For families on vacation, a playground provides a welcome break. It can also provide a glimpse into the local culture，from the setup of the park to the ways families interact．Here are the designs that live up to that challenge．

Fruit and Scent Playground, Stockholm

    Is there a picky eater on a steady diet of chicken fingers and cheese? Perhaps a trip to Sweden's Fruit and Scent Playground will change his or her culinary(烹饪的)tune. This playground features a banana slide，an orange seesaw，pear huts，a watermelon jungle gym and a pair of cherry swings，all designed by public artist Johan Ferner Strom. Now, who can say you can't play with your food?

Nishi Rokugo Park, Tokyo

    Located between central Tokyo and the city of Kawasaki, Nishi Rokugo combines recycled rubber tires(橡胶轮胎)with traditional playground equipment. In total, more than 3,000 tires of different sizes are used to create tunnels, bridges, tall sculptures for climbing and, of course, tire swings. There's little shade, so you can visit here in the early morning or late afternoon for the most comfortable weather, and be sure to wear your play clothes.

    Bicentennial Children's Park, Santiago, Chile

    Bicentennial Children's playground in Metropolitan Park was built to celebrate 200 years of Chilean independence and improve the lives of Santiago citizens. Dozens of slides are built into the slope, creating a design completely complementary(互为补充的)of the surrounding landscape. Fountains offer some relief from the sun, and ample seating gives parents a place to relax.

What's On?

Electric Underground

7:30pm－1:00am   Free at the Cyclops Theatre

    Do you know who's playing in your area? We're bringing you an exciting evening of live rock and pop music from the best local bands. Are you interested in becoming a musician and getting a recording contract (合同)? If so, come early to the talk at 7:30pm by Jules Skye, a successful record producer. He's going to talk about how you can find the right person to produce your music.

Gee Whizz

8:30pm-10:30pm   Comedy at Kaleidoscope

    Come and see Gee Whizz perform. He's the funniest stand-up comedian on the comedy scene. This joyful show will please everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. Gee Whizz really knows how to make you laugh! Our bar is open from 7:00pm for drinks and snacks (快餐).

Simon's Workshop

5:00pm-7:30pm    Wednesdays at Victoria Stage

    This is a good chance for anyone who wants to learn how to do comedy. The workshop looks at every kind of comedy, and practices many different ways of making people laugh. Simon is a comedian and actor who has 10 years' experience of teaching comedy. His workshops are exciting and fun. An evening with Simon will give you the confidence to be funny.

Charlotte Stone

8:00pm-11:00pm Pizza World

    Fine food with beautiful jazz music; this is a great evening out. Charlotte Stone will perform songs from her new best-selling CD, with James Pickering on the piano. The menu is Italian, with excellent meat and fresh fish, pizzas and pasta (面食). Book early to get a table. Our bar is open all day, and serves cocktails, coffee, beer, and white wine.

    There is an old saying about volunteer work that goes like this: “ No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.”

    Today, many people volunteer their time and energy to help others. There are a lot of ways to meet other people's needs. For example, some volunteers provide help after a disaster. Others are happy to get dirty while repairing homes or planting trees or flowers in poor neighborhoods. Young people see suffering and loneliness around them and find ways to help. And history lovers help archeologists(考古学家) search for ancient objects to help deepen our knowledge of the past.

    Volunteers work in many areas around the world, including Haiti. More than four years have passed since a 7.0 earthquake shook the nation. The exact number of people who died may never be known. Thousands of survivors of the Haitian earthquakes still live in temporary shelters. Last year, former American President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn joined five hundred volunteers in the town of Leogane to build houses.

    Organizations do not have to be large to get volunteers. An activist group in Dharamsala, India is a good example, Jodie Underhill from England arrived in northern India several years ago. She planned to volunteer for an environmental project. She could almost not believe how much rubbish was ruining some of the area's most beautiful sights. Jodie Underhill learned about how to deal with the rubbish while taking part in other volunteer projects. But soon enough she formed her own group, Mountain Cleaners. Jodie Underhill says the work is very hard. But she praises the group's efforts as a wonderful experience. The young Englishwoman says the Indian media started calling her “Garbage Girl”. And she says she was pleased with the name.

    American teenagers also volunteer in many ways .

    Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy. After all, you probably sing or whistle when you are happy.

    Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy. However, they sing most of the time for a very different reason. Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.

    Do you know what a “territory” is? A territory is an area that an animal, usually the male, claims（声称）as its own. Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species are welcome. Your yard and house are your territory where only your family and friends are welcome. If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout. Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.

    If so, you have actually scared the stranger away without having to fight him. A bird does the same thing. But he expects an outsider almost any time, especially at nesting（筑巢）season. So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not. This screaming is what we call a bird's song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.

    Birds sing loudest in the spring when they are trying to attract a mate and warn others not to enter the territory of theirs.

    You can see that birds have a language of their own. Most of it has to do with attracting mates and setting up territories.

    Back in 2009, China was wrongly accused by the West of "controlling" the Copenhagen talks on climate change. By then China had truly carried out strict policies to reduce the energy consumption of economic activities and at the international level, the top Chinese leaders participated in round-clock efforts to cooperate with the major players to build a united front for efforts to solve global warming. But China was finally misjudged.

    This misjudgment caused China's scholars to rethink China's climate change communicative ways. Among them was Zheng Baowei, journalism professor of Renmin University of China, who realized China had to better shape its communication on its environmental protection.

    Delightfully, the efforts have paid off. Zheng set up a top-level international group advising his research team. He is in charge of doctoral candidates on climate change communication. Climate awareness surveys have been conducted, and a package of communication tools has been designed. Many seminars have been arranged.

    Recently, he arranged a seminar on climate change and health communication on the changing situation both in China and the world. First of all, this stressed that China's policy has developed from reducing its energy consumption and pollution prevention to the important goals of achieving a "Beautiful China" and "'Healthy China, "while coming up with plans to realize an ecological civilization since late 2012. With such goals, China played a leading role in securing the Paris climate change deal in 2015 together with the United States and European Union. In Paris, China promised to let out its carbon to the maximum in 2030.

    It is a demanding job communicating climate change and other topics of lasting development well. Despite that, some foreign scholars have realized China's smart ways in presenting the green concepts. They appreciated China's idea of building a "Beautiful China" and "Healthy China" and said it can he expanded into an idea of a "Beautiful World" and "Healthy World".

    Looking back from how China had followed the steps of the industrialized countries in advocating climate fight, people find now its own green ideas are being recognized.

    On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table.

    "Hey, aren't you from Mississippi?" the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by a stranger. "I'm from Mississippi too."

    Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty's table. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair.

    "They began telling me all the news of Mississippi," Welty said. "I didn't know what my New York friends were thinking."

    Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty's new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi.

    "My friends said: ‘Now we believe your stories,'" Welty added. "And I said: ‘Now you know. These are the people that make me write them.

    Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty's people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets beside her house, from conversations overheard on a bus.

    It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. However, she continues to walk into life and notes the vivid life. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment(片段) of a particularly interesting story, yet she quickly takes out a notebook and write something fantastic under her point of pen.