【推荐2】China’s Grand Canal

For centuries, the power of Chinese emperors rose and fell with their control of the Grand Canal. Today, this waterway is shorter than it once was, but it is still the longest man-made river in the world. Importantly, the Grand Canal continues to provide a necessary cultural and economic(经济的) link for modern China.

The first canal system began around the year 605. China’s Emperor Yang realized that he needed a better way to feed his army. Specifically, he needed a way to move food quickly from China’s southern rice-growing area to the country’s north. So, the emperor ordered the building of the first section of the Grand Canal, connecting canals, lakes, and rivers. About one million people—mostly farmers—worked on the big project, which took six years.

In addition to moving rice around China, the Grand Canal was an important cultural conduit. Soldiers, businessmen, and artists transported ideas, local foods, and cultural practices from one part of China to another. According to some old stories, this is how Beijing got two of the best-known symbols. Peking duck, a dish from Shandong Province, and the Peking opera, from Anhui and Hubei areas, were both brought north through the canal.

For more than a thousand years, goods have been transported along the Grand Canal. Even today, the country’s watery highway plays an important economic role in China. Boats continue to carry tons of coal, food, and other goods to points between Hangzhou and Jining—now the northernmost city the canal reaches.

In 2014, the historic Grand Canal was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site(联合国教科文组织世界遗产地). It is hoped that the Grand Canal—one of the world’s great engineering achievements—will continue to link north and south China for centuries to come.

These days, both augmented reality (AR)* and virtual reality(VR)* are still something new and they are just toys because of their high cost and data usage. However, not too long from now, 5G will make them much more common both at work and in our homes. You might see people wearing AR glasses or VR headsets* while waiting for the bus or sitting in the office.

One of the most expected changes will be VR and AR’s influence on the gaming industry. Nowadays, most VR games are limited when compared to the latest console games*. With the power of 5G, VR gamers will be able to see, hear, and feel virtual environments without waiting. What’s more, if you want to play a game using a VR headset, you need a machine such as a PC or a gaming console that has a large amount of storage. This means you usually have to stay in one place while playing VR games. The arrival of 5G means we will be able to move advantages and disadvantages away from the PC and into the cloud so that we only need a headset. You will be able to play VR games anywhere in real time with a headset.

Such headsets and other 5G wearables will also bring great changes to the workplace. In 5G smart factories, for example, all of the equipment is connected to a single network. Workers can use 5G headsets when solving problems. Using AR headsets, they can be informed about a problem and shown how to fix it through a heads-up display.

AR adds digital elements* to real-world environments through a smartphone or a pair of smart glasses. One example is Nintendo’s AR Pokemon Go game, which uses a phone’s GPS to show Poké mon as if they are actually in the real world. VR is total immersion* in a 3D computer-generated environment. Users can interact with the environment using VR headsets and gloves. VR is typically used for computer games or in exhibitions.