Events

Long March exhibit

    The Shanghai History Museum is putting on an exhibition to mark the 60^th anniversary of the Long March. On show are more than 220 photos and 40 items that explain with pictures how the communist Red Army drew back from its besieged(被围困的) bases in Jiangxi Province and fought its way to northern Shanxi province in the mid-1930s. Explanations are all in Chinese. The show will end on November 20.

Time: 10:00 am—4:00 pm.

Address: 1286 Hongqiao Road

Admission: 8 Yuan for Chinese/ 15 Yuan for foreigners

Thai elephants

    Eight elephants from Thailand are entertaining visitors at Changfeng Park by riding bikes, playing basketball, balancing on a beam, dancing and blowing a mouth-organ. People are encouraged to have a tug-of-war(拔河比赛) with the animals or lie on the ground and have the elephants walk over them. The elephants give three shows a day at 9:30 am, 3:30 pm and 8:00 pm and there is an additional show at 1:30 pm at weekends. The show will end on November 15.

Address: 189 Daduhe Road

Admission: 30-40 Yuan

Dancing dolphins

    Dolphins jumping from the water to touch a ball, swaying their bodies to music, kissing people and doing math by tapping their tails have made the dolphinarium in Peace Park an attraction for children. Seals and sea lions also perform.

Hours: 10:30 am, 4:00 pm, and 7:30 pm

Admission: 20 Yuan for adults and 10 Yuan for children.

    In the early 1980s, one of our neighbors asked my mom if she would make a few gift baskets for her to give as gifts for the holidays. My mom agreed and news of the unique gift baskets my mum was making spread like wildfire throughout the neighborhood. My mum was busy throughout the holiday season, so she asked a friend to help her. When the orders continued after the holiday season for baby gifts, birthday gifts and more, it occurred to them that maybe this job could be turned into a business and they did it.

    My mum went into her business because she had a creative idea. She got orders and filled orders. But there was no purpose and no real strategy(策略). In 1991, my mum' s partner got into financial trouble and there was not enough money to support either my mum or her partner.

    So if you are led by your creativity or enthusiasm, make sure you ask yourself what you want out of your business. If you don't set goals, how will you know what direction to go in? Do you want to create jobs and growth in the economy? Are you looking for a hobby? You can't keep scores if you don' t know what game you are playing.

    After my mom's partner gave up, she had to abandon(抛弃) her business to support herself. She swore（发誓）she would run a business again and do it differently the next time. However, there wasn't a "next time" for her. She passed away just after her 51st birthday. She never had someone tell her how important having a goal was. She never had an opportunity to be everything that she could be.

    There are no right or wrong goals, only the ones that matter to you. Set them so that you can make progress and achieve success, whatever that may mean to you.

    Some of the best things in life don't happen until you grow old enough to recognize them. I can say that about tea.

    I didn't start to drink tea until I was 35. What happened before that? The first time I felt a genuine urge to drink tea was in 2003, when I stayed briefly in the United Kingdom. After a time of consuming local food, I started to really like strong black tea. Although it was too strong to my tongue, I felt it was a necessity because it was comforting to my body.

    I took packs of green teas with me as gifts but was disappointed to find my British friends preferred much stronger black teas from Sri Lanka. Later I learned that although people know China for its teas, it ranks only third among the world's black tea exporters, after Sri Lanka and Kenya.

    After I came back to China and started to cover food stories, I met friends in the tea-drinking circle and learned more. Although the majority of the rest of the world drinks black tea, which the Chinese call“red tea”, China produces and drinks mostly green teas.

    I feel lucky to be Chinese because of the great variety of teas available in the country. It is estimated that there are more than 2,000 teas in China if you divide them geographically, including more than 600 locally famous brews. A more simple way to categorize (分类) is by color and extent of fermentation (发酵). That comes down to six main categories—green, white, yellow, dark-greenish (oolong), red and black teas.

    Tasting teas can be compared to our lives. They can be plain and predictable but sometimes they are full of pleasant surprises. Occasionally they can even seem too good to be true. The best thing is, you know there's always more to explore.

    A new “smart bin” could spell the end of environment - conscious families spending hours sorting tins, cartons, bottles, and cardboard for recycling. The invention, which automatically sorts rubbish into recycling categories, is being trialed in Poland and is set to go on sale in the UK within a few years.

    The bin, designed by start - up company Bin. E, recognizes different types of waste via a system positioned inside the bin which uses sensors, image recognition and artificial intelligence. Once waste is placed inside, the camera and sensors identify its type and place it in one of the smaller bins. Then it compresses (压缩) the waste so it occupies less space.

    News of the launch showed that more than a million households are being forced to accept bin collections every three or four weeks, because councils are trying to force them to recycle more. Data collected by The Telegraph has showed at least 18 areas have moved or will shortly be moving to three - weekly rubbish collections, while a further three have adopted or are trialing four - weekly collections. While reducing general bin collections, councils are increasing the frequency of recycling collections in a bid to change people's behaviour. It is thought that the bin could be stocked by department stores such as John Lewis, which said it is introducing new hi - tech recycling bins to satisfy increasing customer appetite for them. Matt Thomas, a utility (家用设施) seller at John Lewis, said, “We've recently seen a jump in specialist bins sales, with a 25 percent increase in the last few months alone. We have noticed our customers are becoming more and more sustainability focused, choosing dual compartment (双格) recycling bins that make it far easier to recycle different types of waste. In response to this demand, we are really excited to introduce a new voice and sensor activated smart bin this autumn / winter season — designed to use new technology to make recycling more efficient and functional for the everyday home.”

    "Stop making excuses for him. Mom," I said. "But maybe he is feeling unwell..." Mom said. "Maybe nothing." I interrupted. I had been tending Mom since her health began to decline and this would be the first time in a year that my husband and I had a night out together. Jerry had promised to stay with Mom. But again he let us down. And more often than not, his drinking had a lot to do with it. His irresponsibility upset me.

    I remembered our happy growing-up years in a small town in West Virginia. With good family education. Jerry had been a kind kid. He was only 15 when Dad died. Unlike him, I got over the sorrow soon, but he started drinking. Soon he began hanging out with bad guys.

    Jerry and I didn't see each other often, but we talked on the phone. Usually, though, we ended up fighting. When Mom came to live with us, Jerry dropped in regularly at first, but after a while his visits became sporadic. He explained he couldn't handle seeing Mom in such a bad condition. Another excuse, I thought.

    One day I went to see the doctor about my back. It had been aching for months. "I can't find anything wrong with you physically," the doctor said. "But I can tell you're very tense. Is something bothering you?" I poured out my story about Jerry. "Do you think he's likely to change?" he asked. I shrugged."Probably not." "But, you can," he said gently.

    Me? Why did I have to change? He was the one who constantly let us down. But what had I done? Maybe the doctor was right. I couldn't love his behavior, but I could love him—the way 1 did when we were little. As I walked intothe house I sensed a relief.

    Jerry died young due to drinking. I miss him. But Pm grateful I was given the opportunity to show him I lovedhim—as he was, not as I wanted him to be.

    For most of her life, Suanne Laqueur's passion for storytelling was shown on the dance floor.

    Although Laqueur began writing at a young age, dancing always took center stage. She majored in dance and theater at Alfred University and taught at her mother's dance studio in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, for years. But when her mother was ready to retire and an opportunity opened for Laqueur to take over the studio, she realized she had no interest in taking on the business side of her art: “Owning a studio is a lot of work—financially, logistically. I love the teaching, the choreographing(编舞), the staging, but I didn't want to own it.”

    Yet Laqueur's disinterest in running the studio changed when she became a self-published author. In the fall of 2013, she decided to pursue Self-publishing as a way of sharing her first completed novel with friends and family. During the process, she realized that following her true passion—telling stories through writing—made the business of the art worthwhile, and owning that business meant she could direct her writing career however she chose.

    Starting with her second self-published novel, she began investing more time in marketing and building her audience. Her investment paid off. Since 2014, Laqueur, now 49, has self-published six novels, which collectively have hundreds of ratings and reviews on Good reads. Her 2016 novel An Exaltation of Larks stole the show at the 25th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards, topping more than 2,300 entries to win the grand prize.

    “You have to write the most truthful story to you, and I think self-publishing allows that freedom,' she says. “If you work with traditional publishing, it's more about what's marketable, There are trade-offs, which everyone will tell you, but by self-publishing I have control of the book, I have control of the story, and I'm cool with that.”