Background Story: Loneliness Aggravated in London

As an international student studying in London, you not only contribute to the multiculturalism of this vibrant city, but also you make this city lonelier than it was.

30% Londoners Feel Lonely

Based on the analysis of census data from 2001, 1991, 1981 and1971, a report conducted by researchers at Sheffield University showed that community life in UK has weakened.

Big Ben symbol of London Picture by Lei Yang

30% of Londoners in the survey said that they felt lonely.

The BBC-commissioned research revealed that divorce, immigration and large transitory student populations have played a role in weakening neighbourhoods bonds in London.

“Life in London is rather hectic and busy, where we barely have time for ourselves so it not surprising that so many people out there feels as they don’t belong to a community.”

Sham from County Harrow commented on the results discovered by the BBC.

Economic Gap

The researchers analysed the number of people living alone, those in rented accommodation and those who did not live in one place for more than one year.

London has continuously topped the chart with most lonely people in the UK since late 1960s.

It was found that the UK had become far more separated, with regard to age, economic status and other factors, over the last four decades.

The report also presumes that loneliness of Londoners might be partially due to the gap between poor and rich in the city.

London has the highest levels of people living under the relative poverty line in 2001-32% of Londoners.

“The polarisation and segregation processes may also lead to stronger feelings of isolation.”

Professor Daniel Dorling, who headed the research team at the University of Sheffield told BBC reporter.

Researchers found out that London is not yet the most lonely city in UK, which ranks after Edinburgh，the one at the top of the list.

Overseas Students Fight against Culture Difference

Multiculturalism characterizes most of London’s universities, and the University of Westminster’s Harrow campus is no exception.

International students from every continent contribute to this vibrancy and diversity.

However, before they can blend into campus life, many find studying in the UK challenging. Some have to go through a difficult process of personal, emotional and practical upheavals.

Culture Difference A Big Headache

Shen, a pregnant Chinese student on the MA in Mass Communication course reveals: “I was so tired that I would just sleep in my dorm all day.

Harrow Campus University of Westminster Picture by Lei Yang

Besides, the food here is expensive and barely edible.” Pointing to the apples on her desk, she says: “That’s all I eat in these days.”

She came to the UK and presumed that she could handle everything on her own.

But things didn’t go according to plan: after a week, she dropped the course and flew back to China.

Not all students, however, choose to escape from the harsh reality of university life.

Li Qianqian, a student enrolled on the Communication Policy course, decided to carry on even after a month of feeling lost in lectures.

“It will take us an entire lifetime to understand the UK’s cultural and political system.

For instance, for a word like ’spin doctor’, I had to look it up in the dictionary first, because there is no such concept in our political system.”

Adjusting to the teaching methods is her biggest challenge.

Talk May Be A Solution

Jane, an International Journalism student, said: “In the first month, I struggled so much. I would burst into tears in the middle of the night because of the stress from assignments and classes.”

Brought up in the US, Jane found that people in the UK are not as sociable and outgoing as Americans.

Drawn to All Soul’s Church in central London, she made friends from different ethnic backgrounds. “People talked to me, which was what I really missed.”

After visiting the church on three occasions, Jane said she felt more like herself now.

Sadly, some international students find it difficult coping with depression, loneliness and homesickness.

However, all is not lost.

Don’t forget there are flat mates and friends around. Turning to the International Student Adviser can also be an option. Just knock on their doors and talk to them.

It’s up to you to make yourself happy.

please click here for background story

Background Story: Education of Sportsman in China

Sportsman with a University’s degree is common in European countries and US, while for a professional player from China, the situation is different.

Zou’s Misfortune

In 2006 Former national weight lifter Championship Zou Chunlan was found becoming a masseuse after she was laid off by Jilin Province Sports Team in 2000, According to the Beijing News.

Zou became a member of the sports team when she was 14. From that time on she was trained without proper education.

Table Tennis One of China's Top Sports Picture by Lei Yang

Zou’s educational degree is as low as a third-grade pupil.

One of reasons contributing to the condition is the state sports system of China, which puts emphasis on training athletes to get gold medals, while ignores the education of their culture studies.

In China promising young athletes are supported by the government.

Once they are chosen by the General Administration of Sports of China, they are granted fixed wages. The centre of their life is training and winning in the competitions.

Most of the sportsmen begin their professional careers from early age. The time they should have spent studying basic knowledge in middle school is devoted to the playing field.

When the athletes could not compete any more, they have to choose retirement. Some of them see unemployment due to lack of studying and working skills.

According to Soutern Weekend, an influential weekly newspaper in China, since 1949 the retired players amount to 279,000.

Call for Change

Zou was one of examples of players affected by the awkward training system.

Her experience gave rise to heated discussion about the state sports system.

A strong call rose for improvement of retired players’ living conditions.

Since 2003, Deng Yaping, a former table tennis championship has suggested that sportsmen should get nine-year compulsory education.

According to Xinhua News Agency, on 27^th Nov 2008, the school attached to Sichuan Institute of Sports Technology was set up.

The school is the first one in China to provide sportsmen with nine-year compulsory education.

When interviewed by the Xinhua News Agency, Luo Dongling, secretary of institute’s party committee said:

“We must shoulder the responsibility of training excellent players, at the same time providing them with qualified culture education.”

Website Critique- China Daily

Chinadaily.com.cn: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Chinadaily.com.cn is the online version of the China Daily newspaper.

The newspaper was established in 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China, which makes Chinadaily.com.cn the largest English portal in China.

First Impression

The China Daily website has the typical online news resource image brought about by the white background and a middle banner size logo at the top.

The user will immediately recognize that it is an online news resource website which is essential for branding.

The website looks decent with two main colors: blue and white, but the simplicity of the color also brings dullness to the website.

Home Page of Chinadaily.com.cn

In fact the color scheme could be more colorful to attract reader’s eyes. If the names of each category could be treated with different color, it would be better for readers to differentiate and distinguish them.

On the front page, there is a huge slide occupying 3/5 columns. It’s contradictory that the pictures are not related to the top story above. It brings confusion to the users and left little space for pictures of other news stories.

As user scroll down, colorful and flashing ad banners pop up.

They animation images distract users from scanning pages and the news contents on the front page are downplayed by the annoying advertisement.

Writing

The China Daily website does not obey F-style of writing.

The writings are also carried out in a way against Jakob Nielsen’s rules of web writing.

It seems the contents of the news are directly pasted from the print version of the newspaper.

Set the “Policymakers to set tone for next’ year’s economic work” for example.

Spelling Mistake In the First Paragraph

The text looks friendly, but it will be better to change from Font “Arial” to most accepted Font “Verdana”.

There are totally 18 paragraphs for this passage, while the contents run through the whole page with no sub- headings.

The first paragraph is not bold.

There are many passive tense sentences, which are not fit for online reading.

The paragraph is too long and wide. There are several paragraphs with almost 60 words. Online users will not be that patient to move head from left to right to read through the whole story.

Even in the first paragraph, editor made obvious spelling mistakes “policymarker” for “policymaker”.

It’s amazing to discover as the biggest English portal in China, there are no links and social bookmarks in all the news stories on the website.

In terms of interactivity the website does ensure users involvement that they could write comment on the news story.

Content

In terms of the use of multimedia, China Daily truly has video inputs, but all of the video used are works from Chinese Central Television.

Although the website realized the importance of multimedia, it dose not make a good combination of multimedia usage with the news stories.

On the front page chunk of news titles are put under the dominant slide. They are crowded together and not spaced out.

There are no mini pictures beside to show what kind of stories it is to attract readers’ attention. There are no obvious signals to indicate whether there are videos included.

Only after you click the title and enter the page, can you discover what’s in it.

When readers are scanning the whole page, they are easy to discover that they are submerged in the desert of texts.

The website does set a column for videos, however achieves and news stories are mixed together without fine distinction between each other. Titles of stories are piled up in one page.

Titles Piled Up In One Page

Also as the biggest English portal in China, the China Daily website does not have RSS feeds on its website.

Navigation

It’s easy to discover that main navigation is at the top of the front page, there are sub-navigations on the both sides of the page.

Under the fold, there are navigations for each category of news. It’s a little annoying and confusing to have so many sub-navigations on one page. For a first time visitor, it would be a puzzle to find where to start searching for news.

It took me ages to open the child pages, sometimes you have to accept that you could not go back to the home page even with fast broadband connectivity.

The biggest problem occurs when you click into the child page, the navigation is not consistent. The main navigation changes the position from top to the left side.

Under the navigation, there are “Ads by Google” located at the left hand of the news story, the position could lead online users mistakenly go to the ads’ websites, but there’s no link back to the original page.

Background Story: Origin of the Rory Peck Trust

The name of the Rory Peck Trust comes from a respected freelance cameraman Rory Peck.

Honour  Pory Peck

Rory Peck was killed in a cross fire during the time when he was covering the events of the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.

He was a man famed for his fearlessness and persistence as a freelance covering war. He has covered the first Gulf War, the wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

2008 Rory Peck Award Ceremony Picture by Lei Yang

After his death, Rory’s wife and intimate friends established an organization to help families, which were having similar experience as them in 1995.

This organization was the precursor of the Rory Peck Trust.

The Rory Peck Trust shoulders the responsibility of holding annual Rory Peck awards to honour freelance’s work.

Meanwhile it offers support to freelance news gatherers and their families worldwide in times of need and to promote their welfare and safety.

After 13- year development, the organization has grown and expanded with contribution from broadcast companies, including BBC, CNN, Reuters TV, CBC, ABC news.

103 freelancers died

When the 2008 Rory Peck Award was drawing to an end, all the guests were invited to stand.

The service was in silent tribute for all the freelances who had been injured, imprisoned and dead in the previous years.

The service lasted for more than two minutes until all the freelancers’ names were projected on the big screen.

The indispensable ritual reminded people of what freelances have suffered for bringing the vivid truth to the audience.

According to statistics released by the Rory Peck Trust, four freelance camera people died in 2008.

From 1978 to 2008 there were totally 103 lost their lives in the coverage of news.

Deng, Chinese’ Pride Again

Yaping Deng, a legendary Chinese table tennis player has succeeded in completing her postgraduate study at Cambridge University, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Pride of China

Deng’s achievement has made her an academic model for Chinese students who are striving for a degree in the UK and has become a hot topic among them.

University of Cambridge Picture Taken by Lei Yang

Weihan Chen, a Chevening scholarship recipient studying in King’s College University in London said:

“Deng has set up a model for us studying in the UK. In traditional Chinese views, sportsmen have strong muscles, but are academically weak. Deng shows that the most important elements for success are your ambition and persistence.”

Yaping Deng is named Small Giant in China. She stands at only 1.5m tall, but her talent is well recognised.

She has won four Olympic gold medals and 18 world championships.

Her most recent achievement was on 29th Nov. After 10 years of hard study, she gained the doctor’s degree in Land Economy at the University of Cambridge.

The news of her success spread fast as it was first reported by Xinhua news agency. Students studying in UK regarded her as the pride of China.

Academic Model

Jun Xu, a MPhil student studying in the Judge Business School of Cambridge said he had just got the news from his wife.

He searched the news on the website and thought the image of Deng on the graduate ceremony was so positive and energetic.

“I know some people doubt whether she got the degree properly. They were wondering whether it was her success in sports field that gave her some advantages,” Xu said.

” I am a student studying in Cambridge. It’s not easy to get a doctor’s degree here. I don’t believe she could benefit a lot from her past success.” Xu expressed his admiration for Deng.”

Professors from University of Cambridge gave high remarks on Deng’s final dissertation entitled “The impact of the Olympic games on Chinese development”.

Deng started from when she could not write 26 letters properly to finally realizing her dream of graduating from University of Cambridge.

She became the only top athlete who has gained a doctor’s degree in the eight-hundred-year history of Cambridge.

She is a perfect example of Chinese talent and gives all the Chinese students in the UK something to live up to.

Please click here for background story

Korean freelancers win Rory Peck Award

The winners of the 2008 Rory Peck Awards were announced in BFI Southbank on 13th Nov.

Two South Korean journalists Jung In Taek and Han Yong Ho jointly won the Impact Award for their work on the film: Out of the North.

The film followed the stories of refugees who crossed the Tumen River, a route via China hoping to escape the repressive regime in North Korea.

2008 Rory Peck Award Picture by Lei Yang

The heart wrenching images showed half-naked people crossing the freezing river at night and a dead woman falling flat on her face on the frozen river.

Jung In Taek and Han Yong Ho risked imprisonment to spend ten months filming this documentary on the Chinese and North Korea Border, according to the release from the Trust.

High Praise from Judge Panel

The work of Jung In Taek and Han Yong Ho was recognized by the judge panel.

Tina Carr, director of the Rory Peck Trust said:

” Without the physical and political courage that Jung In Taek and Han Yong Ho displayed in undertaking this project, this compelling story of human endeavour- of people in search of freedom to pursue a better life-would never have been seen by the wider public.”

In the interviewed with BBC World’s documentary Firing Line, Han Yong Ho Said:

”We have to know the sad reality of our people. So when we are reunited one day we will understand their sorrow. That’s why this work is so important. ”

Other finalists for the Impact Award included “D” and Ginny Stein for Mugbe’s Calling Card and Jezza Neumann for Undercover in Tibet.

The award ceremony was held by the Rory Peck Trust which was founded in 1995 to support freelance news gatherers and their families worldwide.

Please click here for background story