Apia, is the capital of Samoa. In 2001, it had 380,800 people. It is part of the Tuamasaga district. The city is on the northern coast of Upolu Island. It is the nation's major port and only city. Fish and copra are the country's major exports, and cotton goods, motor vehicles, meats, and sugar are the major imports.
Apia () is on a natural dock at the mouth of the Vaisigano River. It is on a narrow coastal plain with Mount Vaea (height 472 m) directly to its south. Two main ridges run south on either side of the Vaisigano River, with roads on each sides. The more western of these is Cross Island Road, the fewer roads crossing to the south coast of Upolu.
Mulinu'u, the old capital, is the location of the Parliament House ("Fale Fono") and the historic observatory, which is now the meteorology office. In 1983, the Apia Samoa Temple was built here by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Funafuti
Funafuti is the capital of the small island nation of Tuvalu. It has a population of 4,492 (2002), making it the most populated atoll in this country. It is a narrow sweep of land between 20 and 400 meters wide. There is an airstrip, hotel (Vaiaku Langi Hotel), and administrative buildings, as well as homes, constructed both in the traditional manner, out of palm fronds, and more recently out of cement blocks. The most prominent building on Funafuti atoll is the Church of Tuvalu. Other sites of interest are the remains of American aircraft that crashed on Funafuti during World War II, when the airstrip was used by the American forces to defend the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati). The United States claimed Funafuti until a treaty of friendship was concluded in the late 70's or early 80's.
The largest island is Fongafale. On this island, there are four villages, of which one is Vaiaku, where the government is. The capital of Tuvalu is sometimes given as Fongafale or Vaiaku, but the entire atoll of Funafuti is actually the capital.
There are at least 33 islands in the atoll. The biggest is Fongafale, followed by Funafala. At least three islands are inhabited, which are Fongafale, Funafala and Motuloa.
The lagoon surrounded by the atoll is TeNamo. It has a vertical length of more than 20 km.
Cantonese language
Cantonese is an East Asian language which comes from Canton, southern China. Often, people use the word 'Cantonese' to refer to the Guangzhou dialect, Hong Kong dialect, Xiguan dialect, Wuzhou dialect and Tanka dialect of Yue. However, linguists prefer to keep the name 'Cantonese' for the Yue dialect of Guangzhou (Canton) and Hong Kong. Using this classification, Cantonese is the prestige dialect of Yue.
Cantonese is spoken by people in Southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as places with many overseas Chinese who came from Cantonese-speaking parts of China, such as Melbourne. It is also the most common language of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and North America. It is said that over 100,000,000 people speak Cantonese. It is a tonal language with 6 kinds of tones. While Cantonese is only the third most spoken dialect of Chinese, only behind Mandarin and Wu, its official status in Hong Kong and Macau make it widely known among other Chinese dialects.
Even though Cantonese is called a dialect of Chinese, Cantonese is so different from Mandarin, the most spoken dialect of Chinese, that they are mutually unintelligible, meaning that speakers of one language cannot understand the other language without learning it beforehand. It is said that Cantonese is more closely related to Classical Chinese than Mandarin.
Cantonese is from the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.
In Hong Kong, the official languages are English and Chinese, according to the Basic Law of Hong Kong. The vagueness of listing Chinese as the official language allows for the wide use of Cantonese, as it is called a dialect of Chinese. In Hong Kong, many people speak Cantonese instead of Mandarin, and some may even get offended if you speak Mandarin. Most schools in Hong Kong teach in Cantonese, rather than the language that they speak in Mainland China
In Macau, the majority speak Cantonese and it is also the official language with the other being Portuguese. But here the people speak lots of other languages as it is popular with tourists because of its casinos.
Skirt
A skirt is a piece of clothing that hangs downwards from the waist.
Different skirts have been worn in many different cultures at different times. There are skirts that are clothing for women, for men, or for both.
In modern Western / European culture skirts are usually worn by women. An exception is the kilt and the fustanella, which are traditional skirts for men that are still worn today.
Skirts are worn at semi-formal occasions, and sometimes at formal events, although a dress is more common.
The bottom part of a dress can also be called a skirt.
Skirts have been worn by people for a very long time in the past.
A skirt made out of straw from 3.900 BC was found in Armenia. In ancient Egypt, men and women have worn skirts.
In the Bronze Age, the people in the South of West and Central Europe used clothes that go around the body like dresses. In Northen Europe, people wore skirts and blouses.
In the Middle Ages, men and women also used clothes like dresses. The bottom part of the dress for men were shorter than the dresses that women wore.
Today, skirts are still used by men and women. Such skirts are the lungi, lehnga, kanga, sarong which is used in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The kilt is used in Scotland and Ireland.
The Chinese were one of the early societies who wore miniskirts, which are short skirts.
In the 1900s, the dresses worn by Western women had more types than other years. The waistline of the dresses moved from under the breasts to the natural waist. Skirts were narrow at first, but they slowly became wider, particularly in the 1860s.
The "rainy daisy" skirt came in the 1980s, where the bottom of the skirt stopped touching the floor. This would give idea to the modern skirts with shorter lengths.
In the 1920s, short skirts had become famous. The longer skirts came back in 1930, before shorter skirts were used in war times because there were limits on fabric.
In the years of 1967 to 1970, skirts became very short, where the bottom of the skirt was up to the bottom of underwear.
Kaohsiung County
Kaohsiung County (Chinese:高雄縣; POJ: Ko-hiông-kōan) is a county in southern Taiwan administered as part of Taiwan Province of the Republic of China. It contains Kaohsiung City.
Red blood cell
Red blood cells (also known as RBCs, red blood corpuscles or erythrocytes) are cells in the blood which transport oxygen. In women, there are about 4.8 million red blood cells per microliter of blood. In men, there are 5.4 million red blood cells per microliter of blood. Red blood cells are red because they have hemoglobin in them.
The most important function of red blood cells is the transport of oxygen (O) to the tissues. The hemoglobin absorbs oxygen in the lungs. Then it travels through blood vessels and brings oxygen to all other cells via the heart. The blood cells go through the lungs (to collect oxygen), through the heart (to give all cells oxygen). They go back to the heart to be re-pumped to the lungs (to again collect oxygen), so the blood in your body travels in a double circuit, going through your heart twice before it completes one full circulation of the body.
Red blood cells are doughnut-shaped, but without the hole. This shape is called a bi-concave disc. However, hereditary diseases such as sickle-cell disease can cause them to change shapes and stop blood flow in capillaries and veins. Plasma is got from whole blood. To prevent clotting, an anticoagulant (such as citrate) is added to the blood immediately after it is taken.