A year ago, I volunteered to teach at a small village school in Guizhou Province. As a volunteer teacher, I travelled a long way to the area. On my way there, I thought about the village, the school and the children there. However, my heart sank (下沉) when I arrived there. It wasn’t what I expected. It didn’t look like a school at all! The school had only three rooms, one for Grades 1, 2, and 3, and the other for Grades 4, 5 and 6. There was a third one for me.

The children welcomed me warmly on my first day. They asked me a lot of questions, and I told them stories about myself and my life in Shenyang. The next day, I gave them an exam to find out their level. To my surprise, though the exam was very easy, over half of the students flunked it, yet they all wanted to learn new things. I knew they needed me.

I was busy preparing lessons, correcting exam papers every night. I enjoyed teaching these lovely and hard-working children, and I could see that they were making progress with my help. I have also learned a lot from them. I understand their lives better, and we are now good friends.

I have worked there for a year now. I’m very happy, and the experience has been very useful for me. I love the small village and the children there, and they still need me.

A woman is wearing an old apron (围裙) with bright colors and creating beautiful pictures on a piece of cloth. The woman is 48-year-old Lan Lin. She is doing embroidery (刺绣) work.

“I always wear the old apron when I make new works,” Lan said. “It can give me fresh ideas and encourage me to carry on the traditional skills.”

Born into an embroidery family of the Zhuang ethnic (民族的) group in Guangxi, Lan has a natural gift for designing. At the age of 16, she designed her first piece of cloth. However, in the late 1990s, the traditional skills of the family were almost lost because many people began to use machines to embroider. To protect the family tradition, Lan set up her own workshop (作坊) and invited young artists to bring their understanding into the design to develop Zhuang embroidery.

Nowadays, Lan’s workshop makes many kinds of products, including bags, dresses and shoes. And as Zhuang embroidery works are getting popular around the world, Lan hopes to run her business with foreigners (外国人). She said she enjoyed challenging work.

Over the past 20 years, Lan has also trained over 2,000 women workers in her area. These women get a chance to work. They can do part of their embroidery work at home while looking after their children.

“I will spend my life creating beautiful Zhuang embroidery works of art and bringing the art into daily life,” Lan said.

One day, you open the fridge and find some moldy (发霉的) food. But before you can throw it away, your mother stops you. She wants to cut off the moldy part and eat the rest. Is it safe to do this?

Mold (霉菌) can grow on almost all kinds of food. Mold is usually green, white, black or grey. Mold makes food soft and changes its color. Moldy food tastes quite bad and it’s not safe to eat. If you find mold in soft food, just throw it away. Soft food, such as bread, tomatoes or hot dogs, usually contains water inside. And the water inside allows mold to easily grow below its surface. Bacteria (细菌) can also grow along with it.

But it’s easy to clean mold from hard food. The mold can’t grow very deeply inside this kind of food. According to the BBC, you should cut about 2.5 cm around and below the mold to clean it. It’s OK to cut the moldy parts out of hard food and eat the rest. But if the food is completely covered with mold, throw it away.

Most kinds of mold are bad for us. But some kinds of mold can be used to make food. For example, penicillium (青霉菌) can be used to make many types of cheeses, such as blue cheese. These cheeses are safe to eat and they’re quite delicious as well.

So, if the food is not the special cheese, stop your mother from eating it!