Out of 73 major cities worldwide, Tokyo and two Swiss cities have the most expensive food prices, with India bringing up the rear, according to the "2009 Prices and Earnings" report published by banking giant UBS on August 19.
The food prices are based on a basket of 39 food items weighted mainly toward Western European tasted, the report notes, perhaps because UBS is a Swiss-based company. New York City was used as the standardised mean in the survey, with each city indexed against the "Big Apple" for comparision. The average worldwide cost of the standardised shopping cart was US$571 in New York City. Tokyo had the most expensive food bill, at more than 84 per cent above the mean, closely followed by two Swiss Cities, Zurich and Geneva. The cheapest food can be found in India, a country with more than 600 million people in poverty, according to the UN.
Mumbai and Delhi offered the cheapest foodstuffs at US$153 and US$178 respectively.
Caracas, Venzuela, has shot up 37 places since the last ranking in 2006 to offer the fourth-most expensive food prices, probably dueto an inflation rate of 30 percent during the interim.
Kiev, Ukraine, at US$211 for the shopping cart, is perhaps a surprising entry as the third-lowest total.
10 Most Expensive City
Food Price ($) Index: NYC=100
1 Tokyo 712 124.7 2 Zurich 658 115.4 3 Geneva 633 111.0 4 Caracas 604 105.9 5 New York 571 100 6 Chicago 552 96.7 7 Hong Kong 551 96.5 8 Oslo 532 93.3 9 Los Angeles 526 92.2 10 Copenhagen 515 90.2
Notable Cities Paris 511 89.5 Singapore 510 89.4 Toronto 414 72.6 Bangkok 362 63.5 London 357 62.6 Beijing 348 60.9 Moscow 292 51.2 Buenos Aires 256 44.8 Nairobi 247 43.2 Cairo 228 40.0
Nowadays, in our daily life, we are using english language to communicate with each others...Besides this, we also using english language for presentation, interview, treating somethings in other countries and so on.
The communication invloves three components, that is verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal components. These components are used to send clear, concise message. In addition, these three components also used to recieve and correctly understand message sent to us.
Verbal~ the words we choose Nonverbal~ our body language Paraverbal~ how we say the words
Communication skills consist of 2 messages that is sending and receiving messages.
SENDING MESSAGE
Verbal message
One use of language has tremendous power in the type of atmosphere that's created at the problem-sloving table. Words that are judgmental, critical, accusatory and blaming tend to create a resistence and defensive mindset that is not conductive to productive probelm solving. Besides this, we can choose those words that normalize the issues and problem as well as reduce resistence. Lengthy dissertation and circutous explanations and confusing to the listener and the message loses its concreteness, relevance and impact. All of this are our opportunity to help the listener understand what are we perspective and our point of view. We have to choose the words with the intent of making our message as clear as possible, avoiding jargon and unnecessary, tangential information. Effective verbal messages are brief, succienct and organized. In addition, do not create resistence in the lestener and free of jargon also are the effective verbal messages.
Nonverbal message The power of nonverbal message communication cannot be undererstimated by everyone. In Professor Albert Mehrabian, this nonverbal message known as silent message. This nonverbal message we send via our posture, gestures and facial expression. Nonverbal messages are conveyed via posture, gestures and facial expression. Through this nonverbal messages, 55% of what is percieved and understood by everyone.
Nonverbal messages are the primary ways that we communication emotions~
Facial expression when we are communicating with friends or someone else, the face is perhaps the most conveyor of emotional information. A face can light up with energy, approval, boredom, enthusiasm, confusion and scowl with displeasure. The eyes are particularly expressive in joy, anger, sadness or confusion.
Posture and gestures expression our body postures can create a feeling of warm openness or cold rejection. For example, when someone else faces us, sitting quietly with hands loosely folded in the lap, a feeling of articipation and interest is created. A posture of arms crossed on the chest portrays a feeling of inflexibility. The action of gathering up one's materials and reaching for a purse signals a desire to end the conversation.
Paraverbal message This refers to the messages that we transmit through the pitch, tone and packing of our voices. It is how we say somethings, not what we say. A sentence can convey entirely different meanings depending on the emphasis on words and the tone of voice. Few points we have to remember about our paraverbal communication that's when we are happy or angry, our speech tends to become more repid and higher pitched. On the other hands, when we're bored or feeling down, our speed tends to become slowly and take on a monotone quality. Besides this, when we are feeling defensive, our speech is often abrupt.
RECEIVING MESSAGE
The key to receiving messages effectively is listening. Beside this, giving full physical attention to the speaker, being aware of the speaker nonverbal messages and paying attention to the words and feeling.
Listening is a combination of hearing what another person says and psychological involment with the person who is talking. Listening requires more than hearing words. It requires a desire to understand another human being, an attitude of respect and acceptence and a willingness to open one's mind to try and see things from another's point of view.
Giving full physical attention to the speaker Attending is the art and skill of giving full, physical attention to another person. According Robert Bolton(Ph.D)'s book, it refers to as "listening with the whole body". Effective attending is a careful balance of alertness and relaxation that includes appropiate body movement, eye contact and posture.
WE create a POSTURE of involvement by~
*learning gently towards the speaker *facing the other person squarely *maintaining an open posture with arms and legs uncrossed *maintaining an appropriate distance between us and the speaker *moving our bodies in responce to the speaker
Being aware of the speaker is nonverbal messsages we have to pay fully attention to a speaker's body language so that we could gain inside into how that person is feeling as well as the intensity of the feeling. Through careful attention to body language and paraverbal messages, we are able to develop hunches about what the speaker is communicating. After that, we can through our reflective listening skills, check the accurarcy of those hunches by expressing in our impression of what is being communicated.
Paying attention to the words and feelings In order to understand the total meaning of a message that the speaker speaks, we must able to gain understanding about both the feeling and the content of the message. We are more comfortable dealing with the content rather than the feelings, when the feelings are intense. Our tendency is to try and ignore the emotional aspect of the message and move directly to the substance of the issues. It may be necessary to deal directly with the relatonship problem by openly acknowledging and naming the feelings and discussing about them prior to moving into the issues. If we leave the emotional aspect unaddressed, we may risk missing important information about the problem as well as derailing the communication process.
Whole world, we don't care what type of people, we have to communicate with them...So, now we have to improve our communication skills to "fight" for our future...^^
posted by~ BYRON CHONG YEU LIANG
Smile always | 7:23 PM
Saturday, August 8, 2009
COSPLAY
The term cosplay, pronounced as 'kosupure' in Japanese is an abbreviation of costume roleplay. Cosplay is one of Japanese well-known subculture which is a type of art performance at which the participants dressed themselves with unique and interesting costumes and matching accessories as a specific character or idea which is usually sourced in various Japan, South Korea, China, and Philippines media included manga, anime,tokusatsu, comics, graphic novels, video games, hentai and fantasy movies.
Cosplay participants (cosplayers) form a subculture centered around wearing their costumes and reenacting scenes or inventing likely behavior inspired by their chosen sources. Other than that, the term cosplay in some circles has been broadened to include simply wearing a a costume, without special consideration given to enacting characters in a performance context.
Cosplay can be seen at public events and shows as well as at dedicated cosplay parties. Tokyo's Akihabara district contains a large number of cosplay cafes, catering to devoted anime and cosplay fans. The waitress at such places usually dress as a maid (meido). Probably the largest cosplay event in Japan is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comiket. This event held in summer and winter, attracting thousands of manga otaku cosplayers.
Smile always | 8:20 AM
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Income and expenditure of staff of local authorities in Johor.
Objective
•The main purpose of this survey is to study the income level and expenditure pattern of the support staff in the public sector.
•To determine if the main income of the staff in the local authorities is sufficient for them to meet the needs of their households
This table shows that the percentage distribution of money household income, gender and staff grade.
Male staff grade that between 1-16,less than RM1500, is the most which is 33% whereas the female staff is only 8%. We can see the female staff whose grade between 17 to 40 mostly earn above RM4000 which is 33%.On the otherhand, only 27% male staff earn above RM4000.Among the staff grade above 41, 61% of male staff and 65% of female staff earn more than RM4000.
Based on the graph is shows that staff grade 1-16 is most less own motorcars and other household items compared with other staff grade. Even though they is a higher own a motorcycle.The graph is also shows that the average staff grade can own a household items are a refrigerator and tv.Staff grade 41 and above is most higher own motorcars and other household items. Almost all of them have a car, washing machine and hand phone. The higher staff grade 17-40 have own their household is tv.
This table shows that the most all staff grade expenditure on food. The less they spending on a reading materials.This table also shows that the staff grade 1-16 is most less expenditure on variousitems compare with other staff grade.
Factors (Mean monthly expenditure on varies items by staff)
•Price of bus tickets and taxi fares increase so transportation and food expenditure increase.
•Although the staffs’ income went up, their monthly income is not enough to cover the amount they spent on daily needs because inflation is too serious.
Prediction
~Life is more difficult for them especially for those general workers because they have low income.
~Their daily expenditure will continue increasing because of the raise of the price of the bus tickets and taxi fares.Electricity tariff may increase in the future too.
Conclusion
Malaysia government must put in more efforts to improve economy and the welfare of staff workers in public sector. One of the avenue is to cooperate with ASEAN contries to increase the value of Ringgit Malaysia.
Out of 73 major cities worldwide, Tokyo and two Swiss cities have the most expensive food prices, with India bringing up the rear, according to the "2009 Prices and Earnings" report published by banking giant UBS on August 19. 
uela, has shot up 37 places since the last ranking in 2006 to offer the fourth-most expensive food prices, probably dueto an inflation rate of 30 percent during the interim.
