Have you noticed that there are more parks in cities these days? From “pocket parks” between communities to forest parks in the outer cities, local governments have been making efforts to make China’s cities greener.

    1    . These leisure spaces open up forests so that visitors can walk through nature and get closer to wildlife. The city will build more than 50 woodland parks by 2025.

In some cities, more companies and universities have chosen to “open their gates” and share their greenery. For example, the Shanghai Research Institute of Sport Science opened its 1,000 km² green land to the public. The park is joined by historical buildings in the area,     2    . In Nanning, parks aren’t just used for leisure. For one thing, parks have become a place to spread intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) to the public. The People’s Park has held several shows for free. And these parks also welcome visitors to watch Nanning’s traditional Yong Opera.     3    . That’s why the new Nanning Flowers Park provides several yards for playing ball games, and it often holds fitness activities.

Besides meeting people’s needs,     4    . Take Beijing’s Central Green Forest Park as an example. The park has reached carbon-neutral (碳中和) since it was opened in 2020. This means that although the facilities (设施) lead to the increase of CO₂ in the park, the plants there can take in more to make up. The park also fully reuses rainwater and creates green energy for the park.

    5    . They meet people’s needs for a better living experience and are a people-centered idea that takes the form of an improved natural environment in all fields.

5 . Two days after eight e-sports (电子竞技) games were officially announced to be included in the 19th Asian Games, China’s Edward Gaming (EDG) team won its first League of Legends World championship title on November 7th, immediately drawing cheers from people around the country. The topic “EDG wins” had been viewed more than 2.63 billion times as of press on Sina Weibo.

With the popularity of digital technology, new forms of cultural exchanges have been appearing, of which e-sports are the most popular. Unlike texts and videos, e-sports go beyond the barriers (障碍) of language and are understandable around the world. E-sports mostly attract those in their early 20s, as shown by the carnival (狂欢) of college students. That in turn makes them a good bridge of communication between young Chinese people and their counterparts (对应的人) around the world.

More importantly, the e-sports industry is going on in spreading Chinese culture, as the large audiences mean huge commercial potential. In 2020 alone, the sales of the e-sports industry was over 278.69 billion yuan, which in turn created over 10 million jobs. According to a media report, nearly 95 percent of graduates from e sports majors at the Communication University of China in Nanjing, succeeded in finding a job after graduation this year, with 62 percent of then devoted to the e-sports industry.

The inclusion of e-sports in major sporting events has been a much-discussed topic in recent years. With more Chinese gaming clubs and teams appearing, the industry is expected to further prosper (繁荣) and continue spreading Chinese culture to the world.

The world’s leading researchers are studying our senses. From the connection between taste and smell, to the idea of “scent（气味）training”, there’s so much more than we think to our sense of smell.

Your sense of smell is largely responsible for your ability to taste food. “Flavor（味道）is really an experience that joins what happens on your tongue with smell,” says a professor at the University of York, UK. “When you put something in your mouth, the molecules（分子）go into your nose. Maybe your tongue can tell there’s fat in that chocolate, and that’s something the brain finds very satisfying, but the formal chocolate experience comes from all the molecules going into your nose.”

Women out-perform men when both groups are asked to tell a certain number of scents

That holds true across all age groups. This is because women are better at noticing a smell and better at describing it with language. Research shows that when people were asked to memorize eight scents and were then given a scent test, the women were better able to tell whether or not a scent was one of the ones that had been memorized. Women were also better at recognizing the scents by name.

Your eating habits may change because of the loss of smell

“You think, ‘I remember how this tasted in the past. I guess they don’t have the same tasty tomatoes or meat any more, ’”says a researcher. “But in fact, it’s your sense of smell that may be working less.” Losing the sense of smell is likely age-related or caused by a cold.

The loss of smell may even change people’s eating habits. Some people will lose interest in eating or don’t want to eat with their friends. Others will start eating lots of junk food, spices, salt, to try to make eating more enjoyable.

Scent training might protect our sense of smell

The loss of smell is not the end of the world. Some research suggests that scent training might protect our sense of smell. By breathing in strong smells on purpose for several weeks, people become more sensitive（敏感的）to all scents and improve their ability to smell. Researchers found the MRI brain images of people undergoing scent training got thicker in the parts of the brain responsible for dealing with the role of scent, which means it’s not just a nose that is trained, it’s the whole brain.

7 . Before he sailed around the world alone, Francis Chichester had already surprised his friends several times. He had tried to fly around the world but failed. That was in 1931.

The years passed. He gave up flying and began sailing. He enjoyed it greatly. Chichester was already 58 years old when he won the first solo transatlantic sailing race. His old dream of going around the world came back, but this time he would sail. His friends and doctors did not think he could do it, as he had lung cancer. But Chichester was determined to carry out his plan. In August 1966, at the age of nearly 65, an age when many men retire, he began the greatest voyage of his life.

Chichester covered 14,100 miles before stopping in Sydney, Australia. This was more than twice the distance anyone had previously sailed alone. He arrived in Australia on 12 December, just 107 days out from England. He received a warm welcome from the Australians and from his family who had flown there to meet him. On shore, Chichester could not walk without help. Everybody said the same thing: he had done enough; he must not go any further. But he did not listen.

After resting in Sydney for a few weeks, Chichester set off once more in spite of his friends'’ attempts to dissuade(劝阻) him. The second half of his voyage was by far the more dangerous part, during which he sailed around the treacherous Cape Horn, succeeding in sailing round Cape Horn. Chichester sent the following radio message to London: “I feel as if I had wakened from a nightmare. Wild horses could not drag me down to Cape Horn and that sinister Southern Ocean again.”

Just before 9 o’clock on Sunday evening 28 May 1967, he arrived back in England, where a quarter of a million people were waiting to welcome him. Queen Elizabeth II knighted(授以爵位) him with the very sword that Queen Elizabeth had used almost 400 years earlier to knight Sir Francis Drake after he had sailed round the world for the first time. The whole voyage from England and back had covered 28,500 miles. It had taken him nine months, of which the sailing time was 226 days. He had done what he wanted to accomplish.

You’re probably really worried about your sick relative and fear that everyone else in your family will get sick. Fortunately, it’s possible to prevent the virus from spreading, even if you all live together.

    1     Try not to worry about your sick family members because most cases of COVID-19 are not that serious. If your family member has COVID-19, they need to stay home unless they’re seeing a doctor.

The best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to stay away from people who are ill, but this is very hard if one of your family members is sick.     2     Keep the door of this room closed to stop the spread of the virus. Then, keep healthy family members in a different room except when you’re providing care.

Since the virus can live on surfaces, using shared space with a sick family member increases your risk of getting sick. If your home has more bathrooms, allow the sick family member to have their own bathroom until they recover.     3    

You may be used to sharing things with your family members, but it’s important to stop until they get better. When your sick family member uses things like kitchen dishes and towels, those things are polluted. Sharing these things increases your risk of getting sick.     4    

Keep visitors out of your home until your family member recovers.     5     If you do, they’ll be at risk of getting sick.

9 . Water is important to all living things but some areas in the world are short of water a lot. So we should try to protect and save water.

A group of students from Zhejiang University have successfully developed an “air hand-washing machine”. The machine uses an infrared ray induction system (红外线感应系统), which can feel the presence of our hands. If it feels there are hands, the water with the air will come from the tap. And it has been proven that it is nearly as effective as traditional hand-washing. It uses only ten percent of the water that regular hand-washing does. The students have even set up a company to introduce the product to the public.

Li Qizhang, a member of the team that developed the machine, told a reporter that a model of their machine had already been placed in a classroom building at the university and it worked very well.

In 2014, a student called Chen Puyang first thought of the idea while he was washing his hands. Washing one’s hands uses a lot of water, Chen thought. Would it be possible to replace the water with air? Others may not give the question a second thought. However, for Chen and Li, who were studying fluid mechanics (流体力学) at the time, this was considered to be an excellent idea.

Soon, Chen, Li and several classmates started on the project. After a year of research, the team came up with a gravity-driven (重力驱动) hand-washing machine successfully.