In Britain, Australia, Canada and a few other English-speaking countries, people don't stop celebrating when Christmas Day is over. They also celebrate the following day, known as Boxing Day. It is a popular day for giving additional (另外的) gifts. It has been celebrated for so long, but nobody exactly knows how it started.

    Some people believe Boxing Day began in the Middle Ages. In those days: in some special places there were special collection boxes where people threw money for the poor.

    The day after Christmas the boxes were opened and the money was counted. Then the money went to helping the poor in the area.

    Others believe Boxing Day started about 300 years ago when some rich people had Christmas feasts (盛宴). They offered lots of food to their guests. Because many servants (仆人）were needed to make and serve the food, they could not celebrate Christmas with their families. To thank them, the rich people would put food into boxes for their servants to take home.

    Now Boxing Day has become a public holiday in some countries. Some people spend the day boxing up old or unwanted things and donating (捐赠) them to the poor. Many people are active in helping service organizations(组织)like the Red Cross.

    No matter how Boxing Day got its start, it's a wonderful time to donate things or give small gifts to people. By doing so, you cam make someone's holiday much happier.

    Writing is a much newer invention than talking. Nobody knows when people first began to talk, but so far as we know, they did not begin to write until seven or eight thousand years ago.

    In Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China, and later in Palestine and Greece, people began to make marks and pictures with sticks and sharp stones from which others, or they themselves later, could see what they had thought.

    These early records were the beginning of writing. The first writing was picture writing. Here are some early Chinese picture words. Can you see what they represent (代表)?

    Later Chinese writing is less like pictures than the earlier writing was, but we can see the pictures in some of its words. For example：

    In picture writing, each picture represents a word; you need a different picture or mark for each word.

    In present—day Chinese writing most of the marks are not pictures of anything, and a reader has to learn how the Chinese write about two thousands of these words before being able to read a newspaper.

    With some of these marks you may be able to see what the idea is, For example：

    The sun and the moon. Its meanings are: "bright" and "open".

    A man and two marks. One of the meanings is "humanity".

    How did people tell the time before clocks were invented?

    At first, the ancient people looked up at the sun and could tell it was the middle of the day when the sun was directly overhead in the sky. They also knew when it was morning or evening.

    Later, the Egyptians used sticks. These sticks measured (测量) time during the day. The sun shone on the tall stick and the stick made a shadow (阴影). As the sun moved across the sky, the position (位置)of the shadow changed. This would let people tell what time it was.

    Over time, Chinese first used sundials instead of shadow sticks. The sundial has a type of shadow stick on it. As the sun shines on it, a shadow appears on the numbers. Each number stands for an hour of the day. But sundials don't work at night or on a cloudy day! There are no shadows unless the sun is out.

    Water clocks used water to measure time at night. Water dripped (滴落) slowly from one bowl into another. The level of the water in the bowls showed the time.

    People also used sand-glasses. You may have seen one. Some games still use sand-glasses. The sand falls from the top of the sand-glasses to the bottom. It measures short amounts of the time. The more sand falls, the more time has passed. When the sand has finished falling, you have to turn the sand-glasses over.

    Wild beavers (河狸) are back! Experts say that the wild beaver families are doing well. The beavers are even boosting wildlife and the environment!

    Over ten years ago, a family of beavers turned up in a part of the river Otter, in Devon. No one knew exactly where they came from. It was a big surprise -wild beavers hadn't lived in England for around 400 years!

    In 2015, the govemment allowed the beavers to stay there as part of a trial (试验). They wanted to see if these animals could be reintroduced to the wild. The trial ends in February. Some scientists from the University of Exeter already say the beavers help the wildlife in the area. One scientist called it “an amazing story”.

    A lot of this is because of dams. Beavers build dams along the river. This creates deep pools in the riverbed and slows the water down. Scientists say this is perfect for many different types of plants and animals! Many plants are growing near the beavers. Different types of animals are also becoming more and more in the river. Beavers also help make flooding less, scientists say. The beavers' dams slow down the speed of the river, especially after heavy rain.

    There are, however, some problems. Beavers gnaw (咬，啃) on trees and this can harm them. Their dams can also sometimes create floods (洪水) on people's land.

    Beavers aren't the only animals that are being reintroduced to the wild! In 2019, red squirrels were brought back to an area of the Scottish Highlands. Further away, the world's rarest (罕见的) duck, the Madagascar pochard, is making a comeback. It was set free into the wild on the African island in 2019 and is doing well.

    Who knows what other animals might be making a comeback?

    When Reginald Johnston, a British scholar (学者) , first walked into the Forbidden City in 1919, most palaces weren't allowed to visit. But a century later, when the People' Republic of China is to celebrate its 70th founding anniversary (周年纪念) in October, the 599-year-old palace complex (宫殿群) becomes the world's busiest museum.

    Open to the public

    In the old days, ordinary people could only imagine what it looked like inside. When the Palace Museum was founded in 1925, the public could go into the palaces. Now 80% of the total area of the museum is open to the public and it will increase to 8500 in 2025.

    Embracing (拥抱) the world

    "It felt like you were hit by hundreds of years of history," Christopher Allen from Britain said. "I begin to love its history and culture.”

The Forbidden City is becoming more open and friendly to visitors. It attracted about 3. 5 million visitors from abroad and 9 overseas (海外的) exhibitions were held in 2018. The Palace Museum exhibition becomes a cultural phenomenon (文化现象) everywhere it goes.

Attracting the youth

    On the Palace Museum's online store on Taobao, you can find more than 10, 000 cultural products. The ones with cute and humorous pictures of emperors are very popular.

    Some favourite products also go offline. For example, the "Kangxi Emperor's Favourite Chocolate", the most popular drink, always has people lining up (排队) to get a taste.

    As a child, Xu Jing often rode a bike in front of the Meridian Gate (午门) . "I had little memory of the museum then, but now I am more willing to visit it after watching several popular TV shows about the museum," she said.