In 2017, Shenzhen completed the transition (转变) of its bus fleet to 100% electric buses. Do people like electric buses? Here are some people’s opinion on them.

Huang Xi, a passenger

I seldom took the bus before. The bus used gas and it made big noises and smelt bad. You know the traffic in Shenzhen is always busy so I always felt sick when I was on it. Here comes the electric bus. It is quiet and doesn’t have an unpleasant smell. With it, I don’t have to drive when I go out now.

Li Guo, a bus driver

The electric bus is easy to drive. But there is a problem. It takes about one hour and a half to be full-charged (充满电的). That’s too long. Sometimes I have to charge the bus during my break so as to complete a single run. It would be much better if the time can be shorter.

Wang Huinong, a manager of the bus company

I think most people will be happy with the change. The city is quieter. People pay the same fare (费用) as before. What’s more, electric buses help cut CO₂ emissions (排放) by 1.35 million tons per year. The invention of electric vehicles is really great as they are good for our environment.

During my first year of learning Chinese, I found that my high school had a sister-school-exchange program (项目) in Nanjing, China. Every summer, some students can study there and stay with host families for two and a half weeks. When I first heard about the chance to go to China, I knew I couldn’t miss it out.

Fast forward to a summer, I waved bye to my family and flew to Beijing. In the first morning in China, I experienced a Chinese breakfast unlike anything I had ever tried. We spent three days in Beijing, going around the city and visiting famous landmarks. The highlight of our trip was the Great Wall. Seeing it in person for the first time was amazing even though I had seen hundreds of videos and pictures before.

After our three days in Beijing, we took a bullet train to Nanjing, where we would stay with our host families and attend classes given by our sister school. Although my host family did not speak English, they were super welcoming, which made me feel at home. On weekdays, we attended different classes at our sister school, including cooking, music, Kung Fu, custom (习俗), art, etc. I learned a lot about Chinese culture and how different it is from the American lifestyle.

Although the study has been over, I am forever thankful to my high school for giving me the opportunity to exchange in China and to immerse (沉浸) myself in its culture and meet amazing friends who I still keep in touch with to this day. I hope that one day I will have the chance to return to China and perhaps even live there at some point in my life!

Robots and humans can work together as a team, but this brings both good and bad for teamwork. Sometimes, people depend too much on their teammates, whether they are humans or robots. A recent study shows that working with robots can make people’s motivation (动力) and effort go down.

In the study, the researchers created a pretend task where two groups of participants had to check circuit boards (电路板) for mistakes. The first group were told that a robot named Panda had already checked the circuit boards before they checked. They could see and hear the robot when they worked.

At first, it seemed like Panda’s presence didn’t make a difference. Both groups spent the same amount of time checking the boards and found a similar number of mistakes. However, when the researchers looked more closely at the mistakes, they noticed that the first group found fewer mistakes later on. This could mean that they depended too much on the robot and didn’t pay as much attention. They believed that Panda wouldn’t miss any mistakes.

The researchers warned that this could be a safety problem. In their study, they found that participants found out fewer mistakes when they worked with the robot. In longer work shifts, especially when tasks are repetitive (重复乏味的) and there isn’t much supervision (监管), the loss of motivation could be even worse. This could bring dangerous results to work, especially in jobs where double-checking is important for safety.

To understand the problem better, the researchers suggested doing studies in real workplaces with skilled workers who often work with robots. This would give us a clearer picture of how motivation is changed in real-life situations.