TV dramas need creative touchA Korean wave is sweeping across China, with many Chinese women worshipping South Korean actors Kim Soo-hyun and Lee Min-ho as demigods. Chinese netizens have always been divided over South Korean TV dramas, but there is no doubt that programs from the neighboring country are now enjoying a new round of popularity in China. And a big part of the credit for that goes to You Who Came From The Star, the South Korean TV series which is on the air now.Top South Korean actors Jun Ji-hyun and Kim Soo-hyun recently earned a popularity rating of 24.8 percent in their country, considered strong by Nielsen Korea. You Who Came From The Star and The Heirs have been subjects of hot online discussions throughout Asia. Besides, the book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, read by the hero in You Who Came From The Star was a hard-to-get item on Amazon for a while.The two TV programs have several common elements: a tall, handsome, and rich hero who loves the heroine blindly and always protects her, and an equally handsome man madly in love with the same woman. Both programs portray the purity of love, which is expressed through a kiss or a warm hug. Perhaps that's the secret of their success; perhaps people are still fascinated by Cinderella-type stories.The widening wealth gap is a matter of social concern both in South Korea and China, and the challenges that young people face in their quest for a better life might have prompted many ordinary girls to dream of marrying rich, caring men. This is precisely what the popular South Korean TV dramas portray. In fact, South Korean TV dramas are tailored to meet the market's demands.In contrast, Chinese TV screens are flooded by knock-off and/or poorly made soap operas. Most of the Chinese TV dramas either distort the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, which is a distortion of history, or blindly copy foreign programs. The lack of good stories has of late resulted in loads of TV series on time travel or fights in the harems of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) emperors. These, in short, are the bane of Chinese TV productions.In contrast, South Korean TV dramas have re-invented themselves. In fact, 2013 could be said to be the year of rebirth of South Korean TV dramas. Shortly after the enormous craze generated by Great Jang-Geum in 2003,South Korean dramas lost much of their popularity in other Asian countries thanks partly to better produced works from the United States and the United Kingdom.Many netizens even said at the time that South Korean TV dramas had become pass because of their stereotyped themes: traffic accidents, and cancer and other incurable diseases. But all that has changed with the success of You Who Came From The Star and The Heirs, which Chinese directors can use as examples, as well as inspiration, to improve their productions.The resurgence of South Korean TV dramas can be attributed to the joint efforts of the country's government and TV series makers. The South Korean government implemented a policy to help TV productions back in the late 1990s, when the first wave of popular dramas emerged from the country to capture the imagination of the people in the rest of Asia. Just before the turn of the millennium, the South Korean government issued regulations saying at least 80 percent of the TV programs had to be domestically produced. It also fixed the minimum number of homemade TV series to be broadcast in the country. That not only helped South Korean TV productions gain a firm foothold in the domestic market, but also laid the foundation for their successful foray into overseas markets.Recent years have seen great innovations in South Korean TV productions in terms of themes and narrative patterns. Take You Who Came From The Star as an example. Although aliens visiting Earth is an oft-used theme, You Who Came From The Star's script remains logical and fast-paced. It mixes the plot with romance and murder and keeps the audience guessing about how the story will unfold. When it comes to love stories, the new South Korean teleplays no longer use the distress card; instead, they intersperse them with whimsy and romantic punch lines.The three TV stations, SBS, KBS and MBC, control the majority of South Korean TV market, each specializing in a different area and catering to people of different ages. The productions are sleek and use advanced technologies such as high-speed photography and computer-generated effects, creating a real-life visual impact.Moreover, the shooting for South Korean productions generally starts when the scripts are just one-third ready. Many popular productions have their own websites, where scriptwriters post part of the finished scripts, inviting viewers to leave messages, discuss the plot and come up with suggestions for future episodes. This not only keeps viewers' interest in the TV dramas alive, but also helps scriptwriters and directors make changes to the storylines to suit the audience's demand.Hopefully, the innovation-induced success of South Korean TV programs will prompt Chinese TV drama makers to think up new ideas and abandon their bad practice of copying foreign productions in order to attract more viewers at home, and possibly abroad.•worship['wə:ʃip] n. 崇拜；礼拜；尊敬vt. 崇拜；尊敬；爱慕vi. 拜神；做礼拜•demigod['demiɡɔd] n. 受崇拜的人，英雄人物；半神半人；小神•fascinate['fæsineit vt. 使着迷，使神魂颠倒vi. 入迷•distort[dis'tɔ:t t. 扭曲；使失真；曲解vi. 扭曲；变形•harem['hɑ:ri:m n. 为一个雄性动物所控制的许多雌性动物；闺房里的妻妾群；闺房（伊斯兰教教徒的）Apple's iPhone loses the New York Times' selfie smackdown自拍神器大赛，苹果iPhone垫底"Selfies are great," says the New York Times' Molly Wood (rhymes withHollywood), "but the front-facing cameras on cellphones are terrible.""Selfies taken on most major smartphones," she writes in Thursday's issue, "are almost uniformly of poor quality. They're unfocused, pixelated, dark,blown-out, backlit, grainy and worst of all, distorted (I swear, I have a normal size nose!)."Some may be more terrible than others, however. So Wood, deputy tech editor for the Times' business section, set out for Times Square to shoot somepictures of herself with what she describes as "arguably, the four best camera phones in the U.S. market.""The big surprise," she says in a video posted on the Times' website, "is that I have to say I'm not very impressed with the iPhone's front-facing camera."She's surprised because the 5S has, in her words, "one of the best smartphone cameras available, and is easily capable of replacing a snapshot cameraentirely."But the iPhone's selfies were a disappointment: "Its focus was inconsistent, colors tended to appear washed out, and its lens produced the most distortion of the bunch (once again: My nose does not look like that in real life)."As for the rest ...• "The HTC One produced the best selfies. They were consistently in focus and had rich, true colors, and the camera performed better in low light than the competition."• "Th e Nokia Lumia 1020 was a close second, despite its lower resolution, but indoor shots were worse than outdoor shots."• "The Samsung Galaxy S4 suffers from focus issues, so its selfies wereinconsistent, and any bright lights in the background resulted in badlyblown-out images."But none of the phones were good enough for Wood. She blames the pressure on manufacturerers to make every new generation of smartphones thinner than the old -- a design priority she lays at Apple's feet.But there may be a larger issue issue for Apple.Selfies, like Facebook and Twitter, are a major social media phenomenon. The word "selfie," Wood points out, was the Oxford Dictionaries' neologism of the year. And "#me" is the third-most-common tag on Instagram.With 184 million selfies on Instagram, how could Apple miss it?•grainy['ɡreini] adj. 粒状的；多粒的；有纹理的•distorted[dis'tɔ:tid] adj. 歪曲的；受到曲解的v. 扭曲（distortasd的过去式和过去分词）•snapshot['snæpʃɔt] n. 快照，快相；急射，速射；简单印象vt. 给…拍快照vi. 拍快照•resolution[,rezə'lu:ʃən, -,lju:-] n. [物] 分辨率；决议；解决；决心•neologism[ni:'ɔlədʒizəm, ni-] n. 新词；新义；Dim lighting helps people make better decisions,scientists claimDim lighting is usually associated with relaxation, and winding down after work.But scientists now claim that by harnessing the subduing effect on emotions caused by dim lights.Therefore, by dimming the lights, people become more rational, negotiatebetter and are therefore able to make better decisions.Alison Jing Xu, assistant professor of management at University of Toronto Scarborough and Aparna Labroo of Northwestern University, made thefindings by examining the link between lighting and humanemotion,PsychCentral reported.Participants in the study were asked to rate under different lighting settings subjects including the spiciness of chicken-wing sauce, how aggressive afictional character was being, how attractive someone was and the taste of two juices.All of their reactions were intensified in bright light, a phenomena whichProfessor Xu attributes to the body perceiving light as heat, which can trigger emotions."Bright light intensifies the initial emotional reaction we have to different kinds of stimulus including products and people," she said.In fact, they found that bright light intensifies feelings so dramatically thatpeople prone to depression “actually become more depressed” on sunny days, according to Professor Xu.Professor Xu said: ‘Marketers may also adjust the lightening levels in the retail environment, according to the nature of the products on sale.•"‘If you are selling emotional expressive products such as flowers or engagement rings it would make sense to make the store as bright aspossible," she said.••dim [dim] adj. 昏暗的；悲观的，怀疑的vt. 使暗淡，使失去光泽；n. 笨蛋，傻子subdue [səb'dju:] vt. 征服；抑制；减轻depression [di'preʃən]n. 沮丧；洼地；不景气；忧愁Samsung's Galaxy S5: Why it matters Investors are bullish on Samsung after the Korean giant unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. Shares for the company were up slightly after a 13% drop over the last year -- a big deal when the company's market cap hovers around $182 billion.The device, which will be available in April, isn't a huge step forward. Itscamera has grown from 13 megapixels to 16; its battery is promised to last 20% longer. It will have a fingerprint sensor like Apple's (AAPL) flagship model, which went on sale in September. Its 5.1-inch active-matrix organiclight-emitting diode -- AMOLED for short -- display is rated for full highdefinition. It has a leather-like feel, which business customers may enjoy. It has a built-in heart rate monitor. And, perhaps most notably, it is said towithstand dust and 30 minutes in shallow water, a welcome improvement for slippery-fingered humans everywhere.Water resistance aside, much of these updates are incremental and expected.This is the nature of the war waged at the premium end of the smartphone market: It's no longer a single "killer" feature that moves units, but rather a superior experience. That the Galaxy S5 has a fingerprint sensor, for example, is a matter of relief to buyers who do not prefer Apple's iPhone; the feature won't encourage people to switch who are otherwise happy with their device.The dynamic is a blessing and a curse for Samsung. On one hand, it means the mature smartphone market in Western markets has evolved to the point where a single feature won't shift fortunes -- good news in a market in which competing companies share suppliers. On the other, it means that thecompany is burdened to tie those components -- from the plastic shell to the screen to the software -- together in a way that is distinctive and preferred.The dynamic in emerging markets is different -- particularly in China, where Samsung leads the pack and Apple believes it can find growth. There,Samsung's challengers include Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and Xiaomi. Thebiggest pressure is economic: Low-priced phones have begun to flood the market, pressuring high-end models to join the race to the bottom. A softeconomic outlook for the country complicates things, reducing the number of buyers willing to upgrade to a premium device. Indeed, most of Samsung's growth in China has been with low-end devices -- but the aspirational aura around Samsung's brand is attributed to some of that success.Samsung spent considerable sums of money on marketing and advertising on behalf of its previous flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4. (According to some estimates, it spent four times more than Apple and two times more thanMicrosoft (MSFT) in 2012.) At the time, the company was criticized fordrumming up too much hype. This time, with the Galaxy S5, it may need only to ride that goodwill and keep the top end of its portfolio stable as it wages a far more vicious battle below.•bullish ['buliʃadj. 看涨的；上扬的；似公牛的•flagship ['flæɡʃip n. 旗舰；（作定语）一流；佼佼者•fingerprint['fiŋɡəprint] n. 指纹；手印vt. 采指纹•resistance [ri'zistəns] n. 阻力；电阻；抵抗；反抗；抵抗力•aspirational [,æspə'reiʃənəl] adj. 有雄心壮志的；（生活形态等）梦寐以求的n. 成功指南；处世自助手册性格测试到底靠不靠谱When Frank Parsons opened the world's first career guidance center in Boston in 1908, he began by asking prospective clients 116 penetrating questions about their ambitions, strengths, and weaknesses (and how often they bathed). But then he did something more unusual: He measured their skulls.Parsons was a committed believer in phrenology. If you had a large forehead, he might recommend you become a lawyer or engineer. But if your skull was more developed behind the ears, you were of the "animal type" and best suited to manual work.Career advice has, thankfully, come a long way since then. But now, instead of measuring the outside of people's heads, it has become common to measure the inside using psychometric tests. Personality testing has grown into a major industry and is standard procedure in leadership and management courses, as part of job-interview processes, and, increasingly, in career counselling. But should we really trust such tests to deliver scientific, objective truth?I have some bad news for you: Even the most sophisticated tests have considerable flaws. Take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the world's most popular psychometric test, which is based on Jung's theory of personality types. Over two million are administered every year. The MBTI places you in one of 16 personality types, based on dichotomous categories such as whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, or have a disposition towards being logical or emotional (what it calls "thinking" and "feeling").The interesting -- and somewhat alarming -- fact about the MBTI is that, despite its popularity, it has been subject to sustained criticism by professional psychologists for over three decades. One problem is that it displays what statisticians call low "test-retest reliability." So if you retake the test after only a five-week gap, there's around a 50% chance that you will fall into a different personality category compared to the first time you took the test.A second criticism is that the MBTI mistakenly assumes that personality falls into mutually exclusive categories. You are either an extrovert or an introvert, but never a mix of the two. Yet most people fall somewhere in the middle. If the MBTI also measured height, you would be classified as either tall or short, even though the majority of people are within a band of medium height.The consequence is that the scores of two people labelled "introvert" and "extrovert" may be almost exactly the same, but they could be placed into different categories since they fall on either side of an imaginary dividing line.One other thing, and this matters especially for anybody who thinkspersonality tests can guide them to a perfect career. According to officialMyers-Briggs documents published by its exclusive European distributor, the test can "give you an insight into what kinds of work you might enjoy and be successful doing." So if you are, like me, classified as INTJ (your dominant traits are being introverted, intuitive, and having a preference for thinking and judging), the best-fit occupations include management consultant, ITprofessional, and engineer.•dominant['dɔminənt] adj. 显性的；占优势的；支配的n. 显性•reliability[ri,laiə'biləti] n. 可靠性•skull[skʌl] n. 头盖骨，脑壳•trait[trei, treit] n. 特性，特点；品质；少许•flaw[flɔ:] n. 瑕疵，裂纹；缺点；一阵狂风vt. 使无效；使破裂，使有缺陷vi. 生裂缝，变的有缺陷•criticism['kriti,sizəm] n. 批评；考证；苛求•insight['insait] n. 洞察力；洞悉•distributor[di'stribjutə] n. 经销商；[电] 分配器；分配者；散布者；[4 steps to delivering really bad newsDear Annie: I've been following your columns about promotions over the past year or so, and I finally got one. The trouble is, it comes with some nastyconditions. The person who had this job before me let my department'sperformance slide to an unacceptable low, mainly because he didn't want to fire anybody -- even though there are a few people here who haven't done any real work in years. These same people have also influenced other teammembers, so their productivity has fallen too.So now what I have to do is "turn things around," my boss said, by letting a few people go and giving shape-up-or-ship-out evaluations to some others. I have no experience with giving this kind of bad news, and I really dread these conversations. Do you or your readers have any advice on how to do this, or how not to? -- Management's MessengerDear M.M.: "If you were hoping for a way around the unpleasant emotions that accompany the delivery of bad news, I'll have to disappoint you, because there isn't one," says Geoffrey Tumlin, who heads Austin-basedcommunications firm Mouthpeace Communications and wrote a new bookcalled Stop Talking, Start Communicating: Counterintuitive Secrets to Success in Business and in Life.Tumlin gets where you're coming from. He is often called in when managers have put off doing the inevitable for so long that whole teams and departments have crashed. "It's amazing to see how problems can cascade through an organization because no one wants to get rid of a problem employee," he says. At the same time, he understands why bosses like your predecessor procrastinate: "Firing people is hard."Nothing can make it easier, but Tumlin offers four tips for getting it done:1. Get straight to your core message. "Your core message is easy to identify, because it's always the thing you don't want to say -- whether it's 'We're switching vendors' or 'We have to let you go' or 'We should stop seeing each other,'" Tumlin says. So get straight to the point. "Trying to sugarcoat it won't help, and may even confuse the other person, which just makes it harder for them," he notes.2. Stick to your guns. If you've ever been talked out of a decision, you already know how tough this one can be. "People will say things like, 'But we've worked together for 15 years! You're not really letting me go, are you?'" notes Tumlin. "Or they will try to talk about the reasons. But resist the temptation to get pushed, cajoled, or charmed off your message."3. Explain yourself, but not too much. Tumlin recommends fitting the message and the reason for it into a single sentence -- for instance, "We're letting you go because we're taking this whole department in a different direction." If you want to say more, that's okay, "but do it by repeating the point. Don't add any new information, or you'll encourage the discussion to drift away from what you need to say."4. Get out of the conversation. Letting the discussion drag on is usually a mistake, Tumlin says. "Naturally you can answer factual questions like,'When's my last day?' or 'What happens to my 401(k)?' or offer to get any practical answers you don't have," Tumlin says. "But beware of trying to answer any speculative or probing questions, again because they can confuse the issue and drag you away from your point."In this situation, Tumlin adds, "It's a simple formula: Be clear, be concise, and be gone." The not-so-hot evaluations you'll have to deliver are, however, a different story. "An evaluation, even a negative one, is really the opposite of firing someone," he notes. "That's because it should be an ongoing discussion, not a one-time event, and because you're hoping to keep the people you'll be speaking with, assuming they can get better at their jobs."With that in mind, Tumlin advises you get the firings over with first, and then wait a bit before giving feedback, for two reasons. First, firing someone -- say, an employee who's a known slacker -- is a form of feedback to the whole team, he points out. "Everyone will be watching, of course, so give it a couple ofweeks and see how that percolates through," he says. "You may find that some people's behavior changes for the better." If so, you'll have one less tough topic to tackle.Second, Tumlin says, evaluations that make a difference require specificexamples of the behavior you want to change. "The least effective feedback is always too general, like 'You're not good with clients.' That doesn't tell theother person anything useful, and it's too easy to dismiss," Tumlin says.Instead, a particular example -- "You talked over Client A in that meeting last Tuesday" -- tells exactly where an employee needs to focus her efforts."You're new in this job, so maybe you don't have an example yet. But if you want these evaluations to matter, wait until you do," says Tumlin. "It shouldn't take long."Talkback: If you've ever been fired or had to fire someone, what made the bad news more (or less) bearable? What was the most useful evaluation you ever got? Leave a comment below.•nasty['nɑ:sti, 'næs-] adj. 下流的；肮脏的；；n. 令人不快的事物；•productivity[,prɔdʌk'tivəti, ,prəu-] n. 生产力；生产率；•predecessor['pri:disesə, 'pre-] n. 前任，前辈•vendor['vendɔ:] n. 卖主；小贩；[贸易] 自动售货机The Power of Parents Who Say 'No'I grew up in an affluent area. Most kids owned multiple Cabbage Patch dollsand Gear bags and pairs of Jordache jeans (not to mention the beloved Atari 2600). I certainly had enough, but it felt like all of my peers possessed more. I wanted Benetton sweaters and a cool bike. I wanted to take trips to Mexico over Christmas break and come back with a bronze tan. I wanted to impress people with a fancy car, not the red Datsun 510 parked in our driveway.As I got older, I didn't merely crave material items-I wanted freedom. Onweekends, my friends' parents left them alone in their apartments while they went elsewhere. I was never left unattended until I went to college. My friends had no curfew. I had to be home by midnight. Plus, my mom watched me likea hawk.As a teenager, I felt humiliated, uncool, and angry. Why couldn't my mom just be like the other parents? In my world, one was popular if she had the right haircut and could stay out late. My mom, however, refused to budge. She stuck to her guns, and I begrudged her throughout my adolescence.Fast-forward some 25 years. Now I'm the parent and I get to decide the rules. Do I buy Uggs for my preschooler? Should my fifth grader get the new iPhone 5? Will I allow my daughter to walk home from school with the other kids? Is she old enough to roam the mall solo?It isn't especially hard for my husband and I to decide what we think are the right choices for our children. No, the challenge is having to deal with the unhappy child when he/she doesn't get what he/she wants, especially when the other kids do.As a parent, this battle has been going on a long time. In her pre-school class, several of my daughter's little friends wore Ugg boots. When I got ahand-me-down knock-off pair, my daughter turned up her nose. 'These aren't Uggs, ' she snapped. ''Huh?' I said.Her response floored me. 'Real Uggs have the name on the back. The kids in school told me mine aren't real.'This was hardly an aberration. Were I to record a montage of my children's responses after hearing the word 'No, ' it would sound something like this:'But why can't we watch YouTube videos? Why can't I have a cell phone? Why can't I have my fifth dessert? Why can't we drink soda, have a video game, stay up later, join the country club, ... ' Inevitably the response to my retort is, 'But all the other kids are allowed.'When my kids were young, it was a manageable backlash. But now, as they age, the pressure to fit in grows exponentially and so does the parenting pressure. Sometimes I just want to take the easy route. I want to give in. Parenting is exhausting and why fight the little stuff? But then I realize, not being able to stand my ground on soda will make it so much harder to hang tough about the bigger issues like Internet safety and dating.Although I couldn't see it as a child, I now realize how amazing my mom was all those years ago. She knew what she thought was best and she didn't care if I hated her for it. That's strong parenting.My childhood disappointments and restrictions actually taught me valuable life lessons that I am trying to pass on to my kids.Not getting every fad item taught me to work to afford what I wanted. I also learned to budget my money. Often once my mom said no, I realized I didn't really want the item that badly. As an adult, I still don't need a lot of 'in' things.I much prefer to save my money for something I really want or need.I learned that even though some kids had all the stuff and freedoms I craved,they came at a price. People sometimes make poor choices with money. They buy things they can't really afford and run up large debts so they can fit in.Lastly, I learned that having every desired item doesn't me one happy. There are other ways for me to be fulfilled. I am gratified by working, helping aneighbor, being a good friend, cooking, drawing with chalk in the driveway, and playing the piano beside my daughter. I think this kind of happiness was learned in childhood.The peer pressure your child encounters in school to have the 'in' item or the latest technology or the most freedom turns into parenting peer pressure.What is hardest for me is that I know how my children will feel when I say no.It hurts. They won't understand it. They will be angry and will direct that at me.I just have to remind myself that sometimes the best lessons are the mostpainful.•budget['bʌdʒit] n. 预算，预算费vt. 安排，预定；把…编入预算vi. 编预算，做预算adj. 廉价的•driveway['draivwei] n. 车道•soda['səudə] n. 苏打；碳酸水•bronze[brɔnz] n. 青铜；adj. 青铜色的；青铜制的vt. 镀青铜于vi. 变成青铜色，被晒黑•roam[rəum] vi. 漫步；流浪n. 漫步流浪•bigger[bigə] adj. 更大的（big的比较级）•snap[snæp] vt. 突然折断；猛咬；啪地关上vi. 咬；厉声说；n. 猛咬；劈啪声；突然折断adj. 突然的•encounter[in'kauntə] vt. 遭遇，邂逅；n. 偶然碰见vi.•crave[kreiv] vt. 渴望；恳求•fulfil[ful'fil] vt. 履行；完成；实践；满足。