【推荐2】Shanghai residents passing through the city's eastern Huangpu district in October might have astonished at an unusual sight: a “walking” building. An 85-year-old primary school has been lifted off the ground and relocated using new technology named the “walking machine.”

In the city's latest effort to preserve historic structures, engineers attached nearly 200 mobile supports under the five-story building, according to Lan Wuji, chief technical supervisor (技术总监) of the project. The supports act like robotic legs. They're divided into two groups which alternately rise up and down, imitating the human pace. Attached sensors help control how the building moves forward, said Lan.

In recent decades, China's rapid modernization has seen many historic buildings razed to clear land for high-rise buildings. But there has been growing concern about the architectural heritage lost as a result of destruction across the country. Some cities have launched new preservation and conservation campaigns including, on occasion, the use of advanced technologies that allow old buildings to be relocated rather than destroyed.

Shanghai has possibly been China's most progressive city when it comes to heritage preservation. The survival of a number of 1930s buildings in the famous Bund district and 19th-century “Shikumen” houses in the rebuilt Xintiandi neighborhood have offered examples of how to give old buildings new life. The city also has a satisfying record of relocating old buildings. In 2018, the city relocated a 90-year-old building in Hongkou district, in what was then considered to be Shanghai's most complex relocation project to date.

The Lagena Primary School, which weighs 7,600 tons, posed a new challenge-it's T-shaped, while previously relocated structures were square or four-sided. Experts met to discuss possibilities and test a number of different technologies before deciding on the “walking machine”, Lan said. However, he couldn't share the exact cost of the project, and that relocation costs will differ case by case. “It can't be used as a reference, because we have to preserve the historical building no matter what,” he said. “But in general, it's cheaper than destroying and then rebuilding something in a new location.”

【推荐3】I.M. Pei, whose modern designs and high-profile projects made him one of the best-known and most prolific architects of the 20th century, has died. He was 102. A spokesman for Pei’s New York architecture firm confirmed his death to the Associated Press. Pei, whose designs included a controversial renovation of Paris’ Louvre Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, died overnight, his son Chien Chung Pei told the New York Times.

Ieoh Ming Pei, the son of an outstanding banker in China, left his homeland in 1935, moving to the US and studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. After teaching and working for the US government, he went to work for a New York developer in 1948 and started his own firm in 1955.

The museums, municipal buildings, hotels, schools and other structures that Pei built around the world showed precision geometry（几何结构）and an abstract quality with much respect for light. They were composed of stone, steel and glass and, as with the Louvre, Pei often worked glass pyramids into his projects.

The Louvre, parts of which date to the 12th century, proved to be Pei ’s most controversial work, starting with the fact that he was not French. After being chosen for the job by the then president, François Mitterrand, surrounded by much secrecy, Pei began by making a four-month study of the museum and French history. He created a futuristic(极其现代的) 70ft-tall steel-framed, glass-walled pyramid as a grand entrance for the museum with three smaller pyramids nearby. It was a striking contrast to the existing Louvre structures in classic French style and was violently criticized by many French.

Pei said the Louvre was undoubtedly the most difficult job of his career. He said he had wanted to create a modern space that did not detract（减损）from the traditional part of the museum. “Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something,” he said in a New York Times interview in 2008. “There is a certain concern for history but it’s not very deep. I understand that time has changed, we have evolved. But I don’t want to forget the beginning. A lasting architecture has to have roots.”

When Pei won the international Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983, he used the $100,000 award to start a program for aspiring Chinese architects to study in the US. Even though he formally retired from his firm in 1990, Pei was still taking on projects in his late 80s, such as museums in Luxembourg, Qatar and his ancestral home of Suzhou.

【推荐1】When Faith Wanjiku graduated from the Technical University of Kenya last year, she immediately enrolled (注册) at the Confucius Institute in Kenyatta University. She wanted to learn Chinese, as she believed that it would help her land a good job.

She has just completed the hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) 3 exam. HSK is a test of Chinese language level for non-native speakers, organized by the Confucius Institute Headquarters.

However, this level isn’t enough for Wanjiku, who plans to pass HSK 6. She wanted to increase her level of Chinese and improve her spoken Chinese. And Wanjiku isn’t alone. The number of people taking the HSK reached 6.8 million in 2018 and went up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Education said on May 31.

Chinese is becoming an increasingly popular choice of language to study around the world. Currently, middle school students in Russia can take Chinese as an elective language test in the country’s national college entrance exam, Sputnik News reported.

In May, Zambia became the fourth country in Africa-after Kenya, Uganda and South Africa—to introduce Chinese language to its schools.

And many English-speaking countries have shown an interest in allowing their students to learn Chinese. The US government announced the launch of “1 Million Strong” in 2015, a plan that aims to bring the total number of learners of Chinese to l million by 2020.

Behind the growing popularity of Chinese language learning is the international community’s positive attitude toward Chinas future development, as well as the people’s longing to learn about Chinese civilization and culture.

Indeed, it’s as the former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela put it, “if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

【推荐3】If you’re walking through Boston during a downpour, you might see a poem appear before your eyes.

Titled “Raining Poetry”, this art installation was a collaboration, which needs efforts between the nonprofit Mass Poetry and the city of Boston. The first poems were installed to honour the start of National Poetry Month. Several more were added since then. The poems are invisible during dry and sunny weather, but they appear like magic once raindrops start falling from the sky.

“We want to bring poetry to the people,” said Sara Siegel, program director for Mass Poetry. The poems were selected by Danielle Legros Georges, Boston’s poet laureate (桂冠诗人). Scattered throughout the city, Georges selected the poems mainly based on their relationship to Boston. Another factor was their general themes of water and rain.

The poems were installed by members of the Mayor’s Mural Crew,an organization that introduces young artists to the process of creating public art. The poems can be fixed to the sidewalk in minutes. It will wear away in six to eight weeks. However, the city of Boston and Mass Poetry plan on carpeting city sidewalks with more poems. “It’s a public art project, as the poems are and will be installed in public sites in Boston, and meant for everyone,” Georges said. “I think this is a wonderful way to bring poetry to the people.”

The poems appear throughout the city. While all of the poems currently installed are written in English, Siegel hopes to add new ones in the many languages. “Our hope is in the next two years everyone in the state will encounter a poem in their daily lives at least once or twice a month,” Siegel tells Guerra. “This is a fun and unusual way to bring poetry to the people.”