The Lunar New Year, despite usually being associated with the Chinese, is also celebrated in other countries. Here are several places in America to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
New York City
New York City, which has one of the largest populations of ethnic (少数民族) Chinese people outside of Asia, is a great place to experience the Lunar New Year. There are around 10 different Chinatowns in New York City. Visitors will find parades, performances and foods in most of these areas but some of the festival characteristics are unique to the particular district.
San Francisco
San Francisco's Lunar New Year celebrations are the longest runnings in America. They date back to the 1860s, during the "Gold Rush" period. Today, numerous events take place around the Bay Area, but the headline is the massive Chinese New Year Parade that draws as many as 1 million viewers.
Washington. D. C.
Washington. D. C. has a historic Chinatown. There is a parade here with floats, firecrackers, dancers and music. The Smithsonian American Art Museum can host hands-on arts and crafts events that feature performers invited from China. The Kennedy Center stages themed performances, including folk music and symphonies from China.
Chicago
Despite low temperatures in January and February, Chicago celebrates the Lunar New Year in a big way. There are two parades, usually held on different days of the same week-end. One is in the city's traditional Chinatown on the South Side, and the other takes place on Argyle Street. Asian culture is on full display during these parades, and other Chicago communities also take part.
A third of all food produced worldwide is never eaten. But how easy is it to reduce our food waste? Two students have found out.
"That's not a very pleasant smell," says student Helen Chigwende, standing with the entire contents of her household food waste bin laid out before her. Helen and one of her house-mates, Will Smith, want to learn how to live a more sustainable(可持续的) lifestyle, so they need to understand their habits. That means searching their leftovers or food that has been sent straight to the bin without being touched. They soon find out how much of their food waste could have been avoided. "We've got a piece of sandwich meat that doesn't even seem to be eaten," Will says, looking at what sill-eatable food he could save. It is formed into a pile of "avoidable" waste, which soon becomes the "unavoidable" things.
"One of the reasons why we end up with a lot of food waste is that food isn't stored properly," explained Dr Woolley. Sometimes it is placed in an area of the fridge or cupboard where it is not easily noticeable, so it gets left and not eaten in time. There are also two other tips in reducing food waste. "The first is planning," he says. "Write a shopping list to make sure you're not repeating things you've already got. The second is preparation. Cook the right amount for the people that are going to eat."
Back at the student house, Helen and Will are cooking vegetarian food to ensure a sustainable lifestyle. The long term test of whether they can keep up with their dietary prices and reduce food waste is yet to come. But both are devoted to making a positive change now. Despite being a "picky cater", Helen says a week of sticking to health has not been too diff-cult. "It's just about finding things you'll enjoy eating."
There's no doubt that tomatoes are one of the most popular foods around. But is the tomato a fruit!? Or are we eating vegetables? They're one of the easiest vegetables to grow at home. Or is it easiest fruit? Good tomatoes taste like sunshine, and that should be all we need to know. It turns out, though, that defining whether a food is a fruit or a vegetable isn't as simple as it might seem.
Farmers, chefs, and lawyers all have different answers to this question. It may seem simple to us. Eat it for lunch? Vegetable, Eat it for dessert? Fruit! But it's not that easy. There are legal definitions of fruits and vegetables, as well as scientific ones. Tomatoes fit the scientific definition of fruits as they form from a flower and contain seeds. So botanically(植物学上), tomatoes are fruits. However, the way we eat them and treat them in cooking means that they also fall into the legal kind of vegetables.
In 1893, to avoid paying the fee, a decision made by the Supreme Court stated that tomatoes should be classified as a vegetable instead of a fruit for the purpose of trade.
Why are tomatoes fruits? To answer the question "Is the tomato a fruit?" let's look at the definition of fruit. According to Merriam-Webster, fruits are "the usually eatable reproductive body of a seed plant, especially: one having a sweet pulp(果肉)." The actual tomato plant is a seed plant that grows the red, eatable tomatoes people know and love. Although tomatoes aren't known for being as sweet as other fruits like peaches, they're not as bitter as some vegetables. With this definition in mind, everything from peppers to cucumbers are also fruit, while potatoes are not. It's an interesting fact that potatoes are actually distant relatives of the tomato. However, as root vegetables, they don't fit the "fruit of the vine(藤)" definition that makes tomatoes a fruit.
People's relationship with work is complex. For all the troubles with the power-crazy managers and annoying colleagues, individuals need the security of a job. A century of research has actually shown that unemployment leads to anxiety, depression and reduced sense of self-worthiness. On average, it has an even greater effect than divorce.
But how much work do we need to do to feel happy?
A recent paper by the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge University took the opportunity of the current health crisis to examine the impact of reduced working hours on mental health. Many British employees were placed in a furlough scheme (休假计划) during the lockdown, under which their working hours were reduced and their wage losses were paid by the government.
The study concludes that people working reduced hours do not have poorer mental health. But what is particularly surprising is how little work is needed to keep people happy. The requirement for better mental health is just one day a week. After that, it seems to make little difference to individuals' well- being if they work 24 hours or 48 hours a week. The increased satisfaction from working clearly comes from the feeling of purpose, from the social status it creates and from the close relationship among colleagues.
Clearly, economies cannot survive if everyone works one day a week. But the need to limit long working hours was realized back in Victorian times. For much of the 20th century the length of the average working week fell while output continued to climb.
There will be occasions when people have to work late or rise early to finish a project. Day after day, however, a long-working-hours lifestyle is bad for the employers and employees. Some managers seem to take working longer hours as a sign of an employee's willingness to put their job ahead of their families and friends. If so, the employers don't need to have better employees. They need better managers.
Three tips for protecting your eyes during the winter
We usually worry about staying warm during the winter months, and think less about protecting our eyes. .Here are three things you can do to protect your eyes during winter months.
Tip 1: .
During the winter, our eyes are often exposed to blowing, dry, hot air that can cause them to become dry. Here are a few treatments: . Keep yourself away from direct heat sources while sitting. Use a humidifer (加湿器) to help reduce dryness.
Tip 2: Wear sunglasses with UV (紫外线) protection.
UV rays in the winter can harm our eyes. . Wear sunglasses when you're outside, or driving, to protect your eyes from UV rays. This is especially important as days lengthen into spring and the sun gets stronger.
Tip 3: Goggles (护目镜) protect in many ways.
Goggles not only protect our eyes from UV rays, but they also help keep our eyes from drying out from the winter wind. In addition, think about all those branches, leaves, and dirty snow that can severely injure our eyes upon contact. . Don't forget them!
A. Clean your eyes carefully
B. Don't let your eyes dry out
C. Goggles protect the eyes from the wind
D. Keep eye drops at hand to wet your eyes
E. It is wise to wear quality goggles
F. In fact, they can do even more harm when they're reflecting (反射) off snow
G. However, the winter months can be as hard on our eyes as the summer months
Overcome the Fear for Your Dream
I stood nervously behind the red curtain and glanced out across the stage. A girl about my age sat at a piano; I could see her fingertips moving over the black and white keys in front of her. The beautiful melody (旋律) was so relaxing,1my body tensed with anxiety.
My body2when the girl stood up from the bench. It was finally my tum. A part of me wanted to run home and3under my bed, but I knew I had chosen to 4. When the girl onstage walked toward me, I could hear my heart beating5.The girl had a proud smile on her face and when she passed me, I heard her say "Good6"!
"Well, here goes nothing." I said to myself
I stepped onto the7and walked slowly toward the piano. The bright lights nearly 8me, making it difficult to see the audience. When I reached the 9, I automatically slid onto the bench into position. The sounds of whispering and people walking around gave way to complete silence. I stared at my10fingers and for a moment my mind went11. Closing my eyes, I imagined the music sitting in front of me and tried to recall every tiny detail.
Finally, I took a deep breath and began to play Beethoven's Moonlight sonata( 协奏曲 ). The rich tones of the piano rang out. One by one, each muscle in my body loosened and relaxed. I sat on the bench and my12danced over the row of black and white keys as if they had a mind of their own.
All the practice and13I put in for six months showed this was what my teacher was pushing for. I tried to14all the things she reminded me to do." Keep your wrists up, relax your arms, don't raise your shoulders...I remembered feeling slightly annoyed hearing these things continuously, but I never realized until now how it really15.
When I reached the end of the piece, the audience started16.I rose from the bench and gave a deep bow. A proud smile17up my face. Inside I felt18that it was over and that I had done so well. As the applause died down, I turned and walked to the other side of the stage. l saw a young boy standing nervously behind the red curtains staring19out at the stage. When I walked by, I passed to him the two words that were given to me for20：Good luck!
A heartwarming letter written by Yuan Longping has caught international attention as the world is mourning（哀悼）over his passing away. In 2010, at the age of 80, Yuan wrote the letter memory of his late mother, Hua Jing. In the letter, (name) "The Rice is Ripe, Mom", Yuan looked back to the old days with his mother in Anjiang town in central China's Hunan province, his mother was buried in 1989.
"Mom, the rice is ripe. Can you smell it? It seems as if your laugh is still ringing in Anjiang. I can still see my son holding (you) hands to help you walk through the rice field." he wrote.
Born in a (wealth) family in Yangzhou, eastern China's Jiangsu province, Hua was well educated and open minded. She taught Yuan English and the (thought) of Nietzsche (尼采) when he was very young. Having never worked in the fields, Hua moved to Anjiang town to support her (son) research.
"Mom, the rice is ripe and I come back to Anjiang (see) you. Every time when I (be) able to deliver a speech to the audience from around the world or take a prize in my study, I always thought of you. You made me who I am. People say I've changed the word with o tiny rice seed, but I know you had planted the seed in me when I was sill little boy, mom."
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
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。
Last year, I studied at a high school in New Zealand for a year because of I was an exchange student. I lived with a host family. I didn't leave it when I returned home. There was three boys and one girl in the family. They treated me as a member of their family. My English was not very good but I had difficulty in communicated with native people. The four children were happily to help me with my English, telling me a lot about local customs. They always introduced some foods to me. With my help, my English improved such fast that I could understand the teachers soon. Also, I had the ability talk with my classmates easily. What a unforgettable experience!
