Danger in the desert

That day we were deep in Chile’s Atacama Desert. There the     1       could often be compared to Mars. Our team of four female microbiologists watched as a car full of curious men pulled up beside us. Because we were strangers in a(n)       2     place, our minds immediately jumped to ways we could protect ourselves. So,     3     , our Chilean fellow guide lifted the strong tool she’d been using to dig up plant roots. The rest of us tried to look braver than we felt.

We had come to this desert to conduct DNA studies on giant horsetails that somehow grow well in one of Earth’s driest places. We were searching for plants in the most remote locations, where they would be     4     by human activities such as mining and agriculture.

We’d been warned that the trip could be dangerous. Because we were traveling so far from fuel sources, we were told to take along a can of gas. Our destination was at the end of a(n)     5       single-lane dirt road lined with burned-out vehicles that had not successfully negotiated the steep downslope. Our sample site was near a village, and the people might not, we were told,     6     positively to us. We were instructed to report our travel plans at the nearest police station so that search parties would know where to look for us if we disappeared.

We had found the amazing plants and their bright green stocks       7       over our heads. They aroused the     8       of ancient wetland plants. The men approached as we finished collecting our samples. We waited tensely as a man     9       the car and walked toward us. To our surprise and relief, he politely invited us to visit their village—they wanted to show us a lovely church of which they were proud. That day, we learned about more than the microbiomes that help desert plants grow well. We also met a(n)       10       community who had likewise beautifully adapted to their challenging home.

When Coca-Cola was first sold in 1886, nobody thought it could be improved. Nearly a century later, in 1985, New Coke was introduced to replace the original recipe of Coke in order to rebrand the product amidst falling sales——Coke was losing customers to Pepsi, whose sweeter taste was finding     1    . Unfortunately, the Coca-Cola Company saw a significant drop in sales soon after the release of New Coke. Some customers just preferred the “classic” recipe. The old adage(格言), “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” seems to apply here.

Something similar is happening with A Bite of China, a     2     food documentary focusing on the stories, traditions and culture surrounding interesting regional dishes from around China. The first two seasons of the show saw great success. However, when the third season began last month, the reviewers were not so “sweet”. With an entirely new production team, Season Three steers away from(偏离) the show’s core focus on     3     dishes and towards intimate life stories, non-food-related subject matter and even product placement(植入广告).

In the first episode of Season Two, a teenager in the countryside collects honey high up in a tree. The scene is stunningly filmed, telling a moving story about the dangerous     4     to which people go to gather food for their families. In the third season, however, the focus is taken almost completely away from the food. In one of its most infamous episodes, DIY lipstick using questionable ingredients bought online is     5    . Viewer response has been swift and severe, with several commentators wondering whether it is still suitable to call the show a food documentary. The production crew have     6     the changes, claiming that the innovation is meant to keep the show fresh and interesting to an expanding audience. While this may     7     in part, to explain the show’s creative differences from previous seasons, it doesn’t     8     the show’s declining professionalism, which has led to some silly mistakes such as mixing up ingredients or confusing the correct names of regional dishes.

Innovation is generally     9     in industries big and small, but a winning formula that has popular     10     is not necessarily something that requires changes. Innovation is a tool often best used when a new direction is called for. By trying to reinvent the wheel, one might just end up with a flat tire. It’s time that A Bite of China took a page out of Coca-Cola’s playbook and returned to the classic recipe, where success has never tasted so sweet.