According to China Daily, China plans to vaccinate (接种疫苗) 40 percent of its population by June. The vaccine capacity (疫苗容量) will reach 2.1 billion doses (剂) by the end of 2021. At the same time, China has reached out to other countries in need. The country is exporting (出口) COVID-19 vaccines to 27 countries and providing free vaccine aid for 53 countries, including Pakistan, Cambodia, Laos and Mongolia.

However, global vaccination is highly unbalanced (不平衡的), Zhang Wenhong, director of the Department of Infectious Disease at the Huashan Hospital of Fudan University, said on March 1st. Full vaccine coverage (覆盖率) can be achieved only in the United States, Europe and a few other countries, such as China and Russia. Small and medium-sized developing countries could reach wide vaccine coverage a year behind larger developing and developed countries, according to the World Bank.

For those countries that have not yet got a vaccine, China may be the only solution (解决办法). China is one of the few nations that can produce a large number of vaccines. What’s more, China has joined COVAX which is organized by the World Health Organization to make sure that all members get the vaccine in the future. China has decided to offer 10 million vaccines to COVAX, Xinhua reported.

“We must make sure that no country in need of the vaccines is left behind and no individuals (个人) waiting for vaccines aren’t noticed,” said Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who pointed out that nothing matters more than the people and nothing is more valuable than human lives.

The film My People, My Country hit Chinese cinemas to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China last year. According to general director Chen Kaige and six other directors, the film focuses on national memories and tells ordinary Chinese people’s stories.

A British man has learned the skills needed to perform Beijing Opera, making the audience (观众) enjoy his lively performance of the Monkey King.

Ghaffar Pourazar, born in Iran, said he has been a big fan of Bruce Lee since he was a child and is full of interest about China. In 1993, he happened to watch Beijing Opera performed in London by professionals(艺术家) from Jingju Theatre Company of Beijing. Ghaffar said he fell in love with the beautiful voices, colorful costurnes, excellent shows and so on. So after one year, he arrived in China alone and became a student of Beijing Opera at a Beijing school.

At the age of 32, he had to learn with teenage students every day, starting from the most basic training of the legs and waist(腰). At the time, he was mostly troubled by the dialogue in Beijing Opera. To him, it was the biggest obstacle. But he never gave up.

Four years later, he began to learn to perform the Monkey King, a traditional character from the Chinese classic story Journey to the West. He said he arrived in the workroom an hour earlier than other performers and also bought books and CDs to better understand the character.

Ghaffar today is not only good at speaking Beijing dialect(方言) but has also built a fame for Beijing Opera. He once got a top international prize for performing the Monkey King.

To help more people enjoy Beijing Opera, Ghaffar often teaches the traditional art form in schools in the United States, Britain and other countries. When he found that the language was difficult to understand, he started to translate Beijing Opera song lyrics. Ghaffar led a group of actors to perform 66 times in a month and a half in the United States. He also led a 48—member team to perform in Malaysia. In the past 10 years, he has performed in more than 400 shows.

BOOM! That’s a word we often use to describe a loud sound. It’s also part of the term “sonic boom (音爆)”, which is something that happens when air is pushed so strongly and quickly that it creates a loud noise.

On March 20, a rare day-time meteor (流星) created a sonic boom over parts of the UK and France, according to Live Science. The meteor flew through the sky so fast that it could hardly be seen but it could certainly be heard.

So how exactly are sonic booms made? You can think of air as being like water. When something moves through water, you can see ripples (波纹). If the object moves very quickly, the ripples start to run into each other.

The same thing happens in the air, even if it can’t be seen. When the object moves faster than the speed of sound, the air is pushed hard, and it compresses (压缩) like the ripples on water. This will create a sound wave that is very loud, which is a sonic boom.

In fact, lots of things can make sonic booms. When you go to the park and see people play with whips (鞭子) and tops (陀螺), you might hear a tiny sonic boom when they hit the whip quickly. Aircraft that travel faster than the speed of sound can also make sonic booms.

A strong sonic boom can cause damage to windows or buildings, although the possibility of this is very low, according to the US Air Force. The loud sound can also disturb people on the ground and even cause hearing loss. That’s why supersonic aircraft are only allowed in times of war.