1 . Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.

“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.

Today, the generation gap(代沟) has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood. No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”

But family experts warn that the new equality (平等) can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot strictness and authority (权威) on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College, “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”

Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these changing roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourages everyone to have a say.

“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”

3 . As globalization continues to make the world a smaller place, and goods become more accessible across borders, concerns about food safety in the Asia­Pacific region have steadily risen over the years. An APEC forum is being held in Beijing, to find ways to better address the problem.

156 participants from 19 APEC economies and 4 non­APEC members attended the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum, which has been actively looking for ways to strengthen food safety standard in the region, without affecting trade.

“As consumers are faced with more varieties of food, the potential food safety risk also becomes bigger.This forum has helped APEC economies to cooperate in supervision(监督), exchange information, and improve the overall food safety standard in the Asia­Pacific region,” said director of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision Wu Qinghai.

For the first time the forum has brought together high­level regulators, academics, and industry stakeholders to talk about their respective roles in safety supervision.They say governments alone cannot shoulder this heavy duty.

In China, the continuous food safety problems have greatly hurt consumers’ confidence in domestic products; therefore more turned to imports. However, problems related to quality of those imported goods also began to show. In July this year, more than 400 batches (批) of food imported from 35 countries and regions were found substandard by the country’s top quality supervisor.

Governments and industries have been brought closer by this forum.As food moves more freely beyond borders, this forum is hoped to promote safety control cooperation, so APEC members can better benefit from the economic integration(经济一体化).

5 . Aesha Ash is a ballet dancer who began The Swan Dreams Project in 2011. It is a program designed to bring ballet to girls of color in her community. Aesha Ash is one of the few women of color to ever grace the stages of the School of American Ballet in New York City. She wants to expose her community to more positive images of women of color through the use of ballet. She wants to show the world that beauty and grace are not defined by status or race.

Aesha grew up in the inner city of Rochester, New York, where crime, gun violence and poverty were among the biggest threats to the community. For her, that’s normal. That’s just life in the neighborhood, but what she remembers most is the dance studio. She started dancing at the age of five. A teacher mentioned to her mother that she had some promise in ballet, and that it would be difficult for her, as a woman of color, to enter the ballet world. But the hardship she faced was the very thing that pushed her to pursue a career in ballet.

And there’s so much negative stereotypes (刻板印象) and misunderstanding of who they are in the media. Through the use of imagery and her career as a ballet dancer, she challenges stereotypes that exist for women of color, particularly those from inner-city communities.

“It’s important that our girls see that side of themselves because for many kids it’s hard to be what you can’t see. I hadn’t seen a black ballet dancer before I decided that was what I wanted to be. It was really important for me to be in my environment displaying that because this is where I’m from. It was always beyond ballet,” Aesha Ash stated.

6 . Most of us spend our lives surrounded by screens, which offer us convenience as well as connection and an ocean of information. But since it’s easy to feel pressured to keep up with every notification, technology may feel more like a burden than a blessing. Thus, the idea of “digital detox” is becoming increasingly inviting.

The phrase “digital detox” describes getting rid of TV, phones, computers and other forms of technology that control our lives for a period of time. Some experts advocate completely avoiding unnecessary screen time for 30 years. Others suggest using an app that will limit the amount of time one can spend on certain websites. A third option is logging out in evenings or on weekends. Others simply turn their phones off at scheduled times. Some even pay high prices to take vacations in places where they can unplug from their digital routine.

Why might you want to take a digital detox? Perhaps you find that you are spending longer than you intend on certain apps or that they distract you from more important things. Perhaps social media is depressing because you compare yourself to others or you fear missing out on things that other people are enjoying. Constant negative news can also give rise to a lot of stress.

Technology can also have physical effects. Many people experience back or neck pain as a result of bending over screens. The blue light coming from most screens can also affect people’s sleep by preventing production of melatonin(褪黑素).

Giving up all screens may not be realistic, but strategic breaks from technology may be good for your body, mind, emotions and relationships. It is high time that you picked a time to turn off your devices and focus on really important things.

7 . It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver’s seat is another matter.

Road politeness is not only good manners, but a good sense. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and becomes so necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such behaviors of politeness are by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don’t even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. A typical example is the driver who waves to a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may not be able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to.

An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can’t even learn to drive, let alone master the roadmanship (公路驾车技能). Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

8 . Social media is taking over our lives: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and now, TikTok. These social media platforms have changed from a way to stay connected to an industry where even kids can make money off their posts. While this may seem like another opportunistic innovation, it’s really full of hidden false realities.

The median income (中位收入) recorded in the United States of America was about $63,000 in 2018. TikTokers can make anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 for a TikTok brand partnership, and TikTokers with over a million followers can make up to $30,000 a month—$360,000 a year. They are making more than the average person trying to feed their family and keep a roof over their heads simply by posting a 15-second video.

This is mad in more ways than one. Not only is it an overpaid “job”, it promotes undeserved admiration from viewers and a false sense of reality. Many of these famous TikTokers are still teens and the effects of fame at such an early stage in life might cause issues later in life, such as mental illness. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 make up 27% of TikTok viewers, who can be easily influenced by what they are watching. They can put a false sense of self-value into who they look up to and what they represent: money, fame, being considered conventionally attractive.

While TikTok has become a great tool for marketing, it’s important to understand how this content affects young viewers. If we’re constantly consuming content that shows us all we need to do to be successful is be conventionally attractive and post a 15-second video featuring a new dance, it will challenge our knowledge of what really makes someone successful and will in turn affect our individual work ethnics (伦理). What about the people who miss birthdays and family holidays due to their jobs and aren’t getting paid nearly as much as these TikTokers?

Richard Colyer, president and creator of Metaphor, Inc, had his own view on this issue. “It sounds great that kids can make money for doing the latest dance moves in a 15-second video, but we should feed the minds of kids and not just their bank accounts. TikTok can be great if used properly. Money alone is not good; technology alone is not good and connectedness can be bad if it is only online.”

Again, as a fellow consumer of TikTok, I do enjoy the app when I have some time to kill and need a good laugh. I’m not against someone making a living on entertainment, but what does getting famous by posting a 15-second video teach young people?

9 . The British has obeyed the “keep to the left” rule for long. Have you ever wondered why? There is a historical reason for this: it’s all to do with keeping your sword hand free! In the Middle Ages you never knew who you were going to meet when travelling on horseback. Most people are right-handed, so if a stranger passed by on the right of you, your right hand would be free to use your sword if required.

Indeed the “keep to the left” rule goes back even further in time; archaeologists have discovered evidence suggesting that the Romans drove carts and wagons on the left, and it is known that Roman soldiers always marched on the left. This “rule of the road” was officially sanctioned in 1300 AD when Pope (教皇) Boniface Ⅷ declared that all pilgrims (朝圣者) travelling to Rome should keep to the left.

This continued until the late 1700s when large wagons became popular for transporting goods. These wagons were drawn by several pairs of horses and had no driver’s seat. Instead, in order to control the horses, the driver sat on the horse at the back left, thus keeping his whip hand free. Sitting on the left however made it difficult to judge the traffic coming the other way, as anyone who has driven a left-hand drive car along the winding lanes of Britain will agree!

In Britain there wasn’t much call tor these massive wagons and the smaller British vehicles had seats for the driver to sit on behind the horses. As most people are right-handed, the driver would sit to the right of the seat so his whip hand was free. Traffic congestion in 18th century London led to a law being passed to make all traffic on London Bridge keep to the left in order to reduce collisions. This rule was incorporated (并入) into the Highway Act of 1835 and was adopted throughout the British Empire.