4 . Plenty of audiences have warned: don’t see the new French movie The Taste of Things on an empty stomach. Juliette Binoche plays a longtime personal cook to a man who’s a gourmand (美食家). They share a passion for food. Filled with delicious meals, the film celebrates food, and all the work and love that go into making it.

When you see a delicious meal in a movie or an ad, chances are that it’s not fit to eat. Food stylists have been known to substitute glue for milk, and coat meat with motor oil. All this was a big “No” for Vietnamese French director Tran Anh Hung.

Tran says he wanted everything in The Taste of Things “to be real,” from the raw ingredients (食材) to the menu to the way the cooks move in the kitchen. Real food can’t always handle multiple takes. Plus, Tran needed to show dishes at different stages of preparation. So he needed a lot of everything. For a classic French dish, “we needed 40 kilos of meat for the shooting.” He also had to find vegetables that looked like they were harvested in the 19th century. “They’re not as beautiful as today,” he says, “They’re not straight, and they have many spots on the skin.”

After doing extensive research into the history of French cuisine and working with a historian, Tran enlisted three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire to make sure the menu he’d come up with worked in real life.

Gagnaire also cooked for Tran for five days, so the director could study his movements in preparation for filming. Tran says watching Gagnaire move around the kitchen taught him that “simplicity is important and you don’t need to have the perfect gesture for this or that. You need only to be very free.” Gagnaire says the movie feels like a gift. “For my creativity, it’s an honor,” he says. The famous chef agreed to take a small part in the film.

“When you leave this film, you feel calm because instead of violence, there’s tenderness,” Gagnaire says.

5 . The case for and against social media

Is social media harmful to teenagers?     1     Social media sites have been blamed for most of the world’s social problems from feeling disconnected and lonely to having difficulty forming meaningful relationships. Yet, many of us feel a need to use social media because it offers something we cannot find elsewhere, despite knowing the downsides.     2    

An argument for social media claims it can strengthen social bonds by facilitating relationships with people in different geographical areas. For example, social media has helped old school friends to get back in touch after many years without contact.     3     These are real benefits of using social media.

    4     The argument used by many people is that interactions on social media are no substitute for face-to-face communication. When you are out with friends how many times do they check their phones? for example.     5     Research highlights it is far more satisfying to physically laugh out loud in real life rather than to replace the act with a typed representation of laughter such as “haha” or “LOL”.       

Ideally, we should have enough self-control to be able to limit our use of social media, enjoying the benefits it can bring.

6 . One of the most commonly asked questions in the English language is “How are you?” and whether a person is feeling happy or sad, excited or lonely, fantastic or heartbroken they will just about always answer “Fine”. Why is this? Is it because humans are not good at expressing their emotions? Maybe it is just that emotions are often too personal or too complex to be shared in a casual conversation. However, for centuries, people have often expressed their emotions on paper, in the form of poetry.

The beauty of poetry is that the emotions the poet is trying to convey are often disguised in images so that the poet can maintain a feeling of privacy. For example, in Li Bai’s poem, “Seeing Meng Haoran Off at Yellow Crane Tower”, the poet describes the sail of his friend’s boat rules disappearing into the distance while he watches the river rolling by. This could seem merely like the description of a beautiful scene, but by reading into the poem, you can sense the deep sadness and loneliness that his friend’s leaving has caused him.

Poetry is also written to celebrate positive human emotions like joy, love and happiness. Throughout history, men and women have written poems to their loved ones to express their deep feelings. Poems about nature, which express the poet’s appreciation of the beauty in the world around him or her, are also common. Sadly, many poems have also been written to express anger at the destruction of nature and reactions to horrific events like war and death.

The interesting thing about poetry is that anyone reading a poem can have their own view or feelings about it and heated discussions can often arise over what the poet was originally trying to say or express. Poetry can be interpreted in many different ways. Often, a poem that one person loves another hates. Equally, a poem that one person understands and relates to, may turn another person off.

7 . Dusting is particularly annoying. Nearly two-thirds of household dust content comes from the outdoors, some of which may contain harmful chemicals. So, keeping your home as dust-free as possible is important to improve overall health.     1    ？

In general, you should dust your home’s most exposed surfaces on a weekly basis. This means items such as tables, shelves, beds, dressers, counter-tops and windows.     2    . Use microfiber or natural-fiber cloths that will pick up the dust.

Change your bed sheets weekly, as dust mites (螨) especially love bedding.     3    . Every three to six months, clean behind and under furniture, and wash your bedding.

Since so much dust comes in from the outdoors, you can cut down on the amount gathering in your home by keeping doors and windows closed as often as possible, and placing carpets on both sides of doors.     4    , changing them for a pair of slippers or private house shoes.

Get rid of odds and ends, which can easily attract dust, and be careful how you handle clothes. Since clothes both collects dust and sheds (掉落) fibers, regularly wash any clothes or don’t throw clothing on the ground.

When you’re getting ready to clean a room, always work from the top down.     5    , the dust on the highest surfaces will drift down to everything you’ve just cleaned.