Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese known as Modern Standard Mandarin, Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese, or Mandarin, is a standard variety of Chinese, the sole official language of China, the de facto official language of Taiwan and one of the four official languages of Singapore. Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a tonal language with topic-prominent organization and subject–verb–object word order, it has more initial consonants but final consonants and tones than southern varieties. Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There are two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan. Aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters.
Many characters are identical between the two systems. In Chinese, the standard variety is known as: 普通话 in the People's Republic of China, as well as Hong Kong and Macau. Standard Chinese is commonly referred to by generic names for "Chinese", notably 中文. In total, there have been known over 20 various names for the language; the term Guoyu had been used by non-Han rulers of China to refer to their languages, but in 1909 the Qing education ministry applied it to Mandarin, a lingua franca based on northern Chinese varieties, proclaiming it as the new "national language". The name Putonghua has a long, albeit unofficial, history, it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or "common tongue/speech", was conceptually different from the Guoyu, or "national language"; the former was a national prestige variety. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different.
Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called "the common speech of the modern man", the spoken language adopted as a national lingua franca by conventional usage; the use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai and Lu Xun influenced the People's Republic of China government to adopt that term to describe Mandarin in 1956. Prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the official term for Standard Chinese; the term Guoyu however, is less used in the PRC, because declaring a Beijing dialect-based standard to be the national language would be deemed unfair to speakers of other varieties and to the ethnic minorities. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca. During the government of a pro-Taiwan independence coalition, Taiwan officials promoted a different reading of Guoyu as all of the "national languages", meaning Hokkien and Formosan as well as Standard Chinese.
Huayu, or "language of the Chinese nation" simply meant "Chinese language", was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name "Huayu" to refer to Mandarin; this name avoids choosing a side between the alternative names of Putonghua and Guoyu, which came to have political significance after their usages diverged along political lines between the PRC and the ROC. It incorporates the notion that Mandarin is not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. Hanyu, or "language of the Han people", is another umbrella term used for Chinese. However, it has confusingly two different meanings: Standard Chinese; this term, as well as Hànzú, is a modern concept. A related concept is Hànzì; the term "Mandarin" is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire. The Chinese term is obsolete as a name for the standard language, but is used by linguists to refer to the major group of Mandarin dialects spoken natively across most of northern and southwestern China.
In English, "Mandarin" may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name "Modern Standard Mandarin" is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the shared language from other northern and historic dialects; the Chinese have different languages in different provinces, to such an extent
Kowloon City District
Kowloon City District is one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is located in the city of Kowloon, it had a population of 381,352 in 2001, increased to 418,732 in 2016. The district has the third most educated residents while its residents enjoy the highest income in Kowloon. Kowloon City district covers area of 1,000 hectares, is a residential area with the majority of its population living in private sector housing, including old tenement buildings, private residential developments and low-rise villas, while the rest of them live in public rental housing and the Home Ownership Scheme estates, it is the only district that incorporated into the land of Hong Kong in different stages Kowloon City District is a low density residential area. Areas include: Ho Man Tin, Hung Hom, Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon Tong, Ma Tau Wai, To Kwa Wan, Whampoa Garden, the proper Kowloon City. According to reliable historical records such as History book of Song Dynasty, emperor Zhao Shi and emperor Zhao bing took refuge in nowadays Kowloon City District.
Soong Wong Toi was a remarkable monument during that era. Part of the district was the location of the original Kowloon Walled City, see Kowloon Walled City; this is now Walled City Park. The former airport, Kai Tak International Airport was located in the district. In 1982, the Hong Kong Government decided to divide Hong Kong into 18 administrative districts, Kowloon City and its neighbouring areas such as Hung Hom now belongs to Kowloon City District. Kowloon Walled City Sung Wong Toi Park Holy Trinity Cathedral Hong Kong Baptist University Open University of Hong Kong Hong Kong Polytechnic University List of areas of Hong Kong Kowloon City District Council List and map of electoral constituencies
Kowloon Tong station
Kowloon Tong is a station on MTR's Kwun Tong Line and East Rail Line in New Kowloon, Hong Kong. The station serves Kowloon Tong and its vicinity, including Yau Yat Tsuen, the Festival Walk shopping centre, City University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University; this station serves as one of the two interchange stations for the East Rail Line, leading up to the New Territories and entry point to mainland China. Therefore, it is one of the busiest stations in the system. A new concourse for East Rail Line was opened on 15 April 2004 to increase its capacity. On 28 September 2008, turnstiles separating the respective concourse of Kwun Tong Line and East Rail Line were removed due to the merger of the KCR and MTR. There is a reserved space for a track connecting the East Rail Line and the Kwun Tong Line in the westbound tunnel just outside Kowloon Tong station towards Shek Kip Mei; the space was designed to allow Metro-Cammells to be transferred to the Kwun Tong Line when they were unloaded at Hung Hom, but the track was never built as the MTR decided to use lorries to carry all of its train carriages to the Kowloon Bay Depot.
Note that the platforms for both the East Rail Line and the Kwun Tong Line are called platforms 1 and 2. A pedestrian walkway connects the station with a major shopping centre. Kwun Tong Line concourseA1: Suffolk Road A2: Hong Kong Baptist Hospital/Hong Kong Baptist University B: Suffolk Road C1: Hong Kong Productivity Council C2: Festival Walk/City University of Hong Kong E: EDB Education Services Centre East Rail Line southern concourseD: Public Transport Interchange East Rail Line northern concourseF: Kent Road East Rail Line platform 2 G1: To Fuk Road G2: Festival WalkEast Rail Line platform 1 H: Hong Kong Productivity Council Exit H is accessible from the East Rail Line northern concourse, it is possible to walk between Exit A and E in the vicinity of the station without entering the paid area. The same goes for Exit B, C, F and H. Minibus RoutesTo Academic Community Hall/Broadcast Drive/Baptist University: 29ATo Beacon Hill: 29BTo Kowloon City: 25MTo Baptist University: 25MSTo World Wide Gardens: 61MKowloon Tong Railway Station Bus Terminus To Hin King Estate/ Sun Tin Wai Estate: 281MTo Sui Wo Court: 80M
Beacon Hill, Hong Kong
Beacon Hill is a large hill in the northern part of the Kowloon peninsula in Hong Kong. It is 457m tall. Beacon Hill is located within the Lion Rock Country Park; the tower and its relevant equipment on the top of Beacon Hill is not open to the public and is a secured facility controlled and maintained by the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department. The hill's name date back to the Great Clearance between 1661 to 1669, which required the complete evacuation of the coastal areas of Kowloon in Hong Kong in order to fight against and subsequently defeat the anti-Qing movement, first started and led by surviving Ming Dynasty loyalists. Qing military garrisons were created and stationed throughout most of Kowloon's coastal areas to enforce the Qing government's decree in locations which became referred to as beacons. Geography of Hong Kong List of mountains and hills in Hong Kong Beacon Hill School, Hong Kong Beacon Hill Tunnel
Nursing home care
Nursing homes known as old people's homes, care homes, rest homes, convalescent homes, provide residential care for elderly or disabled people that includes around-the-clock nursing care. These terms have different meanings in the same or different English-speaking countries to indicate that the institutions are public or private or provide assisted living or more or less nursing care and emergency medical care. A nursing home is a place for people who don't need to be in a hospital but can't be cared for at home. Most nursing homes have skilled nurses on hand 24 hours a day; some nursing homes provide short-term rehabilitative stays following surgery, illness, or injury. Services may include occupational therapy, or speech-language therapy. Nursing homes offer other services, such as planned activities and daily housekeeping. Nursing homes may be referred to as convalescent care, skilled nursing or a long-term facility. Nursing homes may offer memory care services. Starting in the 17th century, the concept of poorhouses were brought to America by English settlers.
All orphans, mentally ill and the poor elderly were placed into these living commons. In the twenty-first century, nursing homes have become a standard form of care for the most aged and incapacitated persons. Nearly 6 percent of older adults are sheltered in residential facilities that provide a wide range of care, yet such institutions have not always existed. Before the nineteenth century, no age-restricted institutions existed for long-term care. Rather, elderly individuals who needed shelter because of incapacity, impoverishment, or family isolation ended their days in an almshouse. Placed alongside the insane, the inebriated, or the homeless, they were categorized as part of the community's most needy recipients; these poorhouses gave a place where they could be given daily meals. Poorhouses continued to exist into the early 20th century despite the criticism. Much of the criticism stemmed from the conditions of the poorhouses; the Great Depression overwhelmed the poorhouses as there were a lot of people that needed help and care but not enough space and funding in the poorhouses.
Due to Muck Raking in the 1930s the less than favorable living conditions of the poorhouses were exposed to the public. Poorhouses were replaced with a different type of residential living for the elderly; these new residential living homes were called board-and-care homes or known as convalescent homes. These board-and-care homes would provide basic levels of care and meals in a private setting for a specific fee. Board-and-care homes proved to be a success and by World War 2, the new way of nursing homes began to take shape; as the times continued to change, the government identified the issue of people spending extensive amounts of time in hospitals. To combat these long stays in short-term settings, board-and-care homes began to convert into something more public and permanent, state and federally funded. From this, by 1965 nursing homes were a solid fixture. Nursing homes were a permanent residence where the elderly and disabled could receive any necessary medical care and receive daily meals.
Though nursing homes in the beginning were not perfect, they were a huge step above almshouses and poorhouses in regards to following laws and maintaining cleanliness. From the 1950s through the 1970s the dynamics of nursing homes began changing significantly. Medicare and Medicaid began to make up much of the money that would filter through the homes and the 1965 amendment laws enforced nursing homes to comply with safety codes and required registered nurses to be on hand at all times. Additionally, nursing homes may sue children for the costs of caring for their parents in jurisdictions which have filial responsibility laws. In 1987, the Nursing Reform Act was introduced to begin defining the different types of nursing home services and added the Residents' Bill of Rights. Today nursing homes are different across the board; some nursing homes still resemble a hospital. Nursing home residents can pay for their care out of pocket, others may receive medicare for a short time and some may use long-term insurance plans.
Across the spectrum, most nursing homes will accept medicaid as a source of payment. In most jurisdictions, nursing homes are required to provide enough staff to adequately care for residents. In the U. S. for instance, nursing homes must have at least one registered nurse available for at least 8 straight hours a day throughout the week, at least one licensed practical nurse on duty 24 hours a day. Direct care nursing home employees include registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, physical therapists, amongst others. Nursing homes require that a registered nurse monitor residents; the RN's job duties include implementing care plans, administering medications and maintaining accurate reports for each resident and recording medical changes and providing direction to the nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses. The LPN monitors residents’ well-being and administers treatments and medications, such as dressing wounds and dispensing prescribed drugs. A nursing assistant provides basic care to patients while working directly under a LPN or RN.
These basic care activities referred to as activities of daily living, can include assisting with bathing and dressing residents, helping residents with meals, eit
Festival Walk
Festival Walk is a shopping centre in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong developed jointly by Swire Properties and CITIC Pacific between 1993 and 1998. At the time of its opening in November 1998, it was the biggest shopping mall in Hong Kong. There are four floors of offices on top of the mall. Festival Walk is located in Yau Yat Chuen, is directly linked to Kowloon Tong Station, an interchange station of the East Rail Line and the Kwun Tong Line of Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway. Festival Walk has a direct rail connection to Mainland China, it has a pedestrian link to the City University of Hong Kong. Construction of the mall commenced in 1994 and was completed in 1998. Significant challenges were faced in the creation of the 21,000 m² site due to its terraced land form as well as its narrow land shape; the tunnels for the Kwun Tong Line of the MTR run through the full length of the site. During the construction of the building's four basement levels, 460,000 m³ of earth had to be removed. Festival Walk was jointly owned by Swire Properties and CITIC Pacific until 2006, when Swire Properties bought out the 50% stake held by its partner.
In July 2011, Mapletree Investments acquired the property for HK$18.8 billion, making it the world’s largest retail real estate deal in 2011. In 2015 it was announced that the AMC Cinema, a major anchor tenant, would move to Yuen Long due to a rent increase that the director of Broadway Circuit called "very astonishing"; the AMC cineplex had been a tenant of Festival Walk for over 17 years. The cinema was replaced by an eight-screen Festival Grand Cinema in 2016. Festival Walk comprises some one million square feet of retail space, it has 220 shops and restaurants, a multiplex cinema and an ice rink. Located above the mall is an additional 220,000 square feet of office space. Festival Walk's three level car park can accommodate 830 cars. Festival Walk is positioned as a "comfortable" middle-market mall with the emphasis on service rather than price; the spacious stores are mid-range to high-end and include brands such as agnes b flagship store, Calvin Klein Jeans, Hollister, H&M, Juicy Couture and kate spade new york.
Like malls in many western countries, Festival Walk has information booths to assist shoppers. The seven-storey shopping mall occupies three lower-ground levels, a ground level and three levels above ground. A six-level atrium, some 120 m long and 30 m wide atrium cuts longitudinally through the interior of the mall. A glass skylight over the atrium provides natural light to the interior of the building. There is a food court on the mall's topmost floor, with a view of the indoor skating rink. Festival Walk is equipped with a waste management system for all food service outlets within the mall. An organic food digester was installed to accelerate the decomposition of food waste into waste water and food residue, discharged harmlessly into the sewerage system; the developers installed a water-cooled air-conditioning system in 2002 at a cost of HK$13 million. The developer claims; the development was a 50:50 joint venture between CITIC Pacific. The partners secured the plot in a Government land auction in 1993 with a HK$2.9 billion bid, developed it at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion.
In January 2006, in Hong Kong's biggest property deal, Swire Properties paid HK$6.18 billion to buy out its partner's half share. In July 2007, it was announced that Swire Pacific was contemplating listing the property as a real estate investment trust. In July 2011, Mapletree Investments acquired Festival Walk at a property value of HK$18.8 billion, the largest global retail real estate deal in 2011 In 2013, Festival Walk was divested to Mapletree’s fourth real estate investment trust, the Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust, as one of its two seed assets in 2013. In 2018, Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust renamed as Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust upon completion of acquisition of Japan portfolio; the mall is now managed by Mapletree North Asia Property Management Limited. At 9:00 pm on March 30, 2014 hailstones the size of golfballs shattered the ceiling windows of Festival Walk during a heavy thunderstorm, causing rain to pour straight into the interior of the mall; some sections of interior ceiling collapsed and ankle-deep flooding was reported.
Water from the shopping mall overflowed into the attached railway station. Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust Management, the manager of Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust, which owns Festival Walk, said its staff were on site to render assistance. However, mall management were criticized for failing to alert the public through the mall's website and via relevant social media networks. Evacuation of the public was done poorly, as at 10:00 pm the public was still on scene sending live images to social media networks. Official website
Cantonese
Cantonese is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou and its surrounding area in Southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige variety and standard form of Yue Chinese, one of the major subgroups of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and neighbouring areas such as Guangxi, it is the official language of Hong Kong and Macau. Cantonese is widely spoken amongst Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western world. While the term Cantonese refers to the prestige variety, it is used in a broader sense for the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but mutually unintelligible languages and dialects such as Taishanese; when Cantonese and the related Yuehai dialects are classified together, there are about 80 million total speakers. Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of Southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities.
Although Cantonese shares a lot of vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation and lexicon. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. A notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is; this results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar but are pronounced differently. In English, the term "Cantonese" can be ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton, the traditional English name of Guangzhou; this narrow sense may be specified as "Canton language" or "Guangzhou language". However, "Cantonese" may refer to the primary branch of Chinese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, "Cantonese" is used for Cantonese proper. Speakers called this variety "Canton speech" or "Guangzhou speech", although this term is now used outside Guangzhou. In Guangdong and Guangxi, people call it "provincial capital speech" or "plain speech".
Academically called "Canton prefecture speech". In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, the language is referred to as "Guangdong speech" or "Canton Province speech", or as "Chinese". In mainland China, the term "Guangdong speech" is increasingly being used amongst both native and non-native speakers. Given the history of the development of the Yue languages and dialects during the Tang dynasty migrations to the region, in overseas Chinese communities, it is referred to as "Tang speech", given that the Cantonese people refer to themselves as "people of Tang". Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Yue branch of Chinese varieties, it is called "Standard Cantonese"; the official languages of Hong Kong are English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has many different varieties. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and tribunals.
It is used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language alongside Portuguese; as in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in everyday life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in the mainland city of Guangzhou, although there exist some minor differences in accent and vocabulary. Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China. Due to the city's long standing as an important cultural center, Cantonese emerged as the prestige dialect of the Yue varieties of Chinese in the Southern Song dynasty and its usage spread around most of what is now the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. Despite the cession of Macau to Portugal in 1557 and Hong Kong to Britain in 1842, the ethnic Chinese population of the two territories originated from the 19th and 20th century immigration from Guangzhou and surrounding areas, making Cantonese the predominant Chinese language in the territories.
On the mainland, Cantonese continued to serve as the lingua franca of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces after Mandarin was made the official language of the government by the Qing dynasty in the early 1900s. Cantonese remained a dominant and influential language in southeastern China until the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and its promotion of Standard Chinese as the sole official language of the nation throughout the last half of the 20th century, although its influence still remains strong within the region. While the Chinese government vehemently discourages the official use of all forms of Chinese except Standard Chinese, Cantonese enjoys a higher standing than other Chinese langua
