When I was young, a car accident left a scar (伤疤) on my face. I was used to people staring at it. I never understood why people judged others by their physical appearance.

Years later, I went to a new school. On the first day, our teacher introduced me to the whole class. “Please welcome the new student Rina. Let's be friendly and help her fit into our school.”

Our teacher then started the lesson, which was about first aid. She asked if anyone knew anything about it. Silence filled the classroom. As a daughter of two doctors, I had leaned CPR (心肺复苏) before. I slowly stood up and started sharing what I could remember. Before I could finish, a girl started saying to herself “What a way to show off! Scar face! ” The teacher heard it and shouted, “Respect! Ruby. ” Ruby stopped, looking at me like I was her enemy.

Ruby and her friends made trouble for me at every chance they got. One day, when I was walking home from school, someone tripped (绊倒) me from behind and I fell. That gave me a bleeding nose. When I got up, I found Ruby laughing wildly with two of her friends. The anger in me was fighting to get out but some how I got it contained, which made Ruby laugh even louder. All of a sudden, the laughing stopped. I saw her standing there breathing painfully.

“Help! Help…” her friends shouted, “She is having an heart attack!”

I stood there with mixed feelings.

When Ruby came back from the hospital, she came to me after school.

Stronger Body, Better Future

In recent years, food has apparently become a new hot spot for Chinese cities to attract tourists. Following Zibo and Harbin, Tianshui,     1     ancient city in Northwest China's Gansu Province, became the     2     (hot) tourists destination of 2024 because of malatang, a local street dish.

Malatang,     3     (literal) meaning “numbing, spicy, and hot” in Chinese, is a common street food that can be found all over China, but its tastes differ depending     4     the region. In Tianshui, malatang features a mix of fresh vegetables and meat     5     (boil) in a hot, spicy chicken soup.

Tianshui went viral when a student     6     (post) a seven-second video in February on her social media. In the video, she suggested     7     (make) Gansu malatang a national dish. The video,     8     quickly received millions of likes online, attracted food lovers to the city     9     (experience) this local dish firsthand. Malatang also helps draw more visits to key     10     (attraction) in Tianshui, such as Maijishan Grottoes and Fuxi Temple.

5 . Who said that you can only use the Internet to socialize with your friends and family? You may actually put your Internet usage to good use by doing something productive.     1     Here are some ways you can learn a new language on the Internet.

Talk to people who live in other countries

Did you know you can also pickup languages if you actually talk-to people who live in the area where the languages are spoken fluently?     2     However, now it is something that you can easily achieve even just by using the Internet on your phone.

    3    

You can listen to English news for language beginners. They tend to simplify it so that you wouldn’t have a problem learning a new language. Another simple way that you can use is to stream a movie that is in another language and just be sure to have your English subtitles (字幕) on.

Use an app on your phone

One of the simplest methods that are also really fun is that you download an app on your phone that can effectively teach you a language. These apps usually allow you to learn more than one language.     4    

Consider joining an online school

Another effective method is that you can join an online school where you can practice listening and speaking.     5     This would avoid your need to travel to a physical school to learn a language.

6 . Have you ever been hungry and sleepy and wished you could solve both problems at once? If you were a reindeer (驯鹿) , it would be easy. According to a new research, these talented deer can have a snooze while they eat their food.

Reindeer live in the Arctic and other northern regions where the winters are extremely dark and cold. Food can be rare in winter, so during the warmer months the deer must eat as much as they possibly can.

Like cows, reindeer use a process called rumination (反刍) to break down the tough plant they eat. This process involves passing the food back and forth between their mouth and the four “stomachs”, chewing it repeatedly until all the nutrients (营养) have been absorbed. In summer, all that chewing seems to leave very little time for sleep.

To find out their secret to getting enough rest, scientists fitted four reindeer with devices that monitored their brain waves. While the reindeer were ruminating, their brain waves were similar to the patterns shown during sleep. The animals sat or stood quietly with their eyes closed, and they were less likely than usual to react to. the movements of a neighbouring deer. “They were in a very relaxed state, ” researcher Melanie Furrer said.

The chewing movement made it hard for the researchers to tell whether, the animals’ brain waves were truly in sleep mode. But when they tested the deer again after rumination, the animals' brain activity showed that they felt rested.

If reindeer are kept awake for too long, they need extra “recovery sleep” to catch up. After ruminating, however, the deer did not need as much recovery sleep. Study co-author Gabriela Wagner said that ruminating serves two different purposes at the same time —eating and sleeping.

8 . In the calm and traditional world of classical music, composer Tan Dun is something of a rock star. Born in 1957 in a village near Changsha, Tan Dun worked as a rice planter in his early years. While music was strongly discouraged within the rice-planting communities, Tan learnt to play traditional Chinese stringed instruments with his friends and eventually joined a local band.

But the transition from hobby to career came about through a tragic (不幸的) tum of events. After several members of a Peking Opera troupe (剧团) drowned in a boat accident, Tan was hired to work as an arranger and violinist. The time at the troupe proved successful and Tan got the attention of Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) where he was accepted as a student in 1977. Years later, he further studied at New York’s Columbia University.

Under the teaching of famous composers around the word, Tan launched his international career through a series of modern operas. With the knowledge of eastern and western classical music, he composed Marco Polo, an abstract retelling of the 13th-century Venetian explorer’s life through eastern and western instruments.

Tan has composed symphonies and operas that have been performed in some of the world’s most famous theaters. He has also contributed the scores (配乐) to six films, including 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as well as several experimental multimedia projects. Such achievements have brought him great rewards, including Oscar, Grammy and Bafta awards, as well as the honor of Composer of Year, presented by classical music magazine Musical America.

9 . Known for its beautiful natural environment, Guizhou contains a total of four World Heritage Sites, which is more than any other province in China.

The Fanjing Mountain, known as the “City of the Sky”, is famous for its Buddhist culture and the complex of temples. Compared with the world’s other mountains in the same latitude (纬度) zone, the Fanjing Mountain features the best-preserved animals and plants. It was listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018.

Libo Karst, listed in the UNESCO World Heritage in 2007, is located in the southern borderland of Guizhou. Walking into Libo is a feast for the eyes. You would be amazed by one breathtaking sight after another, such as the Wolong Pond and the Laya Waterfall.

The Yuntai Mountain stands out like a piece of green agate (玛瑙) in its latitude zone. It is the oldest and best-preserved dolomite (白云石) karst landform in the world, which is extremely rare and highly valuable for scientific research. In 2014, the Yuntai Mountain was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its “uniqueness and typicality”.

Chishui Danxia is home to the largest Danxia landform area. The highlight of the tourist area, named Foguang Rock, is regarded as the greatest example of a Danxia landform in the world. When the afternoon sunlight hits it, it seems to glow like fire. There is a waterfall that is 42 meters wide and 269 meters high, which looks like a graceful white dragon. It was added to the UNESCO Wodd Heritage List in 2010.