture Finder, I will discuss a unique tribe from Kenya, where some of the best marathon runners in the world came from. The Kalenjin tribe, also known as Kenya’s running tribe, is the fourth largest tribe in Kenya and is known worldwide for their enormous physical endurance as shown in their love for long distance running.

These runners first wowed the world during the 1968 Olympics when runner Kipchoge Keino continued running despite a gall bladder infection and emerged victorious in the 5,000-meter run, earning him a silver medal. He did not stop there and continued running to break the record in the 1,500-meter run and winning the gold, defeating the best the world had to offer.

Most people know that Kenyan’s dominate distance running, but only a few of us know that all of them came from a single tribe that numbers less than 3 million. Wow! What a great cultural achievement! Now, one would ask what made this tribe so dominating in this sport. Food maybe? Geographical structure and training grounds? Genes? These questions baffle people worldwide. I came across a blog by Linus Gitahi describing and trying to answer these questions about Kelenjian running.



Digging more about Mr. Linus Gitahi, I found out that he is from Kenya and is in fact the CEO of Nation Media Group, which is the largest media firm in East and Central Africa. Aside from that, he was previously the General Manager of SmithKline Beecham Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean. He is involved in community-based activities and is active in sports playing golf and squash. What an achievement for a Kenyan! If you want to know more about Linus Gitahi, just click the links here.

Reading great achievements of people such as what these people achieve would push the rest of us to keep on reaching our goals and keep on running.


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Peter Allan C. Mariano

Talakayan at Kalusugan - DWBL1242 4-5pm Mon-Fri
The Big NM - Network Management for Filipinos
Links2Prosperity - Web Marketing : Web Content : Web Design

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