【推荐2】Scott Edwards stopped his cross-country bike trip when he found a red-headed woodpecker (啄木鸟). “I got my first good look today,” he says. He was phoning from his tent in Illinois later that night. “I hadn’t seen the red head until today, so I was very excited.”

Edwards is a bird researcher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Over this past summer, he rode across the United States. In some degree, he did it to see the country. But he also used the trip to do some serious bird-watching. That’s something he’s been doing for more than 40 years.

When he was growing up in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, there were lots of trees, he recalls (回想). When he was nine or ten, a neighbor took him bird-watching. Edwards has been doing it ever since. But finding those birds is getting more difficult. “The numbers of birds are dying down,” he says. And Edwards is hardly the only one to notice it. Scientists around the world have been finding the same thing.

A 2018 study by Bird Life International found that birds around the world are in trouble. There are about 11,000 species of birds. Four in every ten species of them are decreasing in number. That’s true for all kinds of birds living in all types of habitats (栖息地). Only a few members of these species remain in the wild. And even common birds are less common than they were just 50 years ago. What’s worse, that’s now true almost everywhere.

【推荐3】In 1918, my wife’s grandfather Karel Bondy, a Czech officer was on his way back to the barracks one evening when he encountered a drunk German colonel. Karel asked the officer whether he needed help. It turned out he was lost. So Karel took the colonel back to his tent.

When they arrived, the colonel insisted they have a drink together. At the end of the night the colonel decided to reward Karel with an Iron Cross for his act of kindness. Naturally, Karel protested, but his refusal was to no avail. Not only did the colonel stop him giving it back, but he handed a certificate to him. “Now it’s official, ” he said.

In 1939, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. Realizing he and his family were in mortal danger, Karel planned to relocate the family to England. But to leave he needed four exit visas, so he submitted his application to the German authorities and awaited an interview.

However, one afternoon two Gestapo officers turned up at his house. Accusing Karel of being a British spy, the officers ransacked his home looking for secret documents, only to find the Iron Cross. “How did you get this?” one officer demanded. “I got it for bravery during the First World War,” Karel replied, showing them the certificate with his name on it. The two officers marvelled at the medal they both longed for. “How much do you want for it?” the other officer demanded. At this point, Karel had to think on his feet. Should he trade the Iron Cross for the exit visas?

“Tm sorry, but l cannot part with it. I was proud to serve my country and l accepted that on behalf of the men in my unit.” This speech impressed the officers. Their attitude began to change and even tried to clean up the mess they'd made. Rubber stamps and ink pads were quickly produced and the exit documents were authorised.

Eventually, Karel and his family left for England, and started a new life there.

【推荐1】“When I was a child, I enjoyed watching Chinese dramas such as Princess Pearl and Journey to the West. Fascinated by the Chinese language and culture, I finally pursued it as my major for both my undergraduate and master’s degrees,” said Dinh Thi Thu Ha, a 32-year-old Vietnamese woman working at the waste burning power factory of China First Metallurgical(冶金)Group.

When she first applied for the job in 2019, she aimed for the translator position because the company was preparing for a Vietnam project, its first overseas waste-to-energy factory, in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and it was in great need of translators. “At first, I wasn’t sure how long I could do the job since the working environment was harsh. We were surrounded by garbage, the smell was terrible and dark-colored water would flow everywhere after the rain,” Dinh recalled. But the demanding environment was not her only difficulty as Dinh soon found out that being bilingual (双语的) wasn’t enough for her to be a qualified translator. She had to be an expert in the field of garbage disposal (垃圾处理) too.

“The biggest challenge I faced was the translation of technical terms, many of which I couldn’t understand at the time,” Dinh said. “Whenever I ran into words or expressions that I wasn’t familiar with and couldn’t look up myself, I would ask my Chinese colleagues to explain them to me. They were always eager and happy to help.” In the company’s Vietnam branch, the number of Chinese staff slightly goes beyond that of Vietnamese, but Dinh said she never felt any cultural differences. “We’re not divided by our nationalities, and we’re members of the same family — China First Metallurgical Group.”

Dinh now works as a junior manager, and her job description includes translation, foreign affairs contactor, and marketing. As a local resident of Hanoi, Dinh is very proud to have contributed to this project. “I hope to improve my information research and negotiation skills in the future and to further explore and develop the Vietnamese market with my colleagues.”

【推荐3】It was the early 2000s. I stood on the corner of a street in Abu Dhabi, me and my two little boys, trying to catch a taxi, when one came to a stop in front of us.

The three of us got into the vehicle and I gave the driver the location, hardly giving him a second look. He was just the driver of the taxi. Who notices taxi drivers anyway?

As usual, the boys had hardly settled in when they began bickering(吵架) over some silly issue. Soon, it had turned into a fistfight(拳斗)between the two, with me reduced to a useless audience after vain(徒劳的)attempts at sorting it out. I finally gave up, turning to look out of the window.            

“A healthy fight between brothers is a good sign. Let them be,” came a soft voice from in front of me.

I turned and met the driver ‘s eyes in the rear-view mirror(后视镜)   “It’s a natural growing-up stage. Enjoy it while you can. Look at me, even if I wished for it, I cannot see my children grow up let alone fight!”he added.

That began a conversation between us. The man had left his wife and children back in Pakistan, living as he did far away in a different country in order to provide a good life for them. He had missed their first baby steps, their first words, so many significant milestones.

Suddenly, the man was no longer just a taxi driver. He was human too. He had a family to take care of, he had his good days and bad days, he had hopes and dreams.

The conversation between the taxi driver and me lasted through the duration(期间) of the ride and its effects lasted much longer for me.