【推荐3】Share Your Culture Emoji (表情符号) Designers and Win Prizes

Which symbol best represents Chinese culture in your eyes? Is it the panda, kung fu, or the Great Wall? Here’s your chance to decide what emojis best represent Chinese culture! The China Daily Design Contest of Chinese Cultural Symbols is calling for entries from all over the world! No matter the style, share your creative ideas with us! All winning designs will be shared and promoted on the China Daily app, and winning designers will receive prizes! So let your creative juices flow!

● Theme

The emojis should be centered around the subject of Chinese culture, presenting classic or popular cultural images in the form of emojis.

● Who can participate?

Professional designers

Design enthusiasts

Anybody who loves emojis

All nationalities are welcomed

● Awards

First prize: 6,000 yuan, with certificate of honor

Second prize: 3,000 yuan, with certificate of honor

Third prize: 1,000 yuan, with certificate of honor

Most popular award: prize-winner voted by online user

● When to submit?

From now till Nov. 25

Online voting: Nov. 26 to Dec. 7

● Result announcement

End of December

● Requirements

1. Work should be submitted online with required personal information. Maximum of three works can be submitted by each applicant. Only one prize will be awarded to participant even if more than one work by the same designer is selected.

2. Submitted works must be a group, with 8 to 16 emojis in each group. Formats: jpg/png/gif/jpge. Size: 240 x240px. Each picture should not exceed (超过) 100K, and the size of each group should not exceed 1.6M.

3. Work title, designing ideas and cultural meaning should be submitted as required.

● Organizer

China Daily Website

【推荐1】The $10bn James Webb telescope has left Earth on its mission to show the first stars to light up the Universe. The observatory was lifted skyward by an Ariane rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. Its flight to orbit was expected to last just under half an hour, with a signal confirming a successful outcome due to be picked up in Kenya.

Webb, named after one of the architects of the Apollo Moon landings, is the successor to the Hubble telescope.

Lift-off was eagerly awaited but accompanied also by a good deal of anxiety. Thousands of people worldwide have worked on the project over the past 30 years, and even though the Ariane is a very dependable vehicle—there are no guarantees when it comes to rockets.

“Webb is an extraordinary mission,” US space agency administrator Bill Nelson said before, lift-off. “It’s a shining example of what we can accomplish when we dream big. We’ve always known that this project would be a risky endeavor (effort). But, of course, when you want big reward, you have to usually take a big risk.” At the core of the new facility’s capabilities is its 6.5m-wide golden mirror. This is almost three times wider than the primary reflector on Hubble.

The enlarged reflector, combined with four super-sensitive instruments, should enable astronomers to look deeper into space — and thus further back in time — than ever before. A key target will be the age of the pioneer stars that ended the darkness, theorized to have gripped (controlled) the universe shortly after the Big Ban more than 13.5 billion years ago. Another important goal for Webb will be to probe atmospheres of distant planets. This will help researchers judge whether these worlds are in any way habitable.

Webb’s launch is only the start of what will be a complex series of initial activities over the next six months. The telescope is being put on a path to an observing station some 1.5 million km beyond the Earth. In the course of travelling to this location, Webb will have to unpack itself from the folded configuration it adopted at launch.

“And then the critical thing is that it all has to get very cold,” explained Mark Mark McCaughrean, senior science adviser with the European Space Agency. This telescope actually will be at minus 233 degrees Celsius. Only then will it stop glowing at the infrared wavelengths beyond the visible where we want this telescope to work. And only then will it be able to take the sensitive pictures of the distant universe where the first galaxies were born, and of planets going around other stars. So there’s a long way to go.” (From BBC, Dec 25, 2021)

【推荐2】A man in Indonesia is walking backwards for 435 miles (700 kilometers). He’s making the trip to encourage the government and others to protect and rebuild Indonesia’s rainforests.

Medi Bastoni is 43 years old. He is the father of four children and lives in Dono, Indonesia, That’s about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) from Mount Wilis, a beautiful mountain area that has had large areas of forests cut down in the past.

Indonesia is the largest country in the world formed by a group of islands. There are over 16, 000 islands in Indonesia, and most of them are covered with rainforests. Forests cover about 70% of the country. But on Java, where Mr Bastoni lives, there are more people, and far more forests have been cleared.

Some areas of Indonesia’s rainforests have been cut or burned. Mr Bastoni believes it’s important to protect- forests from being cut down and to restore them when they have been destroyed. Near his home, Mount Wilis is now being restored, but Mr Bastoni wants to make sure that this protection continues.

That’s why he came up with the idea of the 435-mile walk. He aims to walk from his home in Dono, across most of the island of Java to the country’s capital, Jakarta. There, he hopes to meet the country’s president, Joko Widodo.

Mr Bastoni hopes to arrive in Jakarta on August 17. It is the country’s independence day celebration. If he is able to meet Mr Widodo, he plans to ask him for the seed of a tree to plant at the bottom of Mount Wilis. The seed is meant as a symbol and a promise that the area will be protected.

And walking backwards is a symbol, too. Mr Bastoni wants Indonesians to look back at their past and think about how they got their independence.

But walking backwards is also a good way to get attention. Right now, Mr Bastoni’s backwards walk is pretty big news in Indonesia.

【推荐3】Heavy clouds threaten rain, but this doesn’t seem to weaken the spirits of the gardeners who are cheerfully weeding in a community vegetable garden which lies deep inside Manguinhos, previously a rubbish dump.

The Manguinbos garden is part of the Hortas Cariocas project (Carioca Gardens). Launched in 2006 by Julio Cesar Barros, an agriculturist who works for the government, the project now includes 55 gardens that are located either in schools or in ‘vulnerable’ neighbourhoods, such as favelas (棚户区). The gardens produce organic food that is then supplied to feed low-income families around.

Barros explains that the expansion of the largest garden which will benefit five nearby favelas is under way. It will follow the same model as existing gardens. Each of the five favelas will provide a team of local gardeners. Half of the produce must be donated locally, but the team is then free to sell the other half, adding to the salary they receive,

Hortas Cariocas is run and funded by the government, but each garden is tended by a group of locals who receive a small salary for their work. The favela residents involved in the gardens are nevertheless enthusiastic about the project’s other benefits, such as education and bringing people happiness. “I always tell people, ‘Hortas Cariocas’ is the name of the project, but its surname is ‘Saving Lives’,” says Ezequiel Dias Areas, who manages the team of gardeners in Manguinhos. Dias Areas was unemployed for five years before getting involved in 2013. Without the garden “today I might be doing something illegal, I might be dead, I might be in prison”, he says.

Douglas dos Santos, a 30-year-old father-of-four, tells his story. “I feel valued,” he says, explaining how he learned about agriculture via the project. Despite his pride, dos Santos isn’t blind to the project’s shortcomings. He readily admits that juggling a pleasant relationship with the favela’s residents’ association is no easy task.

【推荐2】Chaplin arrived at our Keystone Film Company in early December 1913. We rushed him into a short film called Making a Living as fast as we could. There was trouble: Chaplin’s music-hall costume was funny on stage with British comedians, but no good on the screen with Chester Conklin playing a policeman. Henry Lehrman was the director, but he worked Chaplin too fast. Chaplin didn’t know what he was doing. It was shown on February 2, 1914 to disappointing reviews and box office results. Later we sent it out under different titles, such as A Busted Johnny, Troubles, and Doing His Best. No matter what we called it, the film found little favor with most moviegoers.

“We just got our little company in the black,” Charles O. Baumann shouted at me. “Now with this silly cheap comedian you picked out of nowhere, you’re pushing us into the red.” I stuck up for my decision to put Charlie Chaplin in films. “The trouble is,” I said, “we haven’t got his character right yet. We haven’t got his timing right, either. Or his make-up and costume. Give me a little time and I wouldn’t be surprised if Charlie Chaplin turns out to be a fair actor.”     

We were learning how to use a promising actor. Still, Chaplin was considered a strange man by my team of professionals. They considered him cheap. He wasn’t cheap. He simply didn’t enjoy drinking or partying. He preferred his own company. He often walked the streets on his own at night watching things and people. He lived in a cheap hotel and he stayed in it until long after he became worth a million dollars a year.

By the time Chaplin had made fairly short films, we knew what a great find we had. He had watched and listened and asked questions, and learned from Mabel Normand. He was still shy and tongue-tied but he thought he was different from other comedians. This was how Chaplin started to become Charlie Chaplin.

【推荐3】Wu Lidi, a 48-year-old cleaning lady at a student dormitory, was deeply moved by a special exhibition held by students in front of the entrance of a canteen in the Nanjing University.

The exhibition, titled “A Cleaning Lady’s Spring,” displayed Wu’s paintings on a blackboard hanging on the dormitory’s first floor where she works. Her artwork ranged from breathtaking natural landscapes and the colorful university campus to an imaginary world. During the exhibition, many students left handwritten messages of appreciation, gratitude and wishes to her. The messages included “Thank you for your blackboard paintings that have accompanied me through four years of my youth,” “You have painted a wonderful world,” and “I hope you will stick to what you love.”

Wu’s artistic journey began modestly. She never received any professional training in painting. Her interest in painting dates back to her youth when she often created blackboard designs for her class.

After becoming a cleaner at Nanjing University, her enthusiasm for painting was reawakened when she volunteered to enrich a blackboard with pictures. Initially, only a few characters “Welcome Home” were presented on the blackboard and it needed some color and life. Litle did Wu know, this seemingly small effort marked the beginning of her extraordinary journey of life in the university.

Wu has since become increasingly devoted to blackboard art, improving her skills with online resources in her spare time. Her paintings evolved from simple flowers and plants to complex landscapes, and her techniques shifed from chalk drawings to watercolor masterpieces. Her dedication earned her widespread popularity among the students who often lovingly referred to her as “a cleaning lady who could have become an artist.”

Despite her demanding responsibilities for cleaning an entire building, she still managed to spare time for her paintings. As she put it, “I take pleasure in painting, so I’m happy to do it.” Moreover, every student passing through the building could glimpse her creations. Wu hoped to bring a touch of happiness to the students’ life through her art.

Wu was grateful to the students who held the exhibition for her, acknowledging that their encouragement fueled her passion. She said she would continue creating more paintings for the lovely students.