Angel Law

The beat of your own drum

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/march+to+the+beat+of+your+own+drum.html

http://www.freexinwen.com/chinese/eng/pa/pa_lesson163.asp

bang for your buck

Hit the sack

http://www.voafanti.com/gate/big5/www.freexinwen.com/chinese/eng/pa/pa_lesson16.asp

Hit the road

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/hit+the+road

Hit the ground running

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/hit+the+ground+running

HK stars in Tokyo drug bust

HONG Kong-based pop singers Kelvin Kwan and Jill Vidal have been arrested in Japan for marijuana possession, a crime that carries up to five years in jail, Tokyo police said on Wednesday.

Police arrested 25-year-old Canadian national Kwan and 26-year-old Briton Vidal for possessing 0.2 grams of cannabis while they were out in Tokyo's Shibuya district on Tuesday last week, police told AFP.

http://english.cri.cn/6666/2009/03/04/1221s460220.htm

Hong Kong pop singers Jill Vidal and Kelvin Kwan were arrested in Tokyo for possession of marijuana, the Ming Pao newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The duo was reported by a salesperson for shoplifting in Tokyo's Shibuya shopping area on February 24. Police then searched Kwan's belongings and found a small amount of marijuana. Kwan later confessed that he brought it from Hong Kong while Vidal claimed she had not been aware of the situation, the report said.

Kwan, 25, a nationalised Canadian and Vidal, 26, a British citizen, arrived in Japan on February 20 for a vacation. The two were both active promoting Hong Kong's anti drug campaigns, according to various reports.

The Japanese police authorities declined to reveal further details of the case.

According to Japanese law, possession and use of marijuana may be punishable by up to five years imprisonment and the penalty for drug smuggling is up to seven years. In 1980, English singer Paul McCartney was found with more than 200g of marijuana in his luggage when he arrived at a Tokyo airport. He was deported after spending ten days in jail and was told he was not welcomed in Japan again.

The Vagrants

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article5562052.ece

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/2008/10/000000_strand_saturday.shtml

 

Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li is a young Chinese author who's debut novel about life in Beijing in the 1970s is causing a big stir. "Reads like reportage from hell" wrote one reviewer. Set in China at the end of the 70s, "The Vagrants" follows a group of people in a small town after the harrowing execution of Gu Shan - a young woman killed for losing faith in Communism.

South Korean actress avoids jail for adultery

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081217/wl_nm/us_korea_adultery

 

South Korean enacted its adultery law more than 50 years ago to protect women who then had few rights in a male-dominated society, but critics say now it is a draconian measure no longer fit for a country with an advanced civil and family court system.

Prosecutors had been seeking 18 months in jail for Ok So-ri who admitted to having an affair with a singer. The suburban Seoul court sentenced her to eight months in prison but she avoided jail because the sentence was suspended for two years.

Vouchers to reach consumers before Chinese New Year

Taiwanese consumers could receive their spending vouchers from the government in time for Chinese New Year. Ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Secretary General Chang Sho-wen said Wednesday that the spending voucher legislation could pass in the legislature as early as next Friday.

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) whip Lai Ching-de said that the DPP will not stand in the way of the statute because the economic stimulus is needed. However, he criticized the government for not simply giving out cash rather than vouchers.

Under the statute, every man, woman and child that is a citizen of Taiwan will receive 3600 Taiwan dollars or almost US$110 in the form of spending vouchers. The vouchers have to be spent within a certain amount of time and are intended to boost the flagging domestic economy.

Straight Jump

http://hk.geocities.com/sportgymnastics/name.htm

lose ground, gain ground

lose ground

[lose ground]

1. To go backward; retreat.

* /The soldiers began to lose ground when their leader was killed./

Compare: GIVE GROUND. 2. To become weaker; get worse; not improve.

* /The sick man began to lose ground when his cough grew worse./

* /When the Democrats are in power, the Republicans lose ground./

Contrast: GAIN GROUND. http://www.sky-net-eye.com/eng/dictionary/english/idioms/american/i_l/4905-lose-ground

make ends meet

http://www.edu-fair.com/engshop/phrase/31.html

make ends meet  
使收支相抵

explanation :  To be able to keep a budget or meet expenses.  This idiom is usually used in talking about a family with a tight budget.  If there are a lot of bills and other expenses it may be hard to make ends meet. 

e.g. When Lucy lost her job, it was hard on the Sanchez family.  They had to struggle for months to make ends meet.

DOH head condemns melamine businessmen

The melamine contamination scandal has spread to non-dairy creamers. Beverage makers King Car Corp. said Sunday that eight of their products tested positive for melamine. Non-dairy creamer imported from China by King Car is believed to be the source. The company has issued a recall and will compensate consumers for the products. The recall will affect 12 million boxes of products from instant coffee to corn chowder.

This is the first time melamine, used to boost the apparent level of protein in food, was found as an adulterant in a non-dairy product in Taiwan. Previously, a shipment of powdered milk from China was found to contain melamine.

Health Minister Lin Fang-yu condemned unscrupulous Chinese businessmen and called upon Chinese authorities to take responsibility for quality control for exports. Legislators also criticized the Department of Health for not responding swiftly enough to the crisis.

 

Hong Kong Democrats survive polls

節錄自BBC News, 8 Sept 2008, Hong Kong Democrats survive polls]

Longhair, as Leung Kwok-hung is known, has been a lone maverick in the sombre halls of the Legislative Council - with his Che Guevara T-shirts, long hair and shouted slogans.

He will now be joined by a fellow member of the League of Social Democrats, Wong Yuk-man, confirming the relatively new party's appeal.

His success, and that of union-affiliated figures, has been attributed to their proven commitment to the majority of Hong Kong people who are not rich, elite or well-connected.

Many commentators have concluded from this that voters care most about fairness - the sense that there should be a level playing field with opportunities for all.

[節錄自Asia Times, 10 Sept 2008, Hong Kong's middle class warms to Beijing]

The rise of the radicals was probably the most ironic result of Sunday's poll. It had been widely believed, even by the leaders of the pro-democracy camp, that pro-Beijing candidates would sweep the board, the Democratic Party would be reduced to a minor role, the Civic Party would assume leadership of the anti-Beijing forces, and the enigmatic "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung and his newly-formed League of Social Democrats would be history.

The new reality: slight numerical improvement for the pro-Beijing sector, slight losses for the Democratic and Civic parties but big gains for the League of Social Democrats (LSD). Previously they had two seats, now they have three, and all three were won with handsome majorities.

Before 2004, former journalist Emily Lau Wai-hing was generally regarded as Hong Kong's most "radical" legislator. She was "guilty" of flaunting her admiration for Taiwan's independence movement, and her participation in hunger strikes had earned her the nickname of "street-sleeper Hing". The previous election brought Leung fully into the political framework and frequently upset decorum in the legislature.

He has now been joined by "Mad Dog" Wong Yuk-man, a long-time Kuomintang supporter, whose outbursts are as raucous as they are vitriolic. His ominous promise on winning was: "There will be good shows!" The third LSD legislator is Chan Wai-yip, previously of the Democratic Party. He also has a long record of the kind of street action that the middle class frowns upon - like sleeping on railway tracks to make his point.