1 . There is a famous story about British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was writing a poem when he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

This was an age before the telephone. Someone was delivering a message. When Coleridge got back to his poem, he had lost his inspiration. His poetic mood had been broken by the knock on his door. His unfinished poem, which could otherwise have been a masterpiece, would now never be more than a fragment (片段).

This story tells how unexpected communication can destroy an important thought. That brings us to the invention of the cellphone.

The most common complaint about cellphones is that people talk on them to the annoyance of people around them. But more damaging may be the cellphone’s disruption (中断) of our thoughts.

We have already entered a golden age of little white lies about our cellphones, and this is by and large a healthy, protective development. “I didn’t hear it ring” or “I didn’t realize my phone had shut off” are among the lies we tell to give ourselves space where we’re beyond reach.

The notion of being unreachable is not a new concept — we have “Do Not Disturb” signs on the doors of hotel rooms. So why must we feel guilty when it comes to cellphones? Why must we apologize if we decide to shut off the cellphone for a while?

The problem is that we come from a long-established tradition of difficulty with distance communication. Until the recent mass use of cellphones, it was easy to communicate with someone next to us or a few feet away, but difficult with someone across town, the country or the globe. We came to take it for granted.

But cellphones make long-distance communication common, and endanger our time by ourselves. Now time alone, or a conversation with someone next to us which cannot be interrupted by a phone, is something to be cherished (珍惜). Even cellphone devotees, myself usually included, can’t help at times wanting to throw their phones away, or curse the day they were invented.

But we don’t and won’t, and there really is no need. All that’s required to take back our private time is a general social recognition that we have the right to it.

In other words, we have to develop a healthy contempt (轻视) for the rings of our own phones. Given the ease of making and receiving cellphone calls, if we don’t talk to the caller right now, we surely will shortly later.

A cellphone call deserves no greater priority than a random word from the person next to us. Though the call on my cellphone may be the one-in-a-million from Steven Spielberg — who has finally read my novel and wants to make it his next movie. But most likely it is not, and I’m better off thinking about the idea I just had for a new story, or the slice of pizza I’ll eat for lunch.

2 . Do you speak a dialect (方言) in daily life? While many Chinese people speak Mandarin, some local dialects are in danger of disappearing. To save them, the Chinese government started the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project a few years ago.

This project looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. Their languages include 103 dialects that are almost gone. It has helped China to build the largest language resource library in the world. There’s an online library where people can learn dialects from over 5.6 million audio clips (音频) and over 5 million videos.

Why is it important to protect the dialect culture? According to British linguist Harold Palmer, dialects are a key to store local cultures. Language faithfully shows the history, the beliefs and the biases (偏见) of an area, he said.

Scholar Zhang Hongming talked about his concerns of the disappearing of dialeets, “For about over 10 years, in the Wu dialect areas such as Shanghai and Suzhou, children aged 6 to 15 can understand but hardly speak the dialect. Meanwhile, young people above 15 years old sometimes speak it, but not very well. If this keeps happening, the dialect might disappear,” he said.

So how did China make this big library? “A big national effort has been put into the project to make it happen,” said Cao Zhiyun, chief expert on the project. Over five years, more than 350 universities and research groups joined in, along with over 4,500 experts and more than 6,000 dialect speakers.

The project is now entering into its second part. This includes creating digital tools like apps and mobile dictionaries to help people lean dialects.

6 . BE A GOOD TOURIST

Tourism can be both good and bad. Yes, it brings in money for the local economy and creates lots of jobs for locals,     1    

One growing problem is tourists who want to prove that they have visited a destination. Tourists have used paint, rocks, or even keys to write on the LUXOR Temple in Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome, Stonehenge in the UK, Memorial stones at the bottom of Qomolangma, and many, many other places.     2     I have three words for people like this: Please stop it. If you want to leave a mark on the world, do it by changing someone’s life with kindness and love. Pass kindness along to future generations, not destruction (破坏).

Another big problem in some places has been tourists disturbing (打扰) the local people and life.     3     For example, Chiang Mai University in Thailand and Yonsei University in South Korea have great numbers of tourists visiting their campuses and walking through their libraries and other public areas, taking pictures of students, and disturbing their studies     4     Some tourists love to party there late into the night, making it difficult for locals to sleep. I have three words for tourists like this: please be considerate. Have fun in a way that doesn’t disturb others.

The number of problems from tourists is endless: Walking in large groups without considering others who need to walk by, crossing roads without thinking of local traffic laws, and many more. The only way to solve the problem of the terrible tourist is to make sure that you are not one!     5     Remember, whenever you step outside your country’s borders, you are representing (代表) your country to the rest of the world.

7 . A report from the UN warns that countries’ current commitments would reduce carbon by only about 7.5% by 2030, far less than the 45% cut, which scientists say is needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃, the aim of the COP26 summit (峰会).

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, described the findings as a “thundering wake-up call” to world leaders, while experts called for action against fossil fuel companies.

Although more than 100 countries have promised to reach net zero emissions (净零排放) around mid-century, this would not be enough to avoid climate disasters, according to the UN emissions report, which examines the shortfall (差额) between countries’ intentions and actions needed on the climate. Many of the net zero commitments were found to be unclear, and unless accompanied by strict cuts in emissions this decade would allow global heating of a potentially disastrous extent.

Gutierrez said: “The heat is on, and as the contents of the report show, the leadership we need is off. Far off. Countries are wasting a massive opportunity to invest Covid-19 finance and recovery resources in sustainable, cost-saving, planet-saving ways. As world leaders prepare for COP26, that is another thundering wake-up call. How many do we need?”

Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said: “Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is a now problem. To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5℃, we have 8 years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions: 8 years to make the plans, put in place the policies, carry them out and deliver the cuts. The clock is ticking loudly.”

Emissions fell by about 5.4% last year during Covid lockdowns, the report found, but only about one-fifth of the economic recovery spending goes towards reducing carbon emissions. This failure to “build back better”, despite promises by governments around the world, cast doubt on the world’s willingness to make the economic shift necessary to settle the climate crisis, the UN said.

In the run-up (前期) to COP26, countries were supposed to submit (递交) national plans to cut emissions—called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) —for the next decade, a requirement under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. But the UNEP report found only half of countries had submitted new NDCs, and some governments had presented weak plans.

9 . Television has transformed politics in the United States by changing the way in which information is spread, by altering political campaigns, and by changing citizen’s patterns of response to politics. By giving citizens independent access to the candidates, television reduced the role of the political party in the selection of the major party candidates. By centering politics on the person of the candidate, television accelerated the citizen’s focus on character rather than issues.

Television has altered the forms of political communication as well. The messages on which most of us rely are briefer than they once were. The stump speech, a political speech given by traveling politicians and lasting 1 to 2 hours, which was popular in the nineteenth-century, has given way to the 30-second advertisement and the 10 second “sound bite” in broadcast news. Increasingly the audience for speeches is not that standing in front of the politician but rather the viewing audience who will hear and see a short video of the speech on the news.

In these simplified forms, much of what comprised the traditional political speech of earlier ages has been lost. In 15 or 30 seconds, a speaker cannot establish the historical context that shaped the issue in question, cannot detail the probable causes of the problem, and cannot examine alternative proposals to argue that one is preferable to others. In short videos, politicians assert (断言) but do not argue.

Because television is an intimate (亲密的) medium, speaking through it requires a changed political style that is more conversational, personal, and visual than that of the old-style stump speech. Reliance on television means that increasingly our political world contains memorable pictures rather than memorable words. Schools teach us to analyze words and print. However, in a world in which politics is increasingly visual, informed citizenship requires a new set of skills.

Recognizing the power of television’s pictures, politicians craft televisual, staged events designed to attract media coverage. Much of the political activity we see on television news has been crafted by politicians, their speechwriters, and their public relations advisers for televised consumption. Sound bites in news and answers to questions in debates increasingly sound like advertisements.

10 . Hello! My name is Zhan Bingbing.

Lately, all of us have seen Chinese people on TV in far-off places in the world, helping other countries to develop. We see Chinese workers building roads in the Congo, a port in Pakistan, railways in Panama, and an airport in Sri Lanka. And we see Chinese miners, oil workers, agricultural experts, mechanics, and doctors working in nearly every corner of the world. And some people may ask, “Is it worth it? Why help people overseas when China has many areas that are still in need of development?”

I had the same questions myself. But for me, it was much more personal. You see, my mother is a medical doctor, and for the last two years, she has been working as a volunteer consultant in Tanzania, Africa, as a part of a medical team sent by the Chinese government.

To be honest, when my mother first left for Africa, I was upset. My mother cooked me dinner every night, and she took good care of me. But more importantly, she was my best friend. we talked together, we spent our leisure time together, and except for school and work, we were never apart. So I was unhappy about her leaving without even asking for my input.

But then I began to hear about the work she was doing in Tanzania, a country that has many health problems, and now I am singing a different tune. Many dangerous diseases which are rare in China are quite commonly contracted in Tanzania. And, while the country is quite beautiful and has much natural wealth, many of the people are quite poor and live without things we take for granted, such as electricity, running water, cars and good transport systems, and supermarkets. One project that my mother worked on was helping to build a cardiac hospital. Prior to this, if a Tanzanian had a heart condition and needed surgery, they would have to go abroad. Since this was quite expensive, many people went without medical treatment and some even died. Now, not only are Tanzanians helped by the hospital, but people in neighbouring countries are helped as well.   It has made a big difference to their lives. My mother also does a circuit of the rural villages to provide medical treatment, help those with disabilities, and provide consultation and training for local doctors. In addition, her team has given patients a new malaria treatment invented in China, and this has saved many lives.

Today, I want to relay to you that I’m proud of the work my mother has done, and I am now supportive of it. Is her work worth it? Yes, to the lives of the people she is helping, it is worth it. But by any criteria this work is worth it to us as well, because it shows that we are global citizens interested in world stability, and that we feel responsible for others and are ready to build a community with a shared future for mankind. Everyone deserves a fair chance in life. When I think of all the things that we as Chinese citizens can be most proud of, helping others comes at the top of this list. Now that I understand how important my mother’s work is, I’ve decided to become a volunteer myself to help people in other lands. In the future, I pray that you will do the same.

Thank you!