【推荐1】Those who are used to looking through thousands of books in big bookstores may find Japan’s Morioka Shoten a little strange. That’s because this tiny bookstore that is located in Ginza, Tokyo sells only a single book at a time.

Opened in May 2015, Morioka Shoten is the brainchild of Yoshiyuki Morioka. The experienced bookseller began his career as a bookstore clerk in Tokyo’s Kanda district before branching out to open his own store. It was here while organizing book readings that he realized that customers usually came into the store with one title in mind. Morioka began to wonder if a store could exist by selling many copies of just one single book. In November 2014, he partnered with his two friends, to establish a unique bookstore with the idea of “A Single Room, A Single Book.”

Like its offering, the bookstore is simple. The selections that are picked by Morioka change weekly and vary widely to attract customers with different interests. Recent choices include The True Deceiver, an award-winning Swedish novel by Tove Jansson, Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, and a collection of artist Karl Blossfeldt’s photography of plants. Morioka has also chosen books written by famous Japanese authors Mimei Ogawa and Akito Akagi.

To highlight his only offering, Morioka often uses clever methods. For example，when selling a book about flowers, he decorated his shop with the ones that had been mentioned in the book. He also encourages authors to hold talks and discussions so they can connect with customers. Morioka says his goal is for the customers to experience being inside a book, not just a bookstore!

Risky as the idea might seem, things appear to be going well. Morioka says he has sold over 2,100 books since he opened it. Things can get better considering that his bookstore is becoming increasingly popular not just among the locals but also visitors from other countries.

【推荐2】Get up at 6 a.m., arrive at the hospital one hour earlier to help patients check in, and accompany patients during consultations... In recent years, the patient escort has emerged as a new occupation, and those who have taken on this career are known as “people who sell time”. 26-year-old Zhang Tian is one of them.

September 4, 2022 was a lucky day for Zhang Tian. On this day, Zhang Tian saw a video about patient escorts on a short video platform. The daily routine of patient escorts shown in the video fascinated her and inspired her to take this on as a business. She browsed through many platforms and searched for information and found there indeed exists a certain demand for patient escorts, especially for the elderly, children and pregnant women. Since she had never engaged in this kind of work before, she spent two days in major hospitals in Wuhan, in order to familiarize herself with all the departments on different floors, as well as the processes of medical consultations and preparations for surgery.

After the preparations, Zhang Tian posted a video of self-introduction on major social media sites, talking about the help and services a patient escort provides, as well as some tips for a quick and convenient medical consultation. At first, she was a little worried that her video would go unnoticed. However, after she uploaded the video, it got over 100 likes and she received her first offer as a patient escort.

The memory of her first task is still vivid in her mind. She received a phone call on September 9 from a man whose father was seriously ill and might need surgery. He wanted Zhang Tian to accompany his father through his consultation and treatment. Zhang Tian made all the preparations before meeting her first client and did a very good job despite her nervousness.

“Later, the family expressed their gratitude to me over and over again, which warmed my heart and gave me a sense of achievement,” Zhang Tian said.

【推荐3】By day, Jack is a teacher. In his spare time though he goes on stage beside pianist Mary — not as a musician but as her page turner. “I’m not a trained musician, but I’ve learnt to read music so I can help Mary in her performance.”

Jack has been the group’s official page turner for the past four years. His job is to sit beside the pianist and turn the pages of the score so the musician doesn’t have to break the flow of sound by doing it themselves. He said he became just as nervous as those playing instruments on stage.

“A lot of skills are needed for the job. You have to make sure you don’t turn two pages at once and make sure you find the repeats in the music when you have to go back to the right spot.” Jack explained.

Being a page turner requires plenty of practice. Some pieces of music can go for 40 minutes and require up to 50 page turns, including back turns for repeat passages. Silent onstage communication is key, and each pianist has their own style of “nodding” to indicate a page turn which they need to practise with their page turner.

But like all performances, there are moments when things go wrong. “I was turning the page to get ready for the next page, but the draft wind from the turn caused the spare pages to fall off the stand,” Jack said, “Luckily I was able to catch them and put them back.”

Most page turners are piano students or up-and-coming concert pianists, although Mary has once asked her husband to help her out on stage.

“My husband is the worst page turner,” she laughed. “He’s interested in the music, feeling every note, but I have to say, ‘Turn, turn!’ Jack is the best page turner I’ve had in my entire life.”

【推荐3】A one-armed 13-year-old basketball player in a video moves China. He is Zhang Jiacheng, from Guangdong Province. In the video, facing a taller, stronger, and older opponent (对手), he isn't afraid at all.

Attracted by his good skills in the video, many people even fail to know that Zhang Jiacheng has only one arm. Although the young boy lost one of his arms in an accident, he became crazy about playing basketball at 12. "Work hard or just give up," he always says. Thus, he spent all of his free time on it without considering his body condition.

People's attention has encouraged him to work harder towards his goal---to become a top basketball player. "I just keep practising every day to improve myself whether at home or in the playground," he says, "My biggest challenge is to control the ball much better." After only a year of hard practising, Zhang Jiacheng has improved his skills greatly. Through patience, confidence and determination, the young basketball player is getting closer to his life goal.

His effort and courage finally caught the attention of Yi Jianlian, a Chinese professional (职业的) basketball player, who shared the video on his own Weibo.