Wednesday Wanderlust – 10 values and attitudes of East Asia

East Asia

East Asia is an exciting and culturally unique corner of the world popular with tourists. Check out these 10 values and attitudes straight from our guides.

Photo credit: www.pixabay.com

China                                                                                                           

  1. In 2009, a brand new festival “Singles Day” was invented as a marketing ploy. The date is 11 November, or 11/11, as the four number ones symbolise four “bare sticks” (single people). Singles Day is equivalent to America’s Black Friday in terms of popularity and sales.
  1. The annual Moon Festival (which is around mid-September) celebrates the legend of the moon goddess Chang-O. This is a family affair to admire the full moon and eat “moon-cakes” which are round cakes with fillings such as lotus-seed paste, fruit or ham.

Continue reading

Hamburg: Sausages, Football and the Beatles

International Tourism Management graduate, Amy Harrington, pens her experiences of living and working in Hamburg, Germany.

I grew up in a small English town with an inadequate selection of leisure activities and a sameness which has plagued most English towns since the 1950s. Every year for a birthday treat my parents would take me into London, where I was confounded by the hustle, bustle and multitude of opportunities that lay before me. Since that first trip, it had always been a dream of mine to move to a city but, not just any – it had to be a foreign city. So when my university offered me the opportunity to live and work in Germany’s second city for 6 months, I jumped at the chance.

Continue reading