Writing Exercise 403 - I SHOULDN’T! I SHOULDN’T! I planned on post a new exercise here yesterday afternoon. It always failed to upload pictures. I thought it may be something wrong with my account or I should update the application on my phone to use the service. Therefor, I was just done the updating and logged in italki to post exercise immediately. It was shocking me that the Exercise section in community and all my posts on here were gone!!! After then I logged in my account on web and checked my profile. Unfortunately, my post stories were still gone. OH, NO!NO!NO! Those posts are very important for me, I put a lot of effort into that. Plus, the corrections from native speakers on my exercises are invaluable. To save my work,I reported italki my problem and told them that I hoped to make a backup of my posts. Fortunately, the customer service executive replied me that I still could review my exercises on my profile with other italki website web but users in China mainland could neither post anythings via the Exercise section nor review previous posts with application on phone. That’s too bad and users friendly design.I shouldn’t update the APP. Now, I can not read my works and review the corrections because I have done it. If I haven’t done it I could review my posts anytime anywhere.

Writing Exercise 402 - I WAS SOLD FOR 260 THOUSAND RMB! In past two days, a news went viral which was about a sixteenth-year-old girl reporting her parents sold her to a man for. The girl added: her parents received a 260 thousand RMB of betrothal gifts from the man’s family and forced her to married the man. Then she escaped from the man’s house and headed to Guangdong province to seek a livelihood. Unfortunately, the man and his family traced her down and caught her man’s house. Luckily, the girl made an excuse for looking for a washroom and asked for help while passing by a service station on an expressway when they were on their way home. Eventually, the girl was saved and her story was made public to the world. Now the government has got involved in the case and we hope to have a good ending.

Writing Exercise 401 - 开工大吉 The Lunar New Year’s holiday is over. Like most of people, I have been back office this morning. For all employees, what the most exciting thing on the first day of work is getting a gerat hongbao from their bosses. It is conventional and traditional in our culture for employers to give their employees lucky money to wish them good luck with all throughout the new year and work hard for themself. Picture 1 is the lucky money I received!:P By the way, our boss also offered us some snacks to celebrate the first day at work. I hope everyone will do great at their work in the New Year of Rabbit.

Writing Exercise 400- TIME TO SAY GOODBYE! How time flies! 2022 is going go be over. Reviewing my life in this year, busy is the keyword of my 2022 due to the pandemic has changed my life schedule. Fortunately, it turns me to a better situation. It has been a long time since I posted my last exercise. Today, I must finish my 400th post. I spent a lot time at work this year, I even hardly had time to check messages on my phone while working. That is why I only wrote 20 exercises in 2022. It was much less than I did in 2021. Although I was out of writing posts, I did a lot of listening. I listened to text book recordings whenever I could. In 2023, I may be as busy as 2022 and I will try to get back to writing here. I hope everyone will have a better life in 2023. Bye, 2022!

Writing Exercise 398 - BLACK LIANGFEN(BLACK JELLY) Black Liangfen is one of special desserts in Guangdong China, which is called 凉粉(Liangfen)in Cantonese and 烧仙草(Shaoxiancao)in Mandarin. It is made from a kind of plant. Last Summer, I bought a package of black Liangfen powder to make the dessert. However, I did not do it until this Golden Week holiday. Here are the steps I cooked it. Ingredients: 70g Liangfen powder(Picture 2) and 1600ml water. Steps: 1.Put the powder into a big bowl(Picture 3). 2.Add 300ml water to the bowl and mix them well(Picture 4). Does it look like a cup of concentrated coffee? 3.Boil the rest of water and stir the boiling water while pouring the mixture into the pot, keep stirring them until they boil again.(Picture 5). 4.Pour the liquid in a bowl to cool down and store in the refrigerator for later (Picture 6). 5.Take the Liangfen from the fridge and cut it into small cubes(Picture 6 and 7). 6.Flavor it whatever you like, such as sugar, honey, syrup or milk. Me, I added yogurt in it.(Picture 1 and 9).

Writing Exercise 396- SWEET MUNG BEAN SOUP To survive from the extreme hot weather, we usually eat something to help our bodies to dissipate heat. For that reason, I made sweet mung bean soup today, which is called 绿豆糖水 in Cantonese and is one of special desserts here. The soup is easy to cook. Here is the recipe for two people. 1. Three handful of mung bean, a piece of dried tangerine peel and five rice bowl of water. 2. Put all the ingredients into a pot and cook it for a hour. 3. Add sugar, brown sugar or honey according how much sweetness you like to the soup. 4. If you like to have the cool soup, you can put the soup in the refrigerator for later. PS: The things in picture 2 are dried tangerine peels(陈皮), which is one of the traditional chinese medicinal materials. It has a special fragrance. Cantonese people like to add it on food while cooking as the same as the westerns do it with cinnamon.