【推荐1】There are a few special days for shopping, and they are interesting.

On Nov. 11, there is a holiday created by Chinese people for singles(单身人士). It is known as Singles’ Day. However, now it has become the biggest online shopping day in the world. T-mall, Taobao and many other online shopping sites have huge sales on this day to attract shoppers. This year’s sales reached 253.97 billion yuan.

There are similar shopping days in the United States as well. The most famous of these is Black Friday. It always falls on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. On this day, stores will have specials, just like on Singles’ Day in China.

On Black Friday, shoppers will often wake up very early to wait in line at stores before they open. They might start to wait in line as early as 2 or 3 am. Sometimes the crowds will be so big that it is impossible to get inside the store.

Another similar holiday is Cyber(网络的) Monday. This day always falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving. It is like Singles’ Day, since it is only for online shopping.

In my opinion, I don’t like any of these holidays. They place too much importance on buying things. I prefer to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. It is a ‘holiday’ that falls on the same day as Black Friday. It is an international day of protest(抗议) to the problem of over-consumption(消费过度). What do you think about these holidays?

【推荐2】How do you celebrate your birthday? Peter interviewed some people from four countries. Let’s take a look.

With the development of China, many traditional ink paintings (水墨画) about poverty alleviation (扶贫) show the changes in southern Chinese villages.

Shang Xinzhou, a painter from the Guangxi Art University, has been creating traditional ink paintings for many years. His paintings show the life in poor areas.

“Thanks to my experience in Duomai Village, I can make the paintings much lovelier,” said the painter, who has spent two and a half years working there.

Shang’s paintings show the progress in the fight against poverty. His works show changes from difficult local conditions and people’s hard times to better conditions and happy lives.

“I like drawing people’s real lives, and paintings can be a bridge for communication between the local people and me,” said Shang.

During his stay, he put his paintings about the local life on the Internet to help villagers sell their products. To make the nightlife there richer, he sold paintings to buy streetlights, so people could enjoy square dancing in the evening.

Shang’s excellent works were popular in the village. “I love his paintings and they show great changes in our village,” said a farmer.

In recent years, more artists have traveled to mountain villages to record the development of China’s poor areas, telling stories of the country’s fight against poverty.

“I’ve seen the local poverty alleviation. I want to record the changes of the poor areas and create more works about people,” said Shang.

【推荐2】Steve is very interested in painting. He plans to become an artist when he grows up. Drawing makes him feel very happy. He often reads some books about painting to find his feelings. In the painting class last week, he drew a duck with one leg. It has a strange shape. When he showed his works to his teachers and classmates, they were surprised. They didn’t understand. It made Steve shy and nervous. After class, his teacher told him to prepare the works to display in the next class. Mr. Green cared for him and comforted him. Steve thought he was kind. He drew a flying horse with wings (翅膀).

It’s time for the painting class. Steve was very anxious. He was afraid that his classmates would laugh at (嘲笑) him.

Mr. Green said to the students with a smile on his face, “Good morning, class, we are going to paint…”

While waiting, Steve guessed what the teacher would say. Suddenly the teacher smiled and said, “You can play freely. Your painting makes people feel happy.”

“Yes! Great!” said Steve excitedly.

Steve started to paint a running horse easily on a large piece of white paper. It was not a flying horse. It was really beautiful. It looked like a real horse. The whole class cheered for him and felt proud of him.

From that day on, Steve was never nervous about art classes.

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