【推荐2】A 63-year-old Chinese grandpa’s traditional carpentry skills are delighting tens of millions of viewers online as he creates woodwork without glue, screws or nails.

The Chinese master carpenter, Wang Dewen, known as “Grandpa Amu” on YouTube, has been honored as the modern day Lu Ban, a famous Chinese structural engineer during the Zhou Dynasty, thanks to his vast carpentry knowledge. One of his videos, which shows him making a fantastic wooden arch bridge, went viral on the platform, gaining more than 42 million views.

Grandpa Amu follows an ancient Chinese technique, which means no nails or glue are involved in the entire process of building the arch bridge. Grandpa Amu has also made several wooden toys for his grandson using the same technique. He created a folding stool (凳子) that looked like the China pavilion from the 2010 Shanghai Expo. “A block of wood transforms into a stool. Genius,” a YouTube user named Rey commented under the video.

Li Ziqi, who lives in a picturesque village of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, has made a name for herself by making various Chinese dishes on YouTube since 2016. In her videos, she gracefully works as a farmer, impressing viewers with her understanding of food, nature and Chinese culture while showcasing the charm of Chinese culture in every detail of daily life. Her traditional food preparation craft and Chinese rural lifestyle have attracted 11.1 million subscribers on YouTube. Just like Li Ziqi, Grandpa Amu is also trying to spread unique Chinese techniques to the world.

Grandpa Amu’s son and daughter-in-law now work full time on his videos, hoping that the channel’s popularity would help local villagers better sell their farm produce.“ We came up with the idea of making the videos because we wanted to bring our rural culture to others and let people learn about these ancient Chinese techniques,” said Huang Chunmei, Grandpa Amu’s daughter-in-law, in an interview with South China Morning Post. Which is one of Song Dan’s work at the airport as a Customs Officer?

【推荐3】I have been in England for three months now. I hope you don’t think I’ve forgotten you. There have been so many places to see and so many things to do that I’ve not had much time for writing letters.

I shall soon be starting my studies at King’s College in London. So far I’ve been learning about England and British ways of living. There are lots of books you can read and lots of pictures you can look at about this famous city. I’m sure you’ll be more interested to know what I think about life here.

I find some of the customs interesting. People here do not shake hands as much as we do in the mainland of Europe. During the first few weeks I was often surprised because people did not put out their hands when I met them. Men raise their hats to women but not to each other.

【推荐2】A famous teacher was speaking to the students at our school. He began his lesson by holding up a ￡100 bill. Then he said to the three hundred students, “Who would like to have this ￡100 bill?” The students began to put up their hands at once.

Then he said, “I am going to give this bill to one of you, but first, let me do this.” He then made this bill into a ball. Then he said, “Who wants it?” Hands went into the air.

“Well,” he said, “What if I do this?” and he dropped it on the floor and stepped(踩) on it. He picked up the dirty, crumpled(弄皱) bill and said, “Who still wants it?” Hands went back into the air.

“My friends,” he said, “You’ve learned a valued lesson today. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it didn’t go down in value. It was still worth ￡100.”

Many times in our lives, we’re dropped, crumpled, and stepped on by the chances we take and the things that happen to us. We feel as if we are worth nothing. But remember, no matter what has happened to you, you will never lose your value: you are always valuable to those who love you. Your value doesn’t come from what you drop or whom you know, but WHO YOU ARE .

You are special and valuable. Don’t ever forget it!

【推荐3】Living abroad requires a delicate adjustment and balancing of cultures. Moving from Scotland to Austria, the differences aren’t so great, perhaps, as with a relocation to Asia or Africa. But things are still different enough to be unsettling.

One of the first differences I noticed was the opening hours of shops here. During the week, supermarkets close at 7:30 pm, at the latest. On Sundays, they aren’t open at all. No shops are. I ate out on my first Sunday here, and I learned my lesson. To begin with, I thought it was highly convenient. What if I ran out of milk in the evening, or wanted to buy biscuits before bed? In the UK, I was so used to massive supermarkets, which stayed open until at least 10:00 pm, if not for twenty-four hours. But now, I panic buying food every Saturday, to ensure my cupboards are well-stocked for the next day. “What do people do here on Sundays?” I asked my flat mate after my first Sunday here. She just looked at me. “Nothing.” she replied. She lived in London for a year, she told me, and when her Austrian friends came to visit her, instead of going to bars in the evenings, they wanted to spend time in twenty-four hour Tesco. They’d run round the aisles, amazed at the number of people shopping at midnight, at the size of the supermarket, and at the amount of choice contained within it.

If it’s inconvenient, then there’s also something nice about it. Who needs to be able to buy soup or soap or bread twenty four hours a day? No one really needs to of course, it’s just nice to know that we can. But it’s nice, too, to have Sundays completely free from material worries, Sundays here are all about relaxing for hours in coffee shops, spending time with friends and catching up on last-minute work before the week begins again on Monday. Sunday is a day of rest, whether religious or not, and a day of pure pleasure.

People in the UK often complain. “I thought Sundays were meant to be a day of rest! ”while rushing to work, doing chores or standing in queues in shops. Well, here in Austria, it really is a day of rest. It’s different, but it’s a difference I could certainly get used to.