1 . German artist HA Schult is an unusual artist who uses trash (废物) to make sculptures. “We are living in the time of garbage,” says Schult. “I created a thousand sculptures of garbage. They are a mirror of ourselves.” Here, Schult was talking about his 1,000 trash sculptures in the form of humans. He first exhibited them in 1996 in the western German state of North Rhine－Westphalia.

“They are social sculptures,” he explains. “They are not only sculptures for the eyes. They are sculptures to spread the idea that we live in a time of garbage.” So far, Schult’s social sculptures have been on show in Paris, in Moscow’s Red Square, on the Great Wall of China, and in the desert next to the Pyramids of Giza near Cairo.

HA Schult’s work is unforgettable. Although his work has had a big influence on the art world, Schult remains modest about his creations: “Artists have to learn every time. We are not important. All that counts is the time in which we are living.”

Trash art has been around for years. But it seems that only the popular artists are regarded as true artists when working with trash. Why can’t common people be considered artists when they use the same things and change them into some form of personal art? Maybe it’s because we all have our own preset ideas of what art is and isn’t, or whom artists are or should be.

You can be an artist like Schult if you try. Look at used metal cans. What might be done with them? Imagine them in any number of new uses, or imagine them simply as an art form. What about boxes or clothing? Boxes can usually serve as new storage containers and houses for pets. And clothing? Imagine taking old clothes and turning them into hats or hanging organizers.

3 . As one of the world’s most popular cultural mediums, cinema got the most attention at the Taihu World Cultural Forum, an annual event that aims to improve cultural exchanges. It is reported that the box office (票房) takings in China have been growing at an impressive rate in the past five years, which indicates that China, the world’s second-largest movie market, is closing the gap with the United States, the world’s top cinema market.

Cao Yin, director of the program center at China Movie Channel, said that China has the most cinema screens of any country, and the number is increasing steadily. Saying that China has signed coproduction agreements with more than 20 countries, Cao added it has deepened cinematic exchanges between Chinese filmmakers and their foreign counterparts (同行)．

Hong Kong director Stanley Tong said that with the country’s huge home market he believes foreign filmmakers will increasingly seek cooperation with China.“International coproduction will become an important platform to send Chinese stories overseas and give us a broader vision of creation, ” Tong said.

Recently, over 80 percent of the world’s top 100 highest box-office titles have been action films. Tong said the action film, in which plots are basically secondary to dazzling stunts (特技), is one of the easiest ways to appeal to foreign audiences. But it has been a decades-long struggle for Chinese filmmakers to sell their stories overseas.When asked what kinds of Chinese films would have the most global appeal, Yan Zhaozhu, chairman of the Taihu World Cultural Forum, said stories that address universal issues, such as environmental protection and climate change, are perhaps the best options.

At present, major parks across the US are facing a     1       (grow) problem. From getting too close to wildlife to camping in off-limit areas, more and more visitors     2     (break) park rules. In July alone, park rangers handled more than 11,000 incidents at the 10 most visited     3       (nation) parks. 

Record numbers of visitors at Yellowstone National Park, in Wyoming, have caused problems. Visitors stray from     4     (mark) paths. They break park rules in order to take selfies     5     wildlife, getting too close to elk, grizzly bears, and bison. As drivers slow    6     to snap pictures of the animals, traffic backs up. 

The breaking of park rules comes from disbelief among visitors     7     they will get hurt, said Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk. More than 52,000 warnings were issued at Yellowstone in 2015, up almost 20 percent from the year before. That     8     (worry) the National Park Service. 

As the number of visitors increase, the group is working     9     (protect) national land for future generations. The top 10 parks, including Yosemite in California and the Grand Canyon in Arizona, hosted almost 44 million people last year. That’s a 26 percent increase from a decade     10     (early).

At present, major parks across the US are facing a    1    (grow) problem. From getting too close to wildlife to camping in off-limit areas, more and more visitors    2    (break) park rules. In July alone, park rangers handled more than 11,000 incidents at the 10 most visited    3    (nation) parks. 

Record numbers of visitors at Yellowstone National Park, in Wyoming, have caused problems. Visitors stray from    4    (mark) paths. They break park rules in order to take selfies    5    wildlife, getting too close to elk, grizzly bears, and bison. As drivers slow    6    to snap pictures of the animals, traffic backs up. 

The breaking of park rules comes from disbelief among visitors    7    they will get hurt, said Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk. More than 52,000 warnings were issued at Yellowstone in 2015,up almost 20 percent from the year before. That    8    (worry) the National Park Service. 

As the number of visitors increase, the group is working    9    (protect) national land for future generations. The top 10 parks, including Yosemite in California and the Grand Canyon in Arizona, hosted almost 44 million people last year. That’s a 26 percent increase from a decade    10    (early).

The Chinese language has become increasingly popular in the world. More British students chose to take Chinese tests than German in this year’s A levels, showing a great     1     (curious) about the ancient Asian language.

This is the first time that Mandarin     2     (overtake) German at A levels, a British public exam taken by high school students,     3     (make) it the third most popular language in the UK.

A total of 3,334 candidates chose Mandarin     4     their foreign language, up 8.6 percent from 2017,     5    around 3,058 took German A­level, down 16.5 percent year on year.

French and Spanish still remain the most popular foreign languages. The German language     6     (follow) by Russian and Polish.

According to the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban), as of 2017, some 100 million people, excluding native speakers, use Chinese     7     (global), while the number of Chinese teaching centers has surpassed (超过) 70,000.

South Korea has a larger population of Chinese language learners     8    any other country in the world with the number estimated at around 10.6 million. Last year alone, over 170,000 people     9     (sign) up for Chinese language tests, like the HSK,     10    full name is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi in Chinese.

The United Nations in 2010 suggested a Chinese Language Day which falls on April 20th each year to celebrate cultural diversity as well as to promote the equal use of all official languages.

The influence of America is increasing in Spain. Spanish people drink Coca­Cola, wear blue jeans, watch Hollywood movies, listen to American music, and eat fast food, and they do all these things daily.

I think that American movies are a good way to spread American culture because people are often influenced by what they see in the movies. Most of the entertainment programs and documentaries we watch on TV are from America, and most of the movies we go to are made in Hollywood.

In the last few years, the government has tried to protect the Spanish movies. Now, in our cinemas, at least twenty percent of the movies which are shown must be from Spain or from a country of the European Union.

American culture is very much a part of Spanish life. It’s certain that many things from America are as much a part of their lives as Spanish things. For example, Coca­Cola is as familiar to everybody as any typical Spanish product. I’ve known Coca­Cola my whole life.

However, it’s different with Western fast food. For example, I don’t think McDonald’s is as successful in Spain as it is in other countries. In my opinion, one of the reasons may be the lifestyle of the Spanish people. The Spanish people normally eat at home.

It may be that McDonald’s hamburgers will eventually replace the famous Spanish tapas because in every city in Spain you can find a McDonald’s, and they are more popular among the Spanish children than among the adults. In any case, it’s obvious that American culture is more and more a part of our everyday life.