Museums are the best history collectors and tellers. Hangzhou, with a history of over 2,200 years, is rich in museums.
China National Tea Museum
The tea remains excavated in 2021 showed its existence in 453~410BC. Surrounded by many tea plantations with lush Longjing Tea Trees, the China National Tea Museum also allows the visitors to enjoy the fun of hiking and picking tea leaves by themselves. Dinner at a Hangzhou style home-stay tea shop is a good choice.
Open: 9:00~16:30 Monday closed.
China National Silk Museum
China National Silk Museum shows visitors the history about silk, the Silk Road from 202BC and the earliest silk produce in Yingyang, Henan 5300~5500 years ago. The exhibits include tradition looms, exquisite Chinese-styled costumes from 1920s to 2020s, night fair in ancient times, and cherished royal silk treasures.
Open: 9:00~17:00 Tue. to Sun.; 12:00~17:00 on Monday
Liangzhu Culture Museum
The Liangzhu Culture found in 1936 can date back to 4,300~5,300 years ago, which is a strong proof of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. It is also well known for its vast legacy of jade objects and black-based pottery. In July 2019, Liangzhu was inscribed to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.
Open: 9:00~16:30 Monday closed
The Jing-Hang Canal Museum
The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the earliest excavated from 486 BC and longest artificial canal in the world. It was listed in World heritage in 2014.It is vital for national unity and economic prosperity. If you want to take a night ship trip (Tue.-Sun.), Wulinmen Wharf is 5 miles away.
Open: 9:00~16:30 Monday closed
Growing up, I understood one thing about my dad: He knew everything. In my teen years, he taught me things I'd need to know to survive in the real world. How to drive a stick shift. How to check your car tyre's pressure. The correct knife to use to cut a cantaloupe.
When I moved out on my own, I called him at least once a week, usually when something broke in my apartment and I needed to know how to fix it: the toilet, the air-conditioning, the wall, once, when I threw a shoe at a terrifying spider.
But then, eventually, I needed him less. I got married, and my husband had most of the knowledge I lacked about gutter cleaning and water heaters and nondestructive insect removal. For everything else, we had Google.
I don't know when it happened, but our conversations when I called turn into six words. Me: "Hi, Dad." Him: "Hi, sweets. Here's Mom."
I loved my dad, of course, but I wondered at times if maybe he had already shared everything I needed to know. Maybe I'd heard all his stories. Maybe, after knowing a man for 40 years, there's nothing left to say. Then, two summers ago, my husband, our four kids and I moved in with my parents for three weeks while our house was being painted. They owned a lake house, and my dad asked me to help him rebuild the bulkhead（舱壁）. It was hard, manual job. We got wet and sandy. But as we put the new bulkhead together piece by piece, my dad knew exactly what went where, I looked at him. "How do you know how to build a bulkhead?" "I spent a summer in college building them on the Jersey Shore."
"You did?" I thought I knew everything about my dad, but I never knew this. I realized that maybe it's not that there's nothing left to say. Maybe it's just that I've spent my life asking him the wrong questions. That day, my dad talked about what he had learned and what he could do excitedly. We chatted and chatted for a long time.
A few weeks later, after my family and I moved back into our painted house, I called my parents. "Hi, sweets," he said. "Here's Mom." "Wait, Dad," I said. "How are you?" We ended up talking about everything he was working on. To anyone else, it would sound like a normal conversation between a dad and his daughter. But to me, it was novel. A new beginning. I spent the first part of my life needing to talk to my dad. Now I talk to him because I want to.
Chinese dance drama, Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting《只此青绿》, will stage 120 shows in 2023, according to the dance drama's production company, China Oriental Performing Arts Group.
On March 15, the Beijing-based company announced its performing arts season in 2023, which includes dance dramas, musicals and concerts.
"Since its first performance in 2021, Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting has become one of the most popular dance dramas of the country and has been performed nationwide about 240 times," says Jing Xiaoyong, head of China Oriental Performing Arts Group.
The dance drama, designed by Han Zhen and Zhou Liya, was inspired by A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, a classic artwork exhibited at the Palace Museum in Beijing, which was created by artist Wang Ximeng during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) when the artist was 18 years old. It is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important works in the history of Chinese fine art. The 11-meter-long scroll painting is a record of people's lives and the natural scenery of that time, mixing realism with creative imagination. There are mountains, rivers, villages, ports, temples and pavilions. The painting is housed at the museum.
One of the most recognized movements in the dance piece is the graceful but demanding backbend pose by the female dancers who symbolize the impressive scenery of the country's mountains depicted （描绘）in the painting.
"There are many young audience members traveling along with us during the tour and they not only enjoy the dance drama but also are in love with traditional Chinese culture," says dancer Meng Qingyang, who plays the leading role in the dance drama and receives applause from the audience with her solid techniques onstage.
China's government is expected to improve work on serving and caring for senior citizens, as the nation prepares for a coming "retirement（退休）wave" over the next decade, experts said.
The nation has faced a growing aging population in past years, which may lead to labor shortages, putting greater pressure on the pension（养老金）industry and slow economic development. Moreover, the aging problem may become more serious around 2035, when the number of over-60s in China is expected to increase over 400 million.
However, these aging people, especially those "younger elderly" — who are around the ages of 55 to 60 years old, show an increasing willingness to be employed again. 51Job, a website that provides job opportunities, conducted a survey among retirees returning to the job market, among whom 46.7 percent of those surveyed said that they got the job to realize their personal and social value, and another 19 percent hope to go after better career development by using their skills. Around 34 percent of surveyed reemployed retirees said that they work to support their family or meet their higher-level consumption（消费）needs.
Pang Shi, director of the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science's department of employment and entrepreneurship, said people are encouraged to have a more positive attitude toward the aging population to help promote the sustainable development of the pension industry. She said that the large population of the "young elderly", are in relatively good health with more sound knowledge backgrounds, working skills and social experience, and have great potential to give full play to their talent.
"They are qualified to return to the job market. Developing human resources among the elderly can help relieve labor force shortages the nation has faced," she said. "Getting seniors reemployed can also help reduce their own financial pressures to avoid being poor, which can also help relieve the nation's pension pressure."
It's necessary to look at the aging problem with a systematic view, she added.
How to Keep a Diary
A diary is a way of writing down your memories, but it has other benefits as well. Keeping diaries is beneficial to your mental health and it helps you become a better writer!
Many people find it helpful to plan a right time to write each day. It's good to write before bed or in the morning. Of course, you can write your diary at any time! It's up to you!
Give your diary a special purpose. During some time of your life, you may not feel like there's much interesting going on, which can make you harder to write something in your diary. You may devote your diary to a specific purpose.
Write about thoughts and feelings, not just events. For example, your favorite band will come to your city. You can also write how the sound of the musical instruments makes your whole body feel like shaking and how excited and happy you are when they play your favorite song.
Use your diary for creative writing. When you write your diary, don't worry too much about the rules of spelling and grammar. You don't worry how other people think about your writing either! Indeed, a lot of diary writing is just like that. Don't be afraid, however, to use your diary to write more creatively. Some people even write their own songs in their diaries.
A. Schedule a time for writing.
B. Find a place for writing.
C. Most people think of a diary as a personal story.
D. You can describe the expectation you have before they walk onto the stage.
E. Filling your diary with your honest thoughts will make the experience more interesting.
F. To make diary writing an interesting part of your daily life, you can take the following tips.
G. For example, you can try a nature diary, in which you write about plants, animals, weather or other natural things.
There is a school where children use pumpkins to learn about colors and counting. They learn about 1 by planting seeds 30 centimeters apart. Interesting? Yes, that's the 2 school. For students at this school in Hamilton, Virginia, the classroom is 3 every day. Jaclyn Jenkins is a founder of the school. The 4 for a school like this started after Jenkins and her husband Kenny bought a farm shortly after their marriage. The Farm School is a 5 –a place for three and four-year-olds to learn and play.
Teacher Alison Huff says The Farm School gives its students more of a hands-on learning 6. Children can use everything a 7 preschool uses, but out in the garden. In addition to planting vegetables and fruits, youngsters help prepare food and 8 afterward. The school teaches children to cook using the food they have grown. They can 9 what they have in the garden 10 going to the grocery store and buying it. Besides, the preschoolers also learn words in languages other than English. Huff speaks 11 in both English and Spanish. Her assistant speaks French and Arabic.12, a 3-year-old in her class speaks four different languages.
What's more, Farm animals are also playing an important part in the education program. The youngsters learn about a 13 animal every month. Two months ago, the animal they learnt was a cow. They get to see what the cow is like, and we learn what cows eat. We use little gloves and try to 14 a cow. Using the milk from their work, we make yogurt.
More and more families 15 The Farm School. Their children come home with new experiences, new knowledge and sometimes a few vegetables they plant by themselves. So this kind of school is getting more and more popular!
I have been in Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, for two years since I (admit) to a PhD program in Shanxi University as an international student from Bangladesh.
Over the two years, I found myself falling in love with Shanxi and China as I got more (absorb) in local lives and got more familiar the city, the province and the country. I must admit that it's normal to feel lonely when (start) a new life in a new place. You have to adapt to everything－food, language and culture., my adaptation didn't take a long period of time. I have got used to eating noodles for breakfast and using online payment via my smart phone very quickly. After a while at the university, I didn't feel much pressure in my study. There is still enough spare time to allow me to visit various parts of Taiyuan and Shanxi and (make) friends with locals.
My favorite sport is cycling and I find China is very cyclist-friendly because it is (convenience) to hire bicycles in every city in the country. I like to cycle in the streets in Taiyuan and visit places I meet randomly. The cycling tours helped to deepen my understanding of the city.
The city has a history of more than 2,500 years, the (long) among all cities in China. Plenty of well-preserved ancient structures, like the (temple) in Jinci, the double pagodas in Yongzuo Temple, are the material evidence to help you get a glimpse into what ancient China looked like.
I hope more international students come to study in Shanxi University and to live and work in China as the country is full of opportunities.
