To a growing number of US students in China, study in the ancient country is no longer just a cultural experience it has become an important part of their future professional careers.

    Sam Gor, a 26-year-old student from Santa Clara, a county near San Francisco, said the purpose of his studies in Beijing was to help him find a good job when he goes back to the United States. "Culture matters," he said. "But more importantly, to learn Chinese and get a better understanding of the country may help me professionally." As a new student at Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), Gor hopes to find a job in Santa Clara's local government when he goes back home in one year. "I need to learn Chinese if I want the job, as we have a large Chinese community there."

    Gor is not alone in his thinking. While the number of US students in China has grown from less than 100 in the early 1980s to more than 10,000 for the time being. Many of them are here to boost(提高) a professional skill as much as to enjoy a new culture.

    “In the past, foreign students came to China simply for our culture,” said Xu Quihan, director of BLCU's foreign students' office. “But because of China's rapid economic and social development, being able to speak Chinese has become a useful tool to a student's future job”

    There are more US students who choose to stay in the country instead of going back after graduation. Stephanie Schubmehlo, a 23-year-old from Rochester, New York State, said she would like to stay in Beijing after graduation. “I love the city, and I can earn myself a living here if I can speak good Chinese,” she said, adding that some of the US students she knows shared the same idea.

    “A good book might clarify something you knew little about, transform your world view, or move you in ways you didn't think possible. The Soul of an Octopus(章鱼)delivers on all three, ”the magazine New Scientist commented.

    After writing about birds, pigs and tigers, US naturalist Sy Montgomery decided to choose these many-footed animals as the subject of her latest book, The Soul of an Octopus: a surprising exploration into the wonder of consciousness.

    “Here is animal with poisonous liquid like a snake，a beak(喙)like a parrot，and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and extend as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy; boneless body through an opening the size of all orange. It can change color and shape. It has a tongue covered with teeth. It can taste with its skin.” Montgomery explained to the National Geographic on why octopuses inspired her.

    What Montgomery is able to show in The Soul of an Octopus is that octopuses are creatures who exhibit personality, intelligence and emotion, despite having nervous systems completely different from our own. She uses different experiments to show that they possess consciousness as well as individual personalities. For example, based on her research, she finds out that Octavia, an octopus caught in the wild, is friendly and good at multi-tasking. And Kali, another octopus，who has been living at the New England Aquarium, is playful and loves exploring.

    Montgomery is a good storyteller. Through her study of, and communication with, these extraordinary creatures she shares what she learns from both science and her experiences. Her skillful writing presents facts together with personal description, which makes the book very informative but easy to read.

    Last year, three experienced storm chasers were killed in a tornado(龙卷风)in the US, but despite this the number of people going in search of tornadoes is growing. What drives them to take risks and look for danger? The man at the wheel glanced in the back-view mirror and then slowly turned around. "Don't put this in your program." he said. His wife in the passenger seat laughed. He lowered the window and killed the engine. The wind rushed in from surrounding wheat fields.

    Then, from behind, the sound of footsteps approached on the dirt road. It was a moment of peace after hours of speedy racing through the American grassland. There had been excited shouts about where a tornado might form and how we would be there if it did. We were crazy on the trail a moment ago. But now, everyone was very cool. A Kansas state trooper(骑警) introduced himself through the window. There was pretended surprise when he said how fast we had been going. Really? Wow, sorry.

    Val Cator handed over his driver's license. His wife, Amy, took the registration out of the glove box. Val explained they were storm chasers with Channel 9 News out of Oklahoma City—though it was hardly necessary. Their huge black truck has lightning bolts(闪电)and Storm Tracker 9 painted on the sides.

    Val pointed to the radar on the laptop open next to him and said those red and green dots suggested a tornado could form this afternoon. The state trooper was untouched. "I've got that in my car too." he said. People here keep a close eye on the weather. It's part of living in the tornado alley. Every year some town or other is blown off the map by tornadoes that can reach 300 miles an hour.

    Val and Amy are just two of hundreds of possibly thousands of trackers who speed around with computers and cameras hoping to catch one of these beautiful, deadly storms. I'd joined them to learn why the number of trackers keeps growing. Why are people taking real risks—beyond the steady diet of rest-stop junk food—to watch weather?

    Last year, a tornado killed three of the most experienced storm chasers. It picked up and threw their car as easily as you would a piece of paper. Dozens of other chasers were hurt in the same storm. They were crowded on a few roads when the tornado suddenly expanded and ate them. Val and Amy were there that day but still, in their words, chase aggressively.

    A video recording from Xinhua (9th, Nov. 2017) showing Arabella Kushner, US President Donald Trump's granddaughter, singing Chinese songs and reciting Chinese literary classics caused another Internet sensation (轰动) in China Wednesday night.

    In the video clip, Arabella, wearing a traditional embroidered Chinese dress, greets President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan.

    The six­year­old sings two songs Our Fields, Beautiful Fields, and My Good Mom. The former, written in 1953 and adored by Chinese teenagers for decades, expresses one's love and affection for the motherland and nature. The latter is a popular nursery rhyme widespread in China.

    She also displayed knowledge about Chinese literature by reciting Three Character Classic, a Confucianist volume to educate young children, and two ancient poems of Li Bai, Watching the Fall of Lushan Mountain, and Departing from Baidi City in the Morning.

    Xi spoke highly of the child's Mandarin abilities and said her performance deserved an "A Plus". He said Arabella was already a star in China and hoped she would visit China one day.

    Numerous media websites and netizens reposted the video. It has received 2.3 million clicks on Sina Weibo, China's popular social media platform, as of press time.

    "What a talented and smart girl she is!" Weibo user Yumeiren said. "I hope she can make more contributions to fostering China­US friendship in the future."

    Earlier this year, during President Xi's visit to the United States, Arabella has already performed for the president and his wife at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6. Standing alongside her parents, Arabella sang Jasmine, a Chinese folk song with her brother Joseph.

    Sam, I say to myself as I start across the bridge, you must stop these thoughts and start thinking about what to do now that you have lost your falcon（猎鹰）, Frightful.

    Life, my friend Bando once said, is meeting problems and solving them whether you are an amoeba or a space traveler. I have a problem. I have to provide my younger sister Alice and myself with meat. Fish, nuts, and vegetables, are good and necessary, but they don't provide enough fuel for the hard physical work we do. Although we have venison（鹿肉） now, I can't always count on getting it. So far this year, our venison has been only road kill from in front of Mrs. Strawberry's farm.

    I decide to take the longest way home, down the flood plain of the West Branch of Delaware to Spilkill, my own name for a fast stream, that cascades down the south face of the mountain range I'm on. I need time to think. Perhaps Alice and I should be like the early Eskimos. We should walk, camp and hunt, and when the seasons change, walk on to new food sources. But I love my tree and my mountaintop.

    Another solution would be to become farmers, like the people of the Iroquois Confederacy who once lived here. They settled in villages and planted corn and squash（南瓜）, bush beans and berries. We already grow groundnuts in the damp soil and squash in the poor land. But the Iroquois also hunted game. I can't do that anymore

    I'm back where I started from.

    Slowly climb the Spillkill. As I hop from rock to rock beneath shady basswoods and hemlocks, I hear the cry of the red﹣tailed hawk who nests on the mountain crest. I am reminded of Frightful and my heart aches. I can almost hear her call my name, Cree, cree, car-ree.

    Maybe l can get her back if l beg the man who is in charge of the peregrines（游隼） university. "But it's the law," he would say. L could write to the president of the United states and ask him to make an exception of Alice and me. That won't work. The president swore to upload the constitution（宪法） and laws of the United States when he took office.

    I climbed on. I must stop thinking about the impossible and solve the problem of what to do now. I must find a new way to provide for us. Frightful is going to be in good hands at the university and she will have young.

    I smile at the thought of little Frightfuls and lift my reluctant feet.

    When I am fat above the river,1take of my clothes and moccasins（鹿皮鞋） and bathe in a deep, clear pool until I am refreshed and thinking more clearly. Climbing up the bank, I dress and sit down. I breath deeply of the mountain air and try to solve my problem more realistically.

    Move over, helicopter parents. "Snowplow(扫雪机) parents" are the newest reflection of an intensive(强化的) parenting style that can include parents booking their adult children haircuts, texting their college kids to wake them up so they don't sleep through a test, and even calling their kids' employers.

    Helicopter parenting, the practice of wandering anxiously near one's children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some rich mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines moving ahead, clearing any difficulties in their children's path to success, so they don't have to suffer failure, frustration(挫折)or lose opportunities.

    It starts early, when parents get on wait lists for excellent preschools before their babies are born and try to make sure their kids never do anything that may frustrate them. It gets more intense when school starts: running forgotten homework to school or calling a coach to request that their children make the team.

    Rich parents may have more time and money to devote to making sure their children don't ever meet with failure, but it's not only rich parents practicing snowplow parenting. This intensive parenting has become the most welcome way to raise children, regardless of income, education, or race.

    Yes it's a parent's job to support the children, and to use their adult wisdom to prepare for the future when their children aren't mature enough to do so. That's why parents hide certain toys from babies to avoid getting angry or take away a teenager's car keys until he finishes his college applications.

    But snowplow parents can take it too far, some experts say. If children have never faced a difficulty, what happens when they get into the real world?

    "Solving problems, taking risks and overcoming frustration are key life skills," many child development experts say, "and if parents don't let their children experience failure, the children don't acquire them."