1 . Minor Cold: A sugary feast to get through the freezing winter

Minor Cold, or “Xiaohan” in Chinese, is the 23rd of the 24 solar terms in the Chinese lunar calendar     1       We’ve outlined below how people deal with the Minor Cold and its significance in Chinese culture.

Eight treasures rice pudding or “babaofan” in Mandarin is a special sweet rice dish enjoyed during Minor Cold and Chinese New Year dinner. In Chinese, the number eight is pronounced as “ba”, which is similar to another Chinese word “fa”.     2    . Because of its pronunciation, this traditional Chinese dim sum is regarded as a symbol of wealth and health.

    3    . Different regions in China have different eating habits. People in Nanjing and Shanghai usually cook vegetable rice while in Guangzhou, it is a tradition to eat sticky rice on the morning of Minor Cold.

For Chinese people, this time of year also sees preparation for the most important festival of the year: the Spring Festival.     4    . In the old days, Chinese families would usually start to purchase the necessities for the Spring Festival, write couplets and make paper cuts by themselves.

The ancient Chinese noticed the slight changes in seasons by observing the movements of the birds. Wild geese would usually start to fly back to the north while the magpies (喜鹊) make their nests. These animals remind people of the beginning of the suitable farming and life for Minor Cold.     5    . Therefore, more attention should be paid to domestic animals’ warmth.

3 . When I first met Nao Junior, he was in his 40s and one of only nine members of his Indigenous(土著的) group, Great Andamanese, who still spoke the idiom of his ancestors. As a language specialist, I had researched more than 80 Indian languages. I was on the islands to document their Indigenous voices before they faded into whispers.

Words in this language consisted of two classes: free and bound. The free words were all nouns that referred to the environment and its inhabitants, such as ra for “pig”. They could occur alone. The bound words were nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that always existed with markers indicating a relation to other objects, events or states. The markers came from seven zones of the body and were attached to a root word to describe concepts such as “inside”, “outside”, “upper” and “lower”. For example, the morpheme(词素) er-, which qualified most anything having to do with an outer body part, could be stuck to -cho to yield ercho, meaning “head”.

Just as a head, a bound word, could not conceptually exist on its own, the mode and effect of an action could not be divided from the verb describing the action. Great Andamanese had no words for agriculture but a great many for hunting and fishing, mainly with a bow and arrow. Thus, the root word shile, meaning “to aim”, had several versions: utshile, to aim from above; arashile, to aim from a distance; and eshile, aiming to make a hole with a sharp object.

The studies established that the language seems to be truly old in origin. In a multistage process of development, words describing diverse body parts had changed into morphemes referring to different zones and combined with content words to yield meaning. The structure alone provides an insight into an ancient worldview in which the macrocosm(宏观世界) reflects the microcosm, and everything that is or that happens inseparably connects to everything else.

5 . Every day Juanita Mengel, a 67-year-old woman from the state of Ohio, wakes up and puts on her prosthetic (假体的) leg.

Then, Mengel does the same for Lola-Pearl, her five-year-old cat. Lola-Pearl also missed her back left leg. Mengel has many cats. Most of them have disabilities. But Lola-Pearl is special. She is a therapy (治疗) cat. And, she and Mengel are partners of a kind. They are among 200 therapy cat teams registered in the United States by the non-profit group, Pet Partners.

The group helps humans and pets alike by setting them up into teams to provide animal-assisted (帮助) therapy. The teams visit hospitals, nursing homes and schools and assist those in need. Besides dogs and cats, Pet Partners registers other species as therapy animals, including horses, rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, birds and mini pigs.

Taylor Griffin is national director at Pet Partners. She said, “Therapy animals are animals who’ve been gauged whether they are suitable for assisting some people, and are based on their ability to meet new people and enjoy the process.”

Mengel said Lola-Pearl showed signs that she would make a good therapy cat soon after the animal joined her family. “I just knew she would be a good therapy because she was so good with people. People really were attracted to her, too,” Mengel said.

Mengel was a traveling nurse when she was in a car accident that almost killed her. One of her legs could not be saved. Later, she connected with a friend in the state of Missouri who had a severely injured kitten. The cat’s legs were twisted together. An animal medical specialist worked to repair the damage, but in the end, they had to remove one of the baby cat’s legs. That kitten was Lola-Pearl.

Mengel took Lola-Pearl as her cat after talking with her friend. Despite the difficulties Mengel has faced, she is grateful to Lola-Pearl and their work in Pet Partners.

“It’s a really rewarding experience,” she said. “I get just as much out of it as the people that I visit.”

6 . Sometimes, we meet with situations that cause us to feel angry to the point we may want to erupt like a volcano or curse (咒骂) someone out.     1     Here are some replies online to the question about how to deal with anger.

Science suggests that hearing, seeing, or swimming causes our brain to produce neurochemicals that increase blood flow to the brain and heart. “    2     I like to lift weights. It completely takes the edge off. Heavy bag work is good for cardio and reducing anger. Yoga is great for both exercise and meditation,” wrote u/JackFunk.

Proteins such as fish, tofu, and chicken, help us produce higher levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, which are chemicals in the brain that play a role in your mood, motivation, and concentration. “I found that some foods messed with my stomach.     3     Over time I have removed various foods from my diet, and it has really helped,”   u/JackFunk also wrote.

Whether it’s quick sentences or journal entries, writing down how you feel is a great way to release negative emotions. “    4     Pour your heart out… and if you’re worried that someone else may read it later, you can burn it to release the energy,” wrote u/ChoiceFabulous.

    5    

“If you have trouble not getting angry when discussing something or trying to work through a problem with someone, always imagine the conversation is being videotaped. If you keep that in the back of your mind, you will always think about what you say, and it could help keep your mind from the anger,” wrote u/therealtidbits.

7 . Palestinian farmer Salman al-Nabahin was working in his garden in Gaza when he noticed that some of the new trees he’d planted on his land did not root properly. Curious about what might be causing the issue, al-Nabahin asked his son to help him start digging.

His son’s ax (斧子) struck something hard. When the two men began to clear away the dirt, they discovered an item they did not recognize. A little Internet searching provided the answer to their mystery: They’d come across a Byzantine-era floor mosaic (拜占庭时期马赛克地画) featuring birds and other animals.

This happened six months ago. Now, archaeologists (考古学家) are hard at work studying the flooring to learn more about its secrets and civilization values.

The mosaic features 17 images of birds and other animals presented in bright colors. Archaeologists believe artists created the flooring sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries, though they don’t know whether the mosaic had religious (宗教的) origins. In total, the land covering the entire mosaic is about 500 square meters, and the mosaic itself measures about 23 square meters. Some parts of the mosaic appear to be damaged, likely from the roots of an old tree.

“These are the most beautiful mosaic floors discovered in Gaza, both in terms of the quality of the vivid representation and the complexity of the pattern,” says René Elter, an archaeologist in Jerusalem. “Never have mosaic floors of this precision in the patterns and richness of the colors been discovered in the Gaza Strip.”

The Gaza Strip, which is located between Israel and Egypt and was a busy trade route throughout history, is home to many ancient civilizations. The farmer and his son discovered the mosaic about a kilometer from the border with Israel. Archaeologists and other experts are concerned about the mosaic’s future because of the ongoing conflict there and a lack of funding for historical protection.

8 . Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an ancient system of health and wellness that’s been used in China for thousands of years. It has saved millions of lives around China’s vast territory by providing vital information on diagnosis (诊断), treating common medical problems and diseases, and emphasizing prevention. If you do not have previous experience with Chinese culture or medicine, be prepared for a cultural experience.     1    

Several thousand years ago, The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor put forward the principle that one should develop yang energy in spring and summer,     2     And in China’s long history, the principle has proven of great value for good health and longevity of life.

According to TCM theory, yang energy is the power for inner organs.     3     “Summer treatment” takes advantage of abundant yang energy in nature during summer, when yang energy is outward and upward. It is the right time to supplement (补充) yang energy by internal or external traditional Chinese medicine methods. This helps to adjust to the balance of yin and yang in the body, resulting in a more effective outcome.

    4     Therefore, it is the best time for the human body to supplement essence and store vital substances throughout the whole year. TCM holds that Gao Fang, the cream formula, is the best choice for tonification (滋补) in winter. By adjusting qi, blood, yin and yang of the body, it can achieve the effects of treatment, regulation, and nourishment.

“Sprouting in spring, growing in summer, harvesting in autumn and storing in winter” is the law of development in the nature.     5     It needs to be in agreement with timing and the seasons. With such direction, ancient Chinese people handed down to later generations medical texts for an orderly-arranged daily life.

10 . India’s touring (流动的) cinemas are dying, and being reborn. And India is perhaps the most film-mad country in the world while it also has the lowest ratios of screens to human beings.     1     The screens that do exist are unevenly distributed. PVR, India’s biggest cinema operator, has more screens in Chandigarh, a prosperous city of about a million people, than it does in Rajasthan, a poor stale of 80 million. If Muhammad could not go to the movies, the movies had to come to Muhammad. Twenty years ago, there were 1,400 odd touring cinemas in Pusegaon.     2     However, today there are only 52 travelling cinemas.

    3     One is smartphone and internet expansion, which leads to the other reason for the collapse of the touring cinemas:     4     Sushil Chaudhary, the founder of a new chain of touring cinemas called Picture Time, is making a different bet on the possibilities of cinema. Mr. Chaudhary started his company in 2015 and has since set up 37 moving screens seating between 100 and 250 people. The touring cinema was nothing like the one in Pusegaon.     5     The picture was crystal clear and the sound used Dolby. Picture Time’s tickets are cheap, at between 30 and 70 rupees, compared with an average ticket price of 191 rupees at PVR’s cinemas.