Longmen Grottoes

As one of the three most notable Buddhist sculptures in China, the Longmen Grottoes have approximately 1,400 caves with over 100,000 statues. The grottoes were first dug and carved during the Northern Wei Dynasty. Representing the high point of Chinese stone-carving, the Longmen Grottoes are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Opening hours: 8:00 a, m. — 5:00 p. m.(Feb. 1st to Mar. 31st); 7:30 a. m. — 5:30 p. m.(Apr. 1st to Oct. 7th)

Entry: 100 yuan/adult 30% off each teen

White Horse Temple

Originally established under Emperor Ming during the Eastern Han Dynasty, White Horse Temple is the first officially-built temple in China after the introduction of Buddhism. As the cradle of Chinese Buddhism, it holds a vast collection of Buddhist statues and classic sutras. The temple is also famous for interior architecture inspired by the Buddhist styles of Thailand, India and Burma.

Opening hours: 7:30 a. m. — 7:00 p. m.

Entry: 50 yuan/person

Millennium City Park

The Millennium City Park in Kaifeng is a large-scale historical and cultural theme park which copies scenes from the famous ancient painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival. Visitors can watch folklore performances like those of the Song Dynasty and see reconstructions of grand imperial halls and gardens.

Opening hours: 8:30 a. m. — 6:00 p. m.(winter); 8:30 a. m. — 10:00 p.m.

Entry: 120 yuan/person(Mar. 1st to Nov. 30th); 90 yuan/person(Dec. 1st to Feb. 28/29th)

Kaifeng Prefecture

Kaifeng Prefecture was once the country’s political, economic and cultural center as well as one of the most booming cities in the world during the Northern Song Dynasty. Today, the rebuilt Kaifeng Prefecture is a scenic area built according to the architectural standards of the Song Dynasty. Visitors can read historical documents and watch performances.

Opening hours: 7:30 a. m. — 5:30 p. m.(winter); 7:00 a. m. — 7:00 p. m.

Entry: 60 yuan/person

Greg Heffley is the main character in Jeff Kinney’s best-selling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series of books. Greg is a middle school student with big dreams. In his diary, he writes stories about his struggles to fit in and draws pictures to go with them.

Greg Heffley is a thin but ambitious kid with an active imagination and big plans to be rich and famous — he just has to survive middle school first. To make matters worse, Greg’s lovable best friend, Rowley seems to sail through life and succeed at everything without even trying! As details of his extremely funny — and often disastrous — attempts to infill the pages of his journal, Greg learns to appreciate true friends and the satisfaction that comes from standing up for what is right.

The first live-action movie based on Diary of a Wimpy Kid came out in 2010. Now an animated film based on the original book is about to hit screens.

“The new Diary of a Wimpy Kid is going to feel a lot different from the live-action movie,” Kinney told TFK reporter Lucy Sandor. “Parts of that first movie were reimagined. But the animated version just came to life from the pages of the book,” he said.

Humor inspires Kinney to write. Whether it’s a movie script or a book, he likes to start with jokes. “When I think of a joke, it often comes with a picture in my mind,” he said.

“Then I write. And in the end, I do the drawings.”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid will be available on Disney+ beginning December 3.

In the thick forest, a New Caledonian crow carefully removes a branch, pulls off unwanted leaves and makes a tool from the wood. The crow is a perfectionist. When it’s satisfied, the bird advances the finished tool into a hole in the tree and fishes out a wriggling grub (蠕动的幼虫).

The New Caledonian crow is one of the only birds known to make tools, a skill once thought to be unique to humans. The remarkable originality that Christian Rutz, a behavioral ecologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, observed changed his understanding of what birds can do. He started wondering if there might be other ignored animal abilities. Experiments have shown that different crow groups in the forest have distinct vocalizations (发声). Rutz wanted to know whether these vocalizations could help explain cultural differences in tool-making among the groups.

New technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) is ready to provide exactly these kinds of insights. Whether animals communicate with one another in terms we might be able to understand is a question of enduring question. “With recent breakthroughs in AI, people realize that we are on the edge of fairly major advances in regard to understanding animals’ communicative behavior,” Rutz says.

Beyond creating chat-bots that attract people and producing art that wins fine-arts competitions, machine learning may soon make it possible to crack (破解) things like crow calls, says Aza Raskin, one of the founders of the nonprofit Earth Species Project. Cracking animal vocalizations could aid conservation and welfare efforts. It could also have a shocking impact on us. Raskin compares the coming revolution to the invention of the telescope. “We looked out at the universe and discovered that Earth was not the center,” he says. The power of AI to reshape our understanding of animals, he thinks, will have a similar effect. “These tools are going to change the way that we see ourselves in relation to everything.”