旅行拓展视野

Travel broadens the mind 旅行拓宽视野

They say that travel broadens the mind 旅行拓宽视野. Well, if that's true then I guess I must be pretty broad-minded!

Although there was a long period of tim e when I wasn't travelling, recently I've been travelling quite a bit 经常的for m y job. You m ay have heard of the expression “You wait for ages for a bus, and then three com e along at once!” Maybe you've experienced that! It's also an expression that gets adapted to suit all kinds of situations. And, to som e extent, it seem s as if I've been waiting ages for a 'duty trip 公差' (that's what the BBC calls a work trip – although m ore often than not i t's as m uch of a pleasure as it is a duty!) and then three com e along at once!

Not long ago, at the end of March, I was in Hong Kong for a few days. One of our online partners, Kealearning, organises an annual competition for schools in Hong Kong and Macau to produce a short radio play in English. There were over 200 entries. Along with m y colleague, Fei Fei, I was asked to be one of the judges of the final sixteen entries. The them e this year was “Wow! We are one!” 啊，我们是一个整体.I have to say that the standard of the plays – and the English – was very good. Each team of a maximum of five students had five minutes to perform their play live, with sound effects 音响效果. The judges had several categories to score them on – from team work to script, from creativity创造力to best performance. It was quite a dem anding – but thoroughly enjoyable – job. The prize-giving

cerem ony at the end of a long judging session was also quite a performance! 精彩表演It was all worth it though to see the delight of the students and the pride of the parents and teachers. Writing and performing a radio play is also a great way to practice and im prove your English. Maybe you fancy giving it a go? 想不想试一试!

The Hong Kong trip coincided with the Hong Kong Rugby 7s. If you're not a rugby fan – and I have to adm it I'm not – then this m ay be a m ystery to you. It was to m e! Basically, it's a knock-out competition 继往的连锁比赛with 7 players a side. This year England got to the final... but lost to New Zealand (check!). I didn't get a chance to see any of the gam es – tickets were sold out well in advance 早早地–but I did see the celebrations of all the fans afterwards. That was quite am azing. It was kind of surreal超越现实的/奇异的to be in Hong Kong and to hear everyone speaking English in so m any different accents – there were fans from Australia, Wales, South Africa, New Zealand, ... all having a great tim e! If you heard them speaking English, do you think you could tell which was Australian, Welsh, South African or from New Zealand?!

And where am I now? I'm in Cairo! I haven't been to Egypt for a very long tim e and it's good to be back. I'm here because we have a partnership合作伙伴with Egypt Radio and Television Union. BBCe! - E for English, E for Egypt, E for Entertainment! - is an FM radio co-production with an online site and facebook page set up by the fans them selves. This week, it's the fifth anniversary of BBCe! So