Tunisia, Egypt Rebellions

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Tunisia and Egypt

Mummification

Mummification

Image via Wikipedia Ancient Egypt

The British Museum's site about life in Ancient Egypt

Click on Egyptian Life, read the short passage, and then play the game at the bottom of that page. Then write a comment by clicking on the link at the bottom of this blog entry. Tell me the most important thing you learned from this site.

Ancient Egypt Trade Routes

Write answers in your notebook and draw a map on a blank paper.
1. What is the purpose and use of this map?  What does the map show?

2. Look at the KEY. What information does it give you about Egyptian Trade Routes?

3. What is the purple area on the map?  What routes travel over land?  What routes travel over water?

4. Look at the compass rose (the symbol telling North, South, East and West).  What is the general direction of the trade routes?

5. Why did the trade routes run through the purple area?  Why is there no road connecting Thebes and Giza?

6. Work with a partner.  Draw a simple map showing the route from your homes to school.  Add a scale (the line telling how far between the places) and a compass rose.  Mark the location of your homes and the school with symbols.  Identify the symbols with a map key.   Estimate the distance between your home and that of your classmate, and write this on the side of your map.

New Aquarium at Hong Kong's Ocean Park

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We learn here!:
"Earn money pooping":
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"The Hungry Ghost Festival" by Justin Xian

[to view on National Geographic's ePals site, click here: epals student forum ]
The Hungry Ghost Festival is celebrated during the 7th month of the Chinese calendar. It also falls at the same time as a full moon, the new season, the fall harvest, the peak of monastic ascerticism, the rebirth of ancestors, and the assembly of the local community.[8] According to tradition, during this month, the gates of hell are opened up and the hungry ghosts are free to roam the earth where they seek food and entertainment. These ghosts are believed to be ancestors of those who have forgotten to pay tribute to them after they died. They have long thin necks because they have not been fed by their families. Tradition states that families should offer prayers to their deceased relatives and burn "hell money". It is believed that "hell money" is a valid currency in the underworld and helps ghosts to live comfortably in the afterlife. People also burn other forms of joss paper such as paper houses, cars and televisions to please the ghosts.


Families also pay tribute to other unknown wandering ghosts so that these homeless souls do not intrude on their lives and bring misfortune. A big feast is held for the ghosts on the 15th day of the 7th month, where people bring samples of food and place them on the offering table to please the ghosts and ward off bad luck.

The origin of this festival is a Chinese legend. This legend has it that a long time ago, there lived a young man, Mu Lian and his widowed mother. His mother was a wicked woman. She often turned away beggars who came to her door asking for food. She liked to jeer at the working poor and their dirty clothes; in essence, the only person she cared about was herself.

Mu Lian on the other hand was a kind soul. He was a gentle person and always willing to help anybody who was in need. One day he decided to become a monk and this did not please his mother. She scowled at him for being such a useless son; she wanted him to go out and work to earn more money for her. Wealth and materialistic things meant more to her than anything else.

Peoples Republic of China

Image via Wikipedia

The People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as China, is the most populous state in the world with over 1.3 billion people. Located in East Asia, China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The PRC exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly administered municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, andChongqing), and two highly autonomous special administrative regions (SARs) – Hong Kong and Macau. Its capital city is Beijing.

At about 9.6 million square kilometres (3.7 million square miles), the PRC is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area(depending on the definition of what is included in that total) and the second largest by land area. Its landscape is diverse, withforest steppes and deserts (the Gobi and Taklamakan) in the dry north near Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, and subtropical forests in the wet south close to Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. The terrain in the west is rugged and at high altitude, with the Himalayas and theTian Shan mountain ranges forming China's natural borders with India and Central Asia. In contrast, mainland China's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre (9,000 mi) long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea beyond which lie Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.

The ancient Chinese civilization—one of the world's earliest—flourished in the fertile basin of the Yellow River which flows through theNorth China Plain. For more than 6,000 years, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies (also known asdynasties). The first of these dynasties was the Xia (approx 2000BC) but it was the later Qin Dynasty that first unified China in 221 BC. The last dynasty, the Qing, ended in 1911 with the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) by the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party. The first half of the 20th century saw China plunged into a period of disunity and civil wars that divided the country into two main political camps – the Kuomintang and the communists. Major hostilities ended in 1949, when the communists won the civil war and established the People's Republic of China in mainland China. The KMT-led Republic of China relocated their capital toTaipei on Taiwan; its jurisdiction is now limited to Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu and several outlying islands. Since then, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been involved in political disputes with the Republic of China over issues of sovereignty and the political status of Taiwan.

Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, China has become the world's fastest growing major economy, the world's largest exporter and second largest importer of goods. China is the world's second largest economy by both nominal GDPand purchasing power parity (PPP)  and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is also a member of formal/informal multilateral organizations including the WTO, APEC, BRIC, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and G-20. China is arecognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army with the second-largest defense budget. China has been characterized as a potential superpower by a number of academics, military analysts, and public policy and economics analysts.