A taste of the exotic
By Maikel Liem
Photos by Yao Fan

别具一格的泰式美食, 古典华丽的民族舞蹈, 悠久灿烂的历史文化, 这就是"微笑的国土"--泰国. 为庆祝中泰建交30周年, 泰国驻厦门领事办、亚洲航空、泰国航空和厦门海景皇冠假日酒店等从7月1日至31日在海景咖啡厅联合推出泰国美食节, 希望让更多的人有机会了解泰国的人文和美食文化, 领略泰国风情.

Summer is the season for travel and to escape from your daily life. Unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to buy a plane ticket and visit other countries. However, don't despair, for at the Crowne Plaza Harbourview Xiamen you can taste Thai culture and get to know Thai customs without having to travel a great distance. During this month, the hotel is hosting a Thai food festival in celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China. What makes this event most unique is the fact that the hotel, on this occasion, is cooperating with the Royal Thai Consular Office (Xiamen).

A Thai chef carves beautiful fruit sculptures.

Entering the hotel's Harbour Cafe you will be instantly immersed in the culture of Thailand. Thai performers will provide authentic Thai music and dance performances while you comfortably dine. The restaurant has also been decorated with many breathtaking photographs of Thailand and various authentic Thai costumes. While this stimulates your eyes, a Thai food
buffet will have a similar effect on your nose and taste buds by offering a wide variety of authentic foods, from savory rice dishes to sweet desserts and fruit, all carefully prepared under the supervision of two Thai guest chefs. As well as having an abundance of coriander included in dishes, Thai food is also renowned for being somewhat spicy. However, you can also enjoy dishes that are less likely to burn your tongue, such as Satay (meat on sticks), fresh seafood, and several kinds of delicious fruit such as papaya, durian, and guava. And for an especially cool dessert during these hot summer days, the same fruits have been transformed into ice-cream. A must try dish is Tom Yam Kung, a delicious prawn soup. It has been specially prepared by the chefs and carries with it their highest recommendation.

Thai desserts

Because of all the effort that has been put into organizing this event, the Crowne Plaza Harbourview Xiamen Thai Festival is being called one of the largest Thai food festivals in the history of Xiamen. So, if you have time and feel a little adventurous don't hesitate to stop by. You'll be glad you did.

 

 

时尚品牌故事
Collected by Rae Huang

ELLE, 身为全球最畅销的时尚类女性杂志, 在6大洲共有35个版本. 除此之外, ELLE还拥有几个分支品牌如ELLE Décor(18个版本), ELLE Girl (3个版本), ELLE Cuisine (5个版本),网站ELLE.com (13种语言)和特许产品包括书籍, 鞋, 眼镜和其他时尚精品. ELLE在引导服饰、美容、生活最新潮流趋势的同时, 也贴近时尚女性, 帮助她们成为"Sexy(性感迷人), Spirited(真我率性), Stylish(品位高雅)"的现代都市女性.

ELLE: more than fashion

ELLE, which means "she" in French, is the simplest and the most direct pronoun for all that is feminine, and is also the title for a world-class fashion magazine.



In 1945, ELLE Magazine was founded by Helene Lazareff, who served as the women's section editor for the New York Times and Harper's Bazaar during her wartime exile in New York. After the war, Lazareff and her husband, a well-known French magazine publisher, returned to France from America.



Witnessing devastation and desolation everywhere in Europe after the war, Lazaren decided to create a magazine about femininity, aiming to provide women with information about current fashions, beauty, health and relationships, thereby hoping to help them shake off the shadow of war and lead them to a brand-new beautiful life. ELLE proved to be an immediate success, because it was the only weekly fashion magazine at that time and because its first issues relied on American models, whose bodies did not bear traces of wartime suffering.



ELLE was initially directed at mature women, but Mademoiselle, a second magazine, which began in 1962, targeted young women between the ages of fifteen and twenty. ELLE Magazine focused on the high styles and runway trends of the American sophisticate. The beauty and fashion trends it accented, as well as the lifestyles and personalities it portrayed, all had an international flair.



At first glance, ELLE may resemble many other women's magazines, but upon closer inspection, its distinction from them becomes very clear. The ELLE reader is smart and has savvy, with an ability to sift through the magazine's content and not blindly follow trends. If she doesn't buy the featured designs, she will adapt them to her budget. On the other hand, being privy to the world of high fashion, she will not simply dismiss extraordinary ensembles as irrelevant or impractical-and she may indeed run out and buy that $85 face cream. She attributes value not only to beauty and style, but culture as well, by keeping up with the latest movies, plays, music, and museum exhibits. Travel and books are two additional luxuries she cannot live without, and she is on the constant prowl for the latest relevant information on everything from sunscreen to contraception, as well as insightful stories about performers, politicians, and PMS. For every interest a reader might have, ELLE consistently delivers.



Women assimilate the lastest fashion concepts in ELLE, which speeds them to the most fashionable ways of being sexy, spirited, and stylish. It provides what one would expect from a fashion magazine, and more-catering to the fashionable, smart, sophisticated woman interested in more than just fashion.

Vocabulary
exile 放逐
accent 强调
flair 鉴别力
savvy 悟性
devastation 毁坏
femininity 女性