Rongjiang county, tucked away in the rainy hills of south-west China, has little going for it at first glance. The grey tiles covering houses in the county sea give it a rather drab feel. Locals often have to find work elsewhere, travelling to distant factories and construction sites.

Yet this summer it was Chinese from far-off cities who flocked to Rongjiang. They came to watch an amateur football league involving 20 of the county’s villages. It started in May and quickly became a       1    . Weekend matches between teams made up of butchers and farmers drew crowds of nearly 50, 000, straining the local stadium. Millions more watched on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

There are many reasons behind the popularity of the Rongjiang league, which is men only. Start with the     2     of professional football. Despite decades of investment, the country’s players are not very good. The men’s national team, made up of players from China’s top league, ranks 78th in the world (the women rank 14th). It has only qualified for the World Cup once, in 2002, when it failed to score a single goal.

The Rongjiang league, by contrast, has an authentic, even wholesome feel. Football in the county dates back to the 1940s, when it was     3     by university students who were fleeing China’s cities during the invasion by Japan. Today the games are free to watch and feel enjoyably low pressure. Players     4     off their missed shots with smiles. After a penalty shoot-out in the semi-finals, fans swarmed the pitch waving China’s national flag. The winners of this year’s tournament, from a village in Chejiang township, walked away with a cow. The two runners-up won three pigs and three goats, respectively.

The league’s cultural diversity is another     5    . The players come from several minority ethnic groups, of which the biggest are the Dong and the Miao. During breaks in the matches, villagers in traditional silver headdresses often dance for the crowd.

To the delight of officials at all levels, the league appears to have stimulated the local economy. During the Dragon Boat festival in June tourism spending     6     up, much of it coming from football fans. Vendors at the hundreds of stalls set up by the local government outside the stadium     7     a brisk trade. A man hawking barbecue skewers says he has doubled his income.

But there are concerns that the success of Rongjiang may be fleeting. Attracting crowds to this part of China is not easy. The city of Zibo, in the northern province of Shandong, provides a     8     tale. It became a social-media phenomenon when word of its delicious kebabs began making the rounds earlier this year. Tourists flocked to the city, where officials turned arenas into makeshift dining halls. But after a few months of this barbecue craze, interest in Zibo slumped.

Still, officials think they have found a winning strategy for the countryside. A new football league began this month and will     9     until October. It involves nearly 300 amateur teams from all around China. Each is named after a food. On August 13th a team called the Sour Soups from the nearby city of Kaili beat the Bamboo Shoots from the southern province of Guangdong. The stadium in Rongjiang was still     10    .

Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima was born on 22 September 1976 in a poor suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Like most of his childhood friends, Ronaldo began his football (soccer) career playing barefoot in the streets of his neighbourhood. At the age of 14, he joined Sao Cristovao football club and only two years later became the star of Cruzeiro Esporte Clube in Belo Horizonte     1     a total of 58 goals in 60 matches and earning himself a reputation for his explosive pace and     2     finishing skills. His goal — scoring record and unusual quickness led him to be     3     in the Brazilian World Cup winning team the following year. After the World Cup, many top European football clubs were trying to     4     him. Many people, including Brazilian football legend Pele, considered him as the most     5     footballer of his generation.

Since his     6     to Dutch team PSV Eindhoven, Ronaldo’s biography has been one success after another. Two Copa America’s, a UEFA Super Cup, a Dutch Cup, a Spanish Super Cup, and two Player of the Year awards from FIFA, all in the space of two years, are some of Ronaldo’s impressive     7    . On arrival to Inter Milan in 1997, Ronaldo became the idol of the local fans who refer to him as “il Fenomeno (奇才)”.

Since the 1998 World Cup he has suffered serious knee injuries that have severely limited his     8    . Just when people began to wonder whether Ronaldo would be able to continue with his football career, he     9     to the world that he still could play. In the World Cup held in Korea and Japan, the magical striker won the Golden Shoe award and tied Pele’s Brazilian record for career World Cup goals with 12. He helped Brazil     10     its fifth World Cup championship on 30 June with a 2-0 win over Germany. It was the third time that Ronaldo had ever played in the World Cup.

What makes this year’s World Cup special?

This year’s FIFA World Cup kicked off in Qatar on Nov 20. In this sports event, a total of 32 teams will compete with each other for 28 days. But     1    makes this year’s World Cup “stand out” is its numerous historical footnotes, for better or for worse. Let’s see some of them.

Qatar has been     2    regular in the Asian Cup in recent years as well as a 2019 Asian Cup winner, gaining seven-game wins and scoring 19 goals that year. Its soccer team, however, has never previously qualified for a World Cup for either the men’s or women’s editions. Winning the right to host the 2022 tournament makes Qatar become the first country since Italy in 1934 to play in a World Cup without first     3     (qualify) for it.

Typically, the FIFA World Cup is held in May, June or July for suitable weather conditions. Yet, the sports event this year     4    (change) to winter to accommodate Qatar’s local temperatures.    5    (locate) in the desert, Qatar whose summer months usually reach above a temperature of 40°C, would be a nightmare for outdoor sports players. Playing in such temperatures means both being unable to play well and putting themselves at risk. Doing sports in intense heat may lead to dehydration (脱水), vision loss, fainting, and other such problems, noted the website Football.

    6    these considerations, Qatar has still stirred up some controversies (争议).    7    of them has been about player preparation. According to Fox Sports, many teams usually have plenty of time to prepare in advance. Soccer seasons often start in late August and wrap up the following May.    8    the World Cup begins, soccer teams still have three or four tune-up (热身) matches lasing several weeks. The coaches can also decide which team members can play in a match after seeing all of their players train and compete up close. Because of the unusual timing of the Qatar World Cup, however, this won’t leave any time for friendly matches ahead of the main event.

To successfully hold the World Cup, Qatar needed to build more sports stadiums and other relevant infrastructure, like airports, metro lines and roads. This     9     (overwhelm) need for new construction created a high demand for labor. This demand was fulfilled by bringing 30,000 migrant workers to work on these projects since 2010. Some are reported     10     (treat) poorly, having their wages deducted (克扣) or even going unpaid for months. That has attracted criticism from some organizations around the world.

8 . Can Exercise Make You More Creative?

If you often exercise, there is a good chance you also tend to be more creative, according to a study of the links between physical activity and imagination. The study, which was published in Scientific Reports, finds that active people come up with more and better ideas during tests of their inventiveness than people who are relatively sedentary.

Science already offers plenty of evidence that physical activity influences how we think. Many studies on people and animals show that our brains change in response to physical activity, in part because during exercise we marinate(浸泡)our brains with extra blood, oxygen and nutrients. In rodent(啮齿动物)studies, animals that regularly exercise produce far more new brain cells than sedentary counterparts, even if they are elderly.     1    .

However, creativity is one of the most abstract of thinking skills, and its relationship with exercise has not been clear. Some past research had speculated that good moods might be the intermediary inking activity and creativity. According to that idea, moving makes people happier, and their good cheer in turn stimulates their creativity.     2    .

To learn more about how being active could possibly affect creativity in the first place, researchers at the University of Graz in Austria tracked the normal activities of a group of healthy adults.     3     Then they asked them to visit the lab and let their imaginations soar, conceiving new uses for car tires and umbrellas and finishing partial drawings. The researchers then rated their output on its originality and other measures. The volunteers also completed standardized questionnaires about their moods.

Crosschecking the data, the scientists found that the most active of the volunteers proved to be also the most creative, especially if they often walked or exercised moderately. Active people also tended to be in high spirits, although their moods were highest if they engaged in vigorous activities, rather than moderate ones. However, the correlations between activity, creativity and moods were slight.     4    

The study was associational, though, meaning that it looked at a brief moment in people’s lives. It did not involve a randomized experiment and cannot tell us how exercise and other activities might shape creativity, if not by raising moods, or show whether a brisk walk now helps us better finish a newspaper column or some other creative venture later. But the results do suggest that active imaginations start with active lives.

It was very hot outside. The Chengdu Little Warriors were facing off against the Legendary Mighty Dragons of Beijing at a local indoor skating-rink (溜冰场). When I arrived, the Little Warriors, whose oldest player was eight years old, had just     1     their northern competitors. Near the lockers, a poster advertised hockey classes. Olympic     2     has begun to spread so far south that Chengdu now has nine skating-rinks and local hockey leagues for both kids and adults. It clearly shows China’s     3     to take the opportunity of holding the Olympics to promote winter sports across the country.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were praised as a success by almost every     4    : the wonderful opening ceremony, the tight security, the large crowds of     5     volunteers, and Team China’s place atop the gold-medal rankings. Each aspect of the event signaled the country’s arrival as a world power, capable of competing with the best and winning.

If 2008 was about China getting a seat at the table, the 2022 Winter Olympic Games     6     a different purpose. China's status as a global power is no longer in question. Beijing 2022 will not be just a two-week sporting event but the     7     of a multi-year campaign to promote winter sports. “ We no longer need to put on shows of ten thousand people performing Tai Chi,” said Zheng Kan. “ Now we just want to show that we are relatable.”

While the audience for winter sports may still be a small, relatively rich group, it is growing. To prove his commitments (承诺) to winter sports, President Xi Jinping     8     a “ three hundred-million-person winter-sports plan.” The plan is aimed at raising China’s participation rate in winter sports from less than two percent to twenty-two percent. Some schools in Beijing have already introduced courses     9     to winter sports. A high-speed rail line that was opened at the end of 2019 cuts travel time between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, where many of the events will be held in 2022, to under an hour.

With all these efforts, the 2022 Winter Olympic Games are     10     to be wonderful and unforgettable.