【推荐1】There are many interesting festivals in the world. Some look really strange, but they have special meanings in their culture. Here are several strange festivals in the world.

Holi Festival

Holi is a festival held in India for 16 days in the spring season. In this festival, people in colorful clothes go outside at night to throw colors on each other happily. The story behind this festival is that the god Krishna got jealous(妒忌的) of his wife’s white skin so he went to his mother crying about his dark skin. His mother advised him to color his wife’s face the color he wanted.

Magpie Festival

On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, Chinese people celebrate an occasion that look like western Valentine’s Day. In this festival, girls who don’t marry pray to have good husbands They also embroider(刺绣) a piece of cloth show their skills because they think it is the most important skill a wife should have.

Day of Death

Day of Death is a festival held in Mexico on the second of November. This day is meant to remember dead family. Homes and streets are decorated in bright colors. People who are dressed in skeletons(骷髅) decorated with flowers and different colors go to visit the graves, dancing and singing here. The festival goes back to American Indians who were keeping their family’s skeletons to honor their memory.

Day of Silence

Day of Silence is the Indonesian new year, and this day is quite important in Indonesia. What features this festival is its unique activities. Everyone keeps silent. People don’t use cars. They don’t go to work and they stop doing anything joyful.

【推荐1】Children under five must spend less time sitting watching screens or staying in prams, get better quality sleep and have more time for active play if they are to grow up healthy, according to new guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The new guidelines on physical activity, sedentary (久坐的) behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age were developed by a WHO panel of experts. They assessed the effects of inadequate (不足的) sleep on young children, and time spent sitting watching screens or restrained (被限制) in chairs and prams. They also reviewed evidence around the benefits of increased activity levels.

Failure to meet current physical activity recommendations is responsible for more than 5 million deaths globally each year across all age groups. Currently, over 23% of adults and 80% of adolescents are not sufficiently physically active. If healthy physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep habits are established early in life, this helps shape habits through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood.

“What we really need to do is bring back play for children,” says Dr Juana Willumsen, who focuses on childhood obesity and physical activity. “This is about making the shift from sedentary time to playtime, while protecting sleep.”

The pattern of overall 24-hour activity is key: replacing sedentary screen time with more active play, while making sure young children get enough good-quality sleep. Quality time spent in interactive non-screen-based activities with a caregiver, such as reading, storytelling, singing and puzzles, is very important for child development.

The important interactions between physical activity, sedentary hehaviour and adequate sleep time, and their impact on physical and mental health and well-being, were fully recognized, which called for clear guidance on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep in young children.

Applying the recommendations in these guidelines during the first five years of life will contribute to children’s motor and cognitive development and lifelong health.

【推荐2】The US tech giant Microsoft Corp and the leadership consulting firm DDI worked together on a new project on Thursday, with the goal of helping more than 1 million women in China improve their digital skills and embrace the digital future.

The Women Digital Future project came as reports show that women have been more negatively impacted by the COVID-19 than men, and an improvement in digital skills is expected to help them better deal with the bad results from it.

Microsoft said it will partner with a number of companies and organizations to help women in multiple ways, as COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation worldwide and women are faced with more challenges in both life and work.

Alain Crozier, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Greater China, said, “Microsoft has always placed a high value on the development of our female employees and strongly promoting the power of women to drive the world forward.”

Mindy Yeh, managing director of Greater China, said the company’s global survey shows that there are nearly double the number of female leaders at the top 20 percent of well-performing companies than in the bottom 20 percent. Moreover, they have clear advantages in terms of teamwork and interaction.

Cecilia Qi, general manager of GSK China, said, “Digital transformation is both an opportunity and a challenge for women. This is especially the case in the new era, which requires companies to provide women with more support to help them achieve better work-life balance and continue to gain success as they continue forward in their career. Success belongs to everyone, and I believe that, in the future, society will be more supportive of women and provide them with more equal career opportunities.”