Sea Cucumbers Are More Than Just a Delicacy 海参, 不仅仅是一道美味

March 20, 2019 1:57 pm ,

Bêche Nutraceutical harnesses health benefits in new supplements coming to market

by Allison Lawlor

Consumers will get a pure product loaded with potential health benefits from Bêche Nutraceutical supplements. Bêche营养食品公司的海参营养补充剂将对人体提供多种健康的帮助。

Consumers will get a pure product loaded with potential health benefits from Bêche Nutraceutical supplements. Bêche营养食品公司的海参营养补充剂将对人体提供多种健康的帮助。

The powerful substances found in a marine animal with a 20-centimetre long tube-shaped body found off Nova Scotia’s coast intrigue Dr. Reem Abuzaytoun.

Dr. Abuzaytoun’s fascination with the Cucumaria frondosa, also known as the orange-footed sea cucumber, led her to study the oil extracted from it for five years as part of her doctorate degree at Dalhousie University. Her intimate knowledge of the healthy substances contained within the tiny sea animal makes her excited about Bêche Nutraceutical’s new dried sea cucumber supplements coming soon to market.

“The extracts contain bio-active ingredients. They will help prevent diseases and cure diseases,” says Dr. Abuzaytoun, now a part-time faculty member in the Chemistry and Physics Department at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.

Not to be confused with vegetables, sea cucumbers are marine animals that have been eaten and used in medicines in Asia and the Middle East for centuries. In North America, more and more research is being done on sea cucumbers. Promising results published in several medical research journals show they contain a long list of beneficial substances, including antioxidants. Read More →

Posted in: Business 商务, Cover Story 封面故事, Feature Stories 特别报道, Food 美食

Bringing the Outside in新玩乐空间:Happy Kids 室内亲子乐园

March 21, 2016 4:18 pm ,

By KATIE INGRAM

A new playground in Bedford is bringing the benefits of outside play to kids, on days when they can’t go outside.

Happy Kids Indoor Playground was developed from an idea Chao Shi had after he and his wife settled in Halifax. The business opened in late 2015.

“Once we had our daughter, we started thinking about our future in Canada and we found there weren’t many places like this,” says Shi. ““The winter is long and boring, so we wanted to create a fun place for kids.”

There are other indoor playgrounds in Halifax, like Hop! Skip! Jump!in Bayers Lake, but Shi wanted to bring a bit more of home to Halifax, specifically the Bedford area.

“In China there are a lot of [indoor] playgrounds, but here there isn’t much,” he says. “We picked this location because there are a lot of families that live here and it is a large community.”

While Happy Kids might be called a playground, it is designed to be much more than that.

“Our playground is just like a theme park,” he says. “We have an ‘ocean playground’ with our water slide, the ball pit [which] has a pirate ship and our party room has fish around it.” Read More →

Posted in: Life 休闲

The 1st Annual Halifax Chinese Business Showcase首届哈法华人商业展

December 22, 2015 2:36 pm ,

Ingram - business4_2Ingram - business7_2
By KATIE INGRAM
翻译:杨沁

Showing newcomers therearea variety of business opportunitiesin Nova Scotia was the goal behind a recent Chinese business and networking event in Halifax.

The Halifax Chinese Business Showcase was held at the Marriott Harbourfront Hotel on September 13. The event brought together 16 different Chinese businesses and featured a number of guest speakers and workshops designed to showcase how the Chinese business community in Nova Scotia has grown.

Event presenter Ken Chen of Quest Realty sayswhen he came to Nova Scotia in 2001 for school, he found many of his colleagues ended up leaving the province for work.

“I remember a lot of immigrants coming here and in the first couple months they liked living here, but sooner or later they couldn’t find any business opportunities,” said Chen. “So they went to places like Vancouver or Toronto.”

However, through the work of Chen and other entrepreneurs who stayed in the province, the Chinese business community is now more varied.

“Before you’d see a Chinese restaurant, another Chinese restaurant and another Chinese restaurant,” said Chen.“Here [at the showcase] we have a car dealership, afilm company, a realestate company and immigration consultant.” Read More →

Posted in: Business 商务, Feature Stories 特别报道

The ART OF CRAFTING AT Flowers of Spring春天工作室:你在哈法所未见过的手工花卉艺术

December 21, 2015 11:46 pm ,

Ingram - Flowers15_2Ingram - Flowers13_2
By KATIE INGRAM
翻译：杨沁

For Yidan Li flowers aren’t just nice to look at; there’s also a sense of beauty and craftsmanship in being able to make flowers by simply using nylon, thread and wire.

Li is the co-owner of Flowers of Spring with her husband Russ Gaudet, a boutique that specializes in nylon or ‘Tori’ flowers and Real-Touch flowers. Li, who first immigrated to Canada in 2005 and has lived in the country on a permanent basis since 2008, didn’t think of opening a business until a recent trip to China. While there she ordered supplies to make nylon flowers, but found herself left with 25 boxes of material she didn’t know what to do with.

“I looked at my husband and said ‘what are we going to do’ so we thought maybe we could do a little business,” says Li, who also found since making nylon flowers wasn’t common Nova Scotia, it was time to introduce them to the province.

Gaudet finds that nylon flowers fit in with other Nova Scotia-based craft industries because of how much detail and attention is given to each flower.

“Yidan sees the skill that is involved and the pride of workmanship in everything from crystal to pewter to quilts and homemade sailboats and canoes,” says Gaudet. “She gives each and every piece the same kind of meticulous detail and crafts her product with love and pride.” Read More →

Posted in: Business 商务, Cover Story 封面故事, Culture & Art 文化艺术, Feature Stories 特别报道, Immigrant 移民, Life 休闲

New immigration stream set to open for international graduates in 2016省提移民新政策将于2016年初对国际毕业生开放

December 21, 2015 10:02 pm ,

By Chris Muise
翻译：杨沁

Nova Scotia is home to a great deal of international students, who come from far and wide to study at any one of our numerous post-secondary institutions. But when those talented international students graduate, under the current Provincial Nominee Program, many of those who were not able to find employment in their fields had to go elsewhere. Given the current job market here in the province, that meant that we were sending a lot of talented, entrepreneurial graduates away each year.

“An international graduate had to be employed related to their field…before they could apply for permanent residency,” says Sherry Redden, manager of Business and Workforce Integration at ISANS. “If they have to have a job before they can apply for permanent residency, they have to go where that job is. That often took them outside the province.”

Beginning next year, international students who graduate from a Nova Scotian university or college will have a brand-new route to permanent residency – one that gives them a chance to create new work here at home.

Two new immigration stream pilot programs will be launched on January 1, both designed to spur economic growth in the province – the Entrepreneur Stream, and the International Graduate Entrepreneur Stream – the latter of which is poised to take advantage of the thousands of international students Nova Scotia attracts every year.

“We have 10 universities, and we have about 7,000 international students each year that come to the province,” says Rachel Henderson, the director of Strategic Policy & External Relations at the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration. “As a province, we’re very successful in attracting these graduates, and what we hear from both the graduates and from the universities is that a number of these students want to stay.”

Some of these students manage to find work in their fields here at home, but many aren’t so lucky. Those students might have to take the knowledge and skills they learned here elsewhere in order to become a permanent resident of Canada.

“If they have to have a job before they can apply for permanent residency, they have to go where that job is,” says Redden. “That often took them outside the province.” Read More →

Posted in: Feature Stories 特别报道, Immigrant 移民, University 大学

A Multitasking way to Success多面发展是我职成功的秘诀

September 21, 2015 12:39 pm ,

ivyliuBy KATIE INGRAM
翻译:杨沁

Ivy Liu has had many opportunities since immigrating to Canada, but says her success isn’t due to luck; instead it’s due to values instilled upon her at an early age.

Liu who is originally from Guangdong Province says that her father, the provider for a family of six, often told his children about the benefits of hard work.

“He always taught me no matter what you do, work hard and be honest and you’ll never have to worry about anything,”says Liu, noting this philosophy helped her when she and her husband moved to Canada in 2008 to be closer to his family.

Upon arriving, the couple settled in Fort Severn, Ontario where Liu, who had been a teacher in China, thought she would work odd jobs or be a teaching assistant.

“I didn’t have any of the education or teaching experience needed here in Canada, but when we went there one of the teachers who was supposed to teach grade five and six didn’t show up,” she says. Read More →

Posted in: Business 商务, Cover Story 封面故事, Feature Stories 特别报道, Immigrant 移民

China trying sea cucumber like it’s brand new with Seacoo本土品牌开拓中国海参新市场

September 21, 2015 11:48 am ,

IMG_9805_pressedBy Chris Muise
翻译:杨沁

Jim Zhang came from China seven years ago to study economics at Saint Mary’s University. His family are in the food business back home, so he kept a keen eye on our ocean’s bounty for prospective new markets here.

“When I first came here, I was trying to look for the local seafood, maybe have an opportunity to bring some to China,” says Zhang.

Zhang would find a seafood product that could give him a foothold in the market, both in China and Canada, but it wasn’t with any of the seafood that we’re famous for. Instead of fresh Atlantic lobster, or haddock, or herring, Zhang is putting Nova Scotia on the map with our local…sea cucumber?

Yes, in case you didn’t know, Nova Scotia waters do play home to sea cucumber, the blobby little creatures known for weaponizing their intestines. Jules LeBlanc has been involved in the sea cucumber industry locally since 1999, but only met Zhang about four years ago. Zhang came to LeBlanc after discovering the product, with an idea for an untapped market to explore.

Sea cucumber is a popular dish in China and other Asian countries, and is consumed more like a medicine than food. It’s touted as a traditional medicine for everything from arthritis to impotency to even cancer – some call it ‘the ginseng of the sea’ – but the health benefits of the Chinese variety of sea cucumber are currently up in the air.

“They farm the sea cucumber in China – the food safety is a problem right now. People used medicine to farm the sea cucumber, then the sea cucumber have that special stuff inside, so it’s actually harmful,” says Zhang. “Once the Chinese sea cucumber safety problem happened, people are looking for healthy seafood from outside.” Read More →

Posted in: Business 商务, Feature Stories 特别报道

Colin Dodds reflects on his years-long relationship with China科林道兹谈与中国交流合作关系

July 1, 2015 2:43 pm ,

Cover Photo
By Chris Muise

Dr. J. Colin Dodds has experienced a lot of firsts up to and including his tenure as president of Saint Mary’s University. He was first made a member of the faculty in September of 1982. His first day on the job as the departmental chair of Finance and Management Sciences and the M.B.A. Director in 1984. His first day as Dean of the Sobey School of Business in 1987, first day as V.P. Academic and Research in 1991, and finally, his first day as the President of SMU in 2000.

Now, in 2015, as his tenure as president comes to a close, he’s starting to experience the flip-side of all those many firsts.

“It’s bittersweet. There’s a lot of ‘lasts,’” says Dr. Dodds, who was preparing for his final convocation ceremony as president at the time of this interview. “Every week, there’s a ‘last’ of some sort.”

Dr. Dodds has accomplished many great things during his 33-year run at Saint Mary’s, and during his 15-year run as president, to the point that it almost does him a disservice to devote an article to just one facet of his distinguished career. Read More →

Posted in: Cover Story 封面故事, Feature Stories 特别报道, University 大学 , Tagged: , , , ,

Hong Kong-Canada Business Association invites friends, partners to share in exchange of multicultural celebrations港加商会办春晚庆多元文化

March 23, 2015 6:18 am ,

By  Colin Chisholm
Translation by Christine Qin Yang

Whether you celebrate New Year on January 1, or you celebrate the lunar New Year like in Chinese culture, one thing that both nights have in common is that it’s customary to share that night with friends and family, and anyone else whose company you’ve come to cherish.

This year, Bill Bu and the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association Atlantic Section decided they wanted to broaden that notion of celebrating with friends – they turned their annual Chinese New Year Gala into an opportunity for the Chinese community to share its culture with their Nova Scotian friends and associates, and allow those friends the chance to return the favour.

In past years, the HKCBA has partnered with the Chinese Society of Nova Scotia to put on the annual Chinese New Year Gala in Halifax, but this year, they wanted to try something new, and decided to do so solo.

“There are different societies in the community. There are other Chinese community organizations, and they also will come up with something that will reflect their mission, and their interests, and their unique features,” says Bu, the president of the HKCBA Atlantic Section. “People want to have different ways of doing things, people want to try different things.” Read More →

Posted in: Cover Story 封面故事, Culture & Art 文化艺术, Events 活动, Feature Stories 特别报道

上海炒年糕Shanghai Rice Cake

December 15, 2014 10:48 pm ,

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Recipe by Hong’s Kitchen 

材料(2人份)：
400克(一袋) 切片年糕(需用水提前泡软)
50克大白菜(切段)
2片香菇
4盎司切片生猪肉
1盎司生抽
少许老抽、生姜末、芝麻油、盐、糖

做法：
炒锅烧热倒油，放入姜末和肉片炒熟。下入白菜、香菇和泡软的年糕翻炒。加生抽、老抽、盐、糖调味，翻炒至熟。起锅装盘，淋上几滴芝麻油。 Read More →

Posted in: Food 美食 , Tagged: , ,