The Golden Week holiday is extended to eight days this year, as China is ushering in two celebrations from Oct. 1-8: the National Day holiday and the Mid-Autumn Festival. For anyone who is looking forward to a rich，refreshing break, here is a list of some of the best exhibitions, shows and things to do around town.
Qin and Han dynasties relics
The Civilizations of Qin and Han celebrates the glory of those two dynasties (221BC-AD2 20) in terms of politics，economics, arts and culture. More than 300 artifacts from 30 museums and institutions across the country are on show through Nov. 30.
If you go: 9am-5pm till Nov. 30. Closed on Mondays. National Museum of China, 16 East Chang'an Avenue，Dongcheng District. 010-6611-6188.
Ticket: Free
Artist's solo show
Chen jialing is a famous artist who seeks a connection between Chinese and Western art, and demonstrates and excellence for industrial design. He will show dozens of ink paintings. Also on display are his designs on decorative works for daily use, such as bowls, furniture pieces and silk scarves.
If you go: 9am-5pm till Oct. 8. National Museum of China, Dongcheng District.
Walk into a time machine at Beijing Design week
This year's Beijing Design Week is allowing visitors to explore exhibitions and events in the city's Dashilar area with interactive experiences that apply advanced technology, such as virtual reality.
By simply scanning a QR code, information about exhibitions and events linked to the Beijing Design Week being held in the Dashilar Design Community pop up. Push the button on your screen, and you can use the “time machine” to wander through the alleys of Dashilar area.
If you go: till Oct. 5.3 Cha'er Hutong, Xicheng District.
Ticket: Free
German designer Weingart's works at Beijing Design Week
Another highlight of this year's Beijing Design Week is an exhibition from German - born designer Wolfgang Weingart. His style has been influencing designers and his students in Europe and North America over the years.
If you go: 9:30 -5:30 pm till Oct 8. Art Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, 8 Huajiadi South Street, Chaoyang District 010-6577-1018.
Ticket: 120 yuan per person.
A long time ago, soldiers fought wars on foot. Then they began to ride horses to battle. Until the invention of the stirrups (马蹬), though, men could not fight well with swords or spears while on horseback.
Without stirrups, soldiers had no place to put their feet. They could not stand up to use their swords without falling off their horses. They could throw spears only with the force of their arms.
Using stirrups, a soldier could stand up in his saddle (鞍). He could put a spear under the top part of his arm and charge with the force of his horse. He could use force when fighting with a sword. And he could win most fights against soldiers who did not use stirrups.
The first stirrups were made in India. Because the weather was warm, people did not wear shoes. The Indian stirrup was made of rope. It fit around the big toes. Later, the Chinese made a foot stirrup of wood. Because the Chinese lived in a colder country, the stirrup had to fit around shoes. Still later, around A. D. 700, soldiers in Asia used strong iron foot stirrups.
Ben Lecomte, a French long-distance swimmer, dropped into the water Tuesday at Choshi, Japan, and embarked on his attempt to become the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean, BBC News reports.
Six years in the planning, the 5,500-mile effort is expected to take five to six months, with Lecomte swimming eight hours a day and covering an average of 30 miles daily, according to his website.
His route to San Francisco will take him through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area three times the size of France where large amounts of garbage and plastic waste have collected, CNN reports.
Lecomte will be accompanied by a specially outfitted support boat named Discoverer. He will take rest periods on the boat, but it will return him to his stopping point each day to make sure he swims the entire distance.
In addition to accomplishing a first, Lecomte said, he wants to draw attention to the problems of ocean pollution and climate change. A team of scientists plan to conduct research for 12 scientific institutions, including NASA and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, while he is making his swim.
Lecomte is no stranger to feats of long-distance open-water swimming. In 1998, he swam 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. On that swim he encountered sharks and stingrays. This time, he said, he will be wearing a shark-repellent bracelet.
One of the challenges will be making sure he has enough energy each day, and Lecomte said he intends to consume 8,000 calories daily.
A 525-year-old copy of a letter by Christopher Columbus, stolen from the Vatican, was returned this week. An investigation by the United States Department of Homeland Security and the Vatican located the letter.
“We are returning it to its rightful owner, “said U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Callista Gingrich, at a ceremony in the Vatican Library. Columbus wrote the letter to the king and queen of Spain after discovering “The New World.” He described what he had found and requested money for another trip. His original letter was written in Spanish. But several copies of a Latin translation were made to spread news of his discovery to the royal courts of Europe and the Pope.
One of the Latin letters, copied by Stephan Plannack in 1493, was put in the Vatican Library. Known as the Columbus Letter, it has eight pages, each about 18.5 cm by 12 cm. In 2011, an American expert in rare manuscripts received a similar looking letter. After reviewing it, he decided that it was real. The year before, the same expert had studied a Columbus Letter in the Vatican Library and suspected that it was a fake. One reason was that the stitching (针脚) marks on the letter were not the same as those on the cover. The letter in the United States, however, had the exact same stitching marks as the leather cover of the fake letter he had studied in the Vatican.
The expert, who was not identified, contacted Homeland Security art investigators, who began working with Vatican inspectors and rare book experts. They believed that someone took the real letter out of its cover at the Vatican Library and replaced it with an artificial one. Archbishop Jean-Louis Brugues is the Vatican's chief librarian. He said, “We do not know exactly when the substitution took place. We will probably never know who the forger (伪造者) was.”
Their investigations found that Marino Massimo De Caro, a well-known Italian book thief, had sold the real letter to a New York book dealer. De Caro is serving a seven-year prison sentence in Italy for stealing about 4,000 ancient books and manuscripts from Italian libraries and private collections. The late collector David Parsons bought the letter for $875,000 in 2004. After the investigations, his widow agreed to return the letter to the Vatican Library. Officials said the letter is now worth about $1.2 million.
Do you know what may make you seem to be not confident enough?.
Giving reasons for your actions. Suppose you are having lunch with a group of people, and suddenly you drop your glass of coke on the floor. What will you do? Well, some people will just start to explain why it has happened. If you drop a glass or make a mistake, it won't change who you are. It's your right to make a mistake because you are a human being.
You may have experienced a situation where you told a friend his performance wasn't that good and then he replied back immediately by saying, “No, no, no, it's just because I was tired” or “I was just thinking of something else”. Confident people listen to criticism and see whether it's true or not. However, if they know it's not true, they don't care much about it.
Becoming a perfectionist. A perfectionist thinks that he lives in a perfect world so he tries to do everything perfectly. Confident people are not perfectionists. If they get a “B”, they may try to get an “A” next time, but if they get 99/100, they won't be unhappy about not getting a full mark because they know they're not perfect.
A. Confident people don't give reasons for their actions.
B. Read the following information and you'll know the answer.
C. Accepting criticism immediately.
D. Replying back immediately to criticism.
E. If the criticism is true and can help them, they accept it.
F. He may become very unhappy if he gets 99/100 in an exam.
G. He may become very unhappy if he can't pass the exam.
As we all know, people often make a living by making the most of local surroundings. A small village by the sea depended on 1 to survive. Each year the villagers had to go farther and farther from shore to catch enough fish to 2 the population.
But as the villagers went farther away, they 3 a problem. Their usual 4 was to put the fish they caught in big tanks to keep them 5 until they returned home. But the fish grew inactive in the tanks, and many 6 before the boat could reach shore again.
After much 7, one villager 8 a solution. On their next fishing trip, they caught a 9 shark and placed it in the tank along with the fish. The shark ate only a few fish, but the rest swam 10 around the tank trying to keep away from the shark—and made it to shore fresh and healthy for the villages.
Sometimes a little fear is what we need to stay active and 11. People usually lose 12and focus when everything goes smoothly and 13 best when they have a little anxiety or fear.
A little fear can be 14. Fear can hold a lot of people back and stop them from living life to the fullest. I understand that feeling of being afraid.15 there is only one thing worse than 16, and that is being afraid to begin. There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown 17 about them.
Dale Carnegie once said, "Inaction 18 to doubt and fear. Action breeds 19 and courage. If you want to 20 fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."
A study shows that new technology is reducing children's ability (use) a pencil or pen. The study is from the National Health Service in the UK. Researchers said that nowadays, children spend so much time swiping iPads or mobile phone screens they cannot hold a pencil properly. Children are not using(pencil), so they now lack the muscle (strong) in their hands to be able to write (proper). Researcher Dr Sally Payne said: “Children are not coming into school with the strong hand and the ability they (have)
10 years ago. Children (come) into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not able to hold it because they don't have the fundamental (基本的) movement skills.”
The researchers said technology is changing the physical way that children write, draw or make things. Dr Payne explained why. She said: “It's(easy) to give a child an iPad than encourage them to do muscle-building play such as building blocks, cutting and sticking, or pulling toys and ropes. One expert said a child isn't strong enough to hold a pencil, perhaps their whole body is weak. She said it was better for children's physical development to climb trees to watch YouTube videos.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Dear Michael,
How is it going? I'm writing to invite you to participate a voluntary activity hold by our English club, which can surely improve ourselves. Since I will also join in it, why not going with me to enjoy this activity?
Here are some information as follows. An activity will be held at Xihu Park, which is closely to your home. And the time is about from 9:00 to 11:00 pm on Sunday. Aiming to develop the aware of protecting the environment, the volunteer will do something valuable to the environment, such as picking up the rubbish, watering trees and flowers. Besides, please remember which you need to mind the grass and be careful about yourself.
Please keep me informed it if you are willing to accept my invitation.
Best wishes.
Yours,
LiHua
