Check out these chinese products online images:
Asian Family Customers Shopping in The Super Market
Image by epSos.de
Free picture of an Asian family shopping in the favorite super market of epSos.de. This grocery store offers a wide range of Sushi and Asian products. It would be easier to buy them online, but the exotic Asian music makes every visit a nice experience. The customers of this supermarket are usually wealthy Chinese families and gourmet women who go regularly for grocery shopping. The face of the mother in this free photo is very representative for this picture. She is overwhelmed by the available choices. The father in this photo has already decided, because he is tired of choosing and the son would possibly buy multiple products to try all of them at once.
This picture was created by my amazing friend epSos.de and can be used for free, if you link epSos.de as the original author of the image.
Traditional shopping is a very stressful activity for happy women who visit many stores with an intention to purchase a product that is very difficult to choose.
In Spain, the favorite supermarkets of epSos.de started to sell fresh food on the Internet already. Customers create a virtual shopping list and place an order with an online supermarket. The order is processed by an employee inside of the nearest supermarket. The food is delivered in the evening for a small fee.
Freedom of choice seems to be convenient at first, but the number of products in the online hypermarkets and supermarkets is too difficult to comprehend for the tired parents. The choice is good for price comparisons and little experiments that help consumers to spend more. It is a little trick of abundance. This is why regular people stick to products that they buy frequently anyway.
This picture was published in here first:
epsos.de/Online-Shopping-Benefits-and-Super-Markets
Thank you for sharing this picture with your friends !
Youth Culture – Punk 1980s-1990s
Image by brizzle born and bred
If you’re a fierce individualist who has a bone to pick with the profit-driven world, you might be a punk. Don’t be a punk just because you think it’s cool. Punk is a mindset and you don’t have to dress or look like anything or conform to a name. You can not be a blue collar and be punk.
Purchasing the hair products, the clothes, and the music; that’s buying into society, which is exactly what punk is against. So know who you are, know the reason for the culture, and understand the meaning behind the word.
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.
The punk subculture emerged in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia in the mid-1970s. Exactly which region originated punk has long been a major controversy within the movement.
Two UK punks in a train carriage in 1986; note the hand-stencilled Crass symbol painted on the coat of on the man on the rightEarly punk had an abundance of antecedents and influences, and Jon Savage has described the subculture as a "bricolage" of almost every previous youth culture that existed in the West since the Second World War "stuck together with safety pins".
Various philosophical, political, and artistic movements influenced the subculture. In particular, punk drew inspiration from several strains of modern art. Various writers, books, and literary movements were important to the formation of the punk aesthetic.
Punk rock has a variety of musical origins both within the rock and roll genre and beyond.
The earliest form of punk rock, named protopunk in retrospect, started as a garage rock revival in the northeastern United States in the late 1960s.
The first ongoing music scene that was assigned the punk label appeared in New York City between 1974 and 1976.
At about the same time or shortly afterward, a punk scene developed in London.
Soon after, Los Angeles became home to the third major punk scene.
These three cities formed the backbone of the burgeoning movement, but there were also other scenes in a number of cities such as Brisbane and Boston.
Around 1977, the subculture began to diversify with the proliferation of factions such as 2 Tone, Oi!, pop punk, New Wave, and No Wave. In the United States during the early 1980s, punk underwent a renaissance in the form of hardcore punk, which sought to do away with the frivolities introduced in the later years of the original movement, while at the same time Britain saw a parallel movement called streetpunk.
Hardcore and streetpunk then spread to other regions just as the original subculture had. In the mid-1980s to the early 1990s in America, various underground scenes either directly evolved from punk or at least applied its attitudes to new styles, in the process producing the alternative rock and indie music scenes.
A new movement in the United States became visible in the early and mid-1990s that sought to revive the punk movement, doing away with some of the trappings of hardcore.
Fashion
Punks seek to outrage others with the highly theatrical use of clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, tattoos, jewelry and body modification.
Early punk fashion adapted everyday objects for aesthetic effect: ripped clothing was held together by safety pins or wrapped with tape; ordinary clothing was customized by embellishing it with marker or adorning it with paint; a black bin liner became a dress, shirt or skirt; safety pins and razor blades were used as jewelry.
Also popular have been leather, rubber, and vinyl clothing that the general public associates with transgressive sexual practices like bondage and S&M.
Punk fashion in the early 1980s
Some punks wear tight "drainpipe" jeans, plaid/tartan trousers, kilts or skirts, T-shirts, leather jackets (which are often decorated with painted band logos, pins and buttons, and metal studs or spikes), and footwear such as Converse sneakers, skate shoes, brothel creepers, or Dr. Martens boots.
Some early punks occasionally wore clothes displaying a Nazi swastika for shock-value, but most contemporary punks are staunchly anti-racist and are more likely to wear a crossed-out swastika symbol.
Some punks cut their hair into Mohawks or other dramatic shapes, style it to stand in spikes, and color it with vibrant, unnatural hues.
Some punks are anti-fashion, arguing that punk should be defined by music or ideology. This is most common in the post-1980s US hardcore punk scene, where members of the subculture often dressed in plain T-shirts and jeans, rather than the more elaborate outfits and spiked, dyed hair of their British counterparts.
Dance
Two dance styles associated with punk are pogo dancing and moshing. Stage diving and crowd surfing were originally associated with protopunk bands such as The Stooges, and have appeared at punk, metal and rock concerts. Ska punk promoted an updated version of skanking.
Hardcore dancing is a later development influenced by all of the above mentioned styles.
Psychobillies prefer to "wreck", a form of slam dancing that involves people punching each other in the chest and arms as they move around the circle pit.
Punk Rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.
By late 1976, bands such as the Ramones, in New York City, and the Sex Pistols and The Clash, in London, were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement. By the turn of the century, pop punk had been adopted by the mainstream, with bands such as Green Day and The Offspring bringing the genre widespread popularity.
Punk Rock Bands
Punk rock was developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States and the United Kingdom. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.
As well as The Clash’s and Sex Pistols, Punk threw up a multitude of bands who often released the one single on their own record label before fading into obscurity. Some never even made it that far.
www.punk77.co.uk/linkpage/punkbands.htm
100 Greatest Punk Rock Artists
www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_punk.html
Punk’s not dead – it just emigrated…
Hang out at a UK punk gig today and you’d be hard pushed to describe what you see as anything other than some good old harmless fun in a genre that long since became another subsidiary of rock ‘n’ roll.
While punk has produced its fair share of careerists, traditionalists and spotty herberts, let’s not forget it has produced a few genuinely provocative bands, from the MC5 and Crass to Fugazi and Refused. But that was then, this is now and it’s easy to forget that punk still means something – and I don’t mean your drunk Uncle Terry or that bloke who still hangs around the town centre in his Angelic Upstarts T-shirts. Instead, the spirit of punk as an anti-establishment force lives on today. You’re just not likely to find it in the UK or the US.
Instead, punk is kept alive in places like Cuba where simply criticising the communist regime can get your ass thrown in jail. As has been reported, that’s what has happened to Gorki Águila Carrasco, leader singer of Porno para Ricardo, currently facing four years in prison for "peligrosidad" – literally meaning the dangerousness of his music – specifically for dismissing the ruling Castro brothers as "geriatrics". It’s hardly GG Allin is it? Maybe it was their vaguely wacky song ‘El Comandante’ that upset, um, El Comandante.
Elsewhere the appetite for punk rock grows unabated. Readers of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis or its film adaptation will know the type of trouble faced when caught with contraband punk music under the theocratic tyranny of Islamist fundamentalists in post-revolution Iran. And indeed, how that hunger for anti-social sounds merely grows when challenged. The Sex Pistols might be a joke today, but for millions of oppressed youth they still represent a signpost to freedom.
The perceived controversial nature of punk bands merely highlights the conservative world we’re living in, where fundamentalist religious regimes or paranoid governments still perceive punk bands as threatening. Just ask Canadian punk band The Suicide Pilots, who have a government file on them for their name alone. Or ask leading Chinese punk band Hang On The Box, who have previously been denied visas to travel abroad after their government deemed their music an "inappropriate" export. Punk scenes exist in China, but bands have to tread carefully and make sure not to criticise their government. "We are good citizens who obey the law and love our country," said Li Qing of Chinese punk band Snapline, when asked about governmental intervention when interviewed in 2007. And do you know how hard it is locating a Gang Of Four record in North Korea?
Even UK punks aren’t immune – when Mike Devine, guitarist with a Clash tribute band, texted his friend some lyrics from The Clash’s ‘Tommy Gun’ the father of two was paid a visit by the Avon & Somerset Special Branch.
"Selling out"
Ultimately, though, Western punk has got soft and largely apolitical thanks to us living in one of the freest countries in the world. Punk in America and Britain is John Lydon selling computer games and Green Day filling stadiums.
Iggy Pop’s endorsement of car insurance has prompted accusations of selling out. But does anyone really care any more?
As the flailing, wild-eyed frontman of US garage-rock band The Stooges, Iggy Pop helped pioneer punk long before the Sex Pistols.
His solo career is approaching its fifth decade. Live, he’s earned a reputation as one of rock’s most exciting performers, with a frame that’s not so much athletic as freakish.
So why is one of rock’s most iconic rebels now selling car insurance on TV? Will we ever be able to listen to his music in the same way again? Or are we now inured to the fact that at some point our cultural heroes are going to turn round and exhort us to buy, buy, buy?
"Iggy Pop will return to continue Swiftcover.com’s campaign to help UK motorists get cheap online insurance and make it clear that now even musicians can ‘Get A Life’!’" she said.
However, Pop recently called his involvement with Swiftcover "embarrassing".
John Lydon Country Life (pictured)
Denis Leary Holsten Pils
Lou Reed Honda scooters
Black-Eyed Peas Pepsi
Mitchell & Webb Apple Mac
But is this just a generational thing? Would fans of Pete Doherty take such exception seeing him selling cough medicine or train tickets? If Amy Winehouse was unveiled as the new face of a coffee brand, would the sales of her next album plummet?
But if you think punk – the spirit of punk – is dead, go to South America, go to Russia, go to Eastern Europe and see what the young punk fans there have to say about it.
Were you a Punk? Do you have any stories from that era?
See My Other Youth Culture Links Below
www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/4082458089/
www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5130733677/
www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5130851019/
www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5131064113/
Punks on Video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0IZdP3x66Y
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQkActP-isE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFIp3hgbnWM
Tai Shan, National Zoo’s Panda Cub at 1 year old
Image by dbking
Tai Shan to leave Washington, headed back to China, Dec 2009
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/03/…
—————————————–
July 2006 Scavenger Hunt
"most exotic animal for your location"
Happy FIRST Birthday Tai Shan, Born July 9, 2005
Tai Shan Holds Zoo’s Hopes, Public’s Heart
Staff Birthday Wish: Longer Stay for Cub, 1
By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 9, 2006
Tai Shan and his mother were playfully wrestling this summer when she accidentally knocked him off the top of an indoor rock. The National Zoo’s prized panda cub tumbled about five feet and let out a loud squeal when he hit the floor.
The cub was more scared than hurt. But about as fast as mom Mei Xiang could rush to his side, the animal park was bombarded with calls and e-mails from worried panda fans who had witnessed the mishap on the zoo’s webcam.
No doubt about it: Tai Shan is one of the most watched celebrities in Washington. He draws crowds and special guests, including first lady Laura Bush and the Queen of Bhutan. He has a large following that monitors his antics on the zoo’s Web site, generating 21 million hits. Zoo staff and volunteers spend hours each day charting his development and behavior. This month, he and his mother share the cover of National Geographic magazine.
Today, as he turns 1 year old, zoo officials will lead the public in toasting Tai Shan with a four-hour birthday celebration. He’ll get a fruitsicle instead of a cake.
The milestone also marks a halfway point: An agreement with China calls for sending the cub there when he turns 2 for future breeding. There is hope within zoo circles of keeping Tai Shan in Washington a bit longer, because his services as a breeding partner probably won’t be needed until he is 5 or 6.
Letters and e-mails arrive at the zoo daily from around the world, describing how the panda has brightened lives. The back room of the Panda House showcases an impressive inventory of gifts and mail for the cub and keepers — everything from cards and photos to wedding invitations and elaborately knitted mufflers with the cub’s name.
After decades of breeding disappointments, during which the zoo’s previous panda pair failed to produce a surviving cub, animal lovers have marveled to see Tai Shan grow from a helpless, hairless creature no bigger than a stick of butter into a 56-pound furry symbol of scientific perseverance.
"It’s been wonderful," said Lisa Stevens, the zoo’s panda curator. "You try for something for so long, and then it finally happens. It’s a terrific reward for the team that has worked on this all these years."
The team, in this case, is a dedicated group of zoo scientists, keepers and volunteers. They collected and analyzed panda data from Mei Xiang and her mate, Tian Tian, and their predecessors, Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing. They studied the intimate details of bear biology and worked to maximize the notoriously narrow window of opportunity — about three days a year — for breeding this endangered species.
These efforts paid off March 11, 2005, although it would be four months before the zoo would know it. That winter morning, with the pandas failing to mate naturally and hormone tests of Mei Xiang’s urine indicating peak fertility, she was anesthetized. Reproductive scientist JoGayle Howard used a tiny laparoscope with a light to perform artificial insemination.
That single, scientifically timed procedure was in contrast to practices in China, native habitat to about 1,600 giant pandas in the wild and fewer than 180 in captivity. The Chinese do artificial insemination on three consecutive days, which requires anesthetizing both the female and the male each time, putting the animals at greater risk.
What the National Zoo accomplished in one try was hailed as a breakthrough.
"Now that we’ve got a cub on the ground, the Chinese realize that we know what we’re talking about," Howard said.
Over the past year, zoo scientists have visited China to share breeding information and demonstrate their work, and three Chinese veterinarians have come to the zoo to study the procedure and other innovations in panda management, including improved nutrition. The zoo’s scientists are continuing their research into panda procreation and hope to find a way to know for sure when a giant panda is pregnant. With Mei Xiang, it was a guessing game until she gave birth.
The zoo plans to breed Mei Xiang again in the spring and will resort to artificial means if necessary, perhaps experimenting with thawing frozen sperm from Tian Tian or a male panda at the San Diego Zoo, a technique that would make it easier to breed genetically diverse offspring without moving the animals to different zoos.
"We still have hopes that our male will get the job done, but it’s nice to have options," Howard said.
Tian Tian, who has been separated from Mei Xiang since the cub’s birth, has been amazingly self-sufficient, keepers say. He will rejoin his mate during the breeding season, probably in March, but will not be allowed near Tai Shan as a precaution.
Mei Xiang has been "a fabulous mother" to Tai Shan, according to Howard and the zoo’s chief veterinarian, Suzan Murray. They said they know of plenty of frightened, first-time panda moms that have walked away when cubs were born.
"She did it perfectly," Howard said. "The panda cam showed that she was pure hands-on 24/7, and she continued to be attentive" as he grew.
The healthy cub, who will be completely weaned by spring, has developed somewhat more quickly than the three cubs born in San Diego, picking up weight faster and scent-marking earlier.
He bounds into his yard about 7 a.m. these days, a treat for early visitors. He plays a bit, sometimes with his mom, then climbs a favorite tree for a mid-morning nap. He comes down periodically and usually goes inside at night when called.
Except when he doesn’t.
Several months ago, Tai Shan, whose name means "peaceful mountain," stubbornly remained in a tree and barked at zoo director John Berry, who tried to coax him down for a special evening appearance before the Smithsonian Institution regents. And last month, the cub braved a rainstorm, refusing to come inside until 11 p.m.
Curator Stevens, who has been chewed out by panda fans for jokingly calling him a "little monster" in her Web site reports, said it has been a joy to watch the cub’s "amazing metamorphosis."
The Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat has drawn an estimated 1.2 million visits since Tai Shan’s December debut, with adoring crowds who snapped up free online tickets.
But if giant pandas are crowd pleasers, they do not ensure zoo profits. The average annual cost for a couple with a cub is about .2 million, according to a study done by Zoo Atlanta, one of four animal parks in the United States with pandas. The amount includes a million-a-year fee to exhibit a male and female panda and a one-time charge of 0,000 if a cub is born, funds that go toward panda conservation in China. Zoos, which are hoping to negotiate cheaper loan agreements with China, incur additional costs in panda care, exhibit upkeep and staff research and training.
The National Zoo does not charge admission. But Tai Shan’s popularity has helped boost revenue from parking, refreshments and souvenirs.
Overall merchandising sales at the zoo have gone up dramatically, from .7 million in the first half of 2005, before the cub was born, to .3 million in the first half of this year, according to the zoo. Tai Shan "products" — including pictures, postcards and plushes — account for about 23 percent of that total.
David Wildt, who heads the zoo’s Department of Reproductive Sciences, heralds the scientific advances that brought Tai Shan into the world. He recently returned from China, reporting that zoo funds earmarked for panda conservation are being well spent.
The monies have helped pay for training and equipment in new biomedical and animal reproductive technologies at panda reserves. The funds also have supported research and built shelters for the Chinese teams that spend days in snow-covered mountains monitoring pandas in the wild. Panda births in China, particularly of male cubs, have recently increased, boosting the zoo’s hopes that it can keep Tai Shan beyond his second birthday.
The zoo’s new giant panda exhibit opens in September. It will double the outdoor space for a panda family, with plenty of room for Tai Shan — and, hopefully, a sibling.
"We want to have him remain with us for awhile, until he is needed," Wildt said. "He’s the living offspring of our work and an incredible ambassador for saving pandas in China."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
————————————————————————————————————–
Tai Shan’s Fans Flock to the Zoo For a Panda-Size Birthday Bash
By Sue Anne Pressley Montes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 10, 2006
The birthday boy did not seem too impressed by all the attention, but by now, Tai Shan is used to the cameras, the faces, the "oohs" and "ahs." At his first birthday party yesterday, the celebrity panda cub was more interested in his presents — a play pool filled with ice water and a fruitsicle shaped like a giant cake — than in the thousands of people who came to tell him how cute he is and how much he has meant to the National Zoo.
"He’s a rock star," said Chevy Chase lawyer Roger Goldman after the cub’s big photo op, wrestling his mother for part of the popsicle. "He’s like Mick Jagger or somebody."
It was a day of cute — but who thought it wouldn’t be? Brownie Troop 3907 from Gaithersburg sang "Happy Birthday" twice. A FedEx van pulled up with "a special delivery" — a birthday cake for the people guests. Heads young and old sported pointy green Tai Shan party hats, and many a hand clutched a stuffed version of you-know-who, available for .99 (small) or .99 (large) in one of the souvenir huts.
As early as 7 a.m., fans began amassing outside the zoo for the 10 a.m. opening of the Panda House. Juli Brown, 31, traveled farther than most, flying in from her home in Greeneville, Tenn., on Saturday "just to see the baby" she’s been watching from afar on the zoo’s webcam, which has had 21 million hits since his birth. She has seen him scramble up trees, munch on bamboo, play in snow for the first time and grow — and grow.
From the moment he was born, Tai Shan has commanded the spotlight. Giant pandas, which are endangered, are difficult to breed, and the Zoo’s three decades of struggling to produce a healthy cub had resulted in many disappointments. A previous pair of adult pandas had produced five cubs during the 1980s, but none lived more than few days. When Tai Shan was born on July 9, 2005, weighing four ounces, he was initially dubbed "Butterstick," since he was only the size of a stick of butter. Things have changed.
"Now, he’s Butterball," said Mary Schultz of Dallastown, Pa., about the roly-poly cub who now weighs a robust 56 pounds.
Undoubtedly there are a few people out there who may be a little tired of the ongoing chronicles of Tai Shan, who believe the cub’s adorability factor has been milked. But the Schultzes and others who attended yesterday’s event are not those people. Danny Schultz was so inspired by repeated visits and much reading about pandas that he signed up a while back as a zoo volunteer. Now, he drives the four-hour round-trip each Thursday to enlighten others about Tai Shan’s activities, likes and dislikes.
"I can’t believe he’s a year old," Schultz said, echoing the thoughts of many at the party. "It’s gone by so fast."
For his birthday appearance, Tai Shan performed like the little star he is, emerging with his mother, Mei Xiang, and ignoring all the staring people. With Mom, he meandered down the path toward his new play pool, ball and his first fruitsicle — a frozen treat made of bamboo leaves, carrots, pears, beets and apples.
"Come on, Tai," zoo director John Berry cooed softly from the viewing area, as the cub moved toward the small, bright-blue pool. "He has delivered every step of the way since he was born."
And he delivered again yesterday, delighting his fans by dipping a paw into the pool, then turning toward the fruitsicle, as if noticing it for the first time. For a moment, he seemed torn, looking back and forth from the pool to the treat, as if deliberating what to do next. But the popsicle eventually won, and Tai Shan embraced it in a big panda hug that sent camera crews scurrying to catch the perfect party shot.
There was one small cloud in an otherwise happy day. Tai Shan, like his parents, is on loan to the Zoo from China, and, as it stands, plans are to send him there shortly after he turns 2. Yesterday nobody wanted to think about that — or how fast a year can go by.
"I like that panda," said Joshua Perez, 9, of Woodbridge, who is "really into animals" and has visited Tai Shan several times. "I want to be either an actor or a zookeeper."
He and his mother, Joanna, have talked about the cub’s eventual departure. "I guess it’s fair," she said, "but it’s sad to think about. We don’t want him to go."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company