【推荐2】In the time of Yellow Emperor, there were no written words. People remembered things by tying knots（打结）in ropes and carving（雕刻）shapes on stone walls.

One day, Yellow Emperor discussed a matter with a wise man named Cang Jie. Cang took out a piece of knotted rope, but he found it was destroyed. It was impossible for him to remember the matter clearly. Then he turned to a stone wall, but he could hardly read the shapes on it because they were carved by another person.

“The ropes will be destroyed because of some unknown reasons. And the shapes can only be read by a few people,” Yellow Emperor said to Cang. “Can you come up with something better?”

Cang thought over the problem for days and nights. One morning after a heavy snowfall, he saw the footprints of some different animals. These footprints helped him to recognize what animals passed by. Cang suddenly had an idea. He drew a tiger and a bear on the snow-covered ground. But soon, he found this took too much time. He realized that he had to make the drawings easier.

All the shapes on the stone walls came into his mind. Cang kept making all kinds of shapes on the ground. He paid attention to drawing. To show the Sun, for example he used a circle with a dot in the middle. A half-circle and a vertical line（垂直线）made up the Moon. And three lines that are not straight were used to show water. These symbols（符号）shone brightly in the snow.

In the end, Cang created a whole set of symbols to remember things. People could easily understand these symbols. Since then, they have been able to write down their own history in this way.

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【推荐3】We spoke to three students from around the world about different national holidays. There are different customs (习俗) for each festival.

Tan Xiaodong. 15. Hong Kong, China

“It’ll be Chinese New Year soon. Before it we’ll clean the house and decorate(装饰) it for good luck. Every shop is going to close for a few days and we’ll go out a lot to celebrate in the streets. We might go and see the lion and dragon dances in the city center. I love this festival. ”

Wendy, 16, Sydney, Australia

“Australia Day is on 26th January and it’s an important holiday here. We always have a Monday off, so we celebrate for three days. My parents and I go to the countryside for a picnic and friends always come over. Many people go to beach parties or street parties and there’s lots of music and dancing. What fun!”

Amy, 14, New York, the USA

“The first Thanksgiving Day was hundreds years ago when Europeans who came to America thanked God for his help. It’s still a very important day for families to be together. This year we’re going to visit my parents and we’ll eat a delicious meal of turkey. Thanksgiving Day is on the fourth Thursday in November every year.”

【推荐1】“Which is the right bin（垃圾箱）for my garbage（垃圾）?” This may be the most asked question in Shanghai since it started a new garbage-sorting program on July 1, 2019. When learning about the four types of garbage—wet, dry, recyclable（可回收的）and harmful, many people might be confused and not clear about how to sort it.

However, you can get help from your phone now. For example, if you want to know which bin your paper should go in, you can just open a mini app in WeChat or Alipay and look for “paper”. The app will give you the answer right away. Soon, you might do it in an easier way. Maybe you can just take a photo of the garbage and then it can tell you where it should go.

Many tech（科技）companies are making garbage-sorting robots. By “seeing” pictures, the robot will pick up the trash and put it in the right place. The future of the garbage-sorting looks good. But it’s not the best way. The best thing we can do is to make less garbage in the first place.

【推荐2】When your pen is broken, the battery（电池）in your toy runs out, or you have some leftover（吃剩的）food, what do you do with these things? You will probably throw them all into one bin. But actually, all kinds of rubbish need to be sorted separately.

Rubbish sorting is a big issue（议题）worldwide. In recent years, some Chinese cities have been working hard on it, Shanghai has worked with Alipay to create a “green account（账户）” service for its residents（居民）. Account holders get points by sorting their rubbish correctly. Through the Alipay app, they can exchange the points for milk, phone cards and other products. The city is asking all of its residents to sort their rubbish into four groups: wet, recyclable, harmful and dry. Wet waste is also known as household（家庭）waste. Paper, metal and glass are recyclable waste. Medicine and batteries are harmful waste. Finally, any waste that’s not wet, recyclable or harmful will go in the “dry waste” bin. Many other Chinese cities are also doing this. Shenzhen has been sorting its rubbish into the same four groups since 2012. Students there must study waste-sorting guidebooks.

If you don’t sort your rubbish, it will go to a landfill（垃圾填埋场）and be buried together. These landfills can take up large areas of ground. Some rubbish can pollute the soil and groundwater and it can also do harm to the environment around us. China is improving its waste-sorting efforts. There is still a long way to go.

【推荐3】Garbage Sorting(垃圾分类) in China

With more and more garbage in China, Chinese people hope to find a way to deal with(处理) the problem at the source(源头). Garbage sorting may be the most useful way for it.

Background Information

Garbage sorting started a few years ago in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. In different cities, garbage sorting rules may be different.

From July 2019 in Shanghai, every family and institution(社会机构) need to sort the garbage into kitchen waste, residual waste 残余垃圾), hazardous waste(有害垃圾) and recyclable waste(可回收垃圾). Those who don’t follow the rules will get fines( 罚款) from 50 yuan to 50,000 yuan.

Results

Garbage sorting is not easy. It is also difficult for people to get used to the rules in a short time. But in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, we find a successful recycling application( 应用) of garbage sorting.