Kitchen Products Thai Will Make Your Life a Lot Easier

    Hanging Trash Bag.

    Speaking of clever bag that will change your world, how many times have you cut off loads of vegetables and tried to clean up the messy waste, only to make half of it accidentally drop on the floor? This hanging trash bag attachment (附件) makes clean-up super easy, so you'll never end up with smelly chopped (切碎的) onions all over your floor again.

    Available on Amazon, $ 6.99

    Dream Farm Supoon

    How many times have you struggled for just that last little bit of something out of a jar or dish? This all-purpose cooking spoon helps scraps (刮擦) the edges of any pan, bowl, or strangely-shaped container with zero effort, so you'll always get that last bit, every time.

    Available on Amazon, $20.40

    Flex Pot Clip

    For those of us who'd rather not balance our serving spoon or wooden spoon on the edge of the pot unsteadily, or rest it on the counter where it'll definitely make a mess, allow me to introduce you to the Flex Pot Clip. Attach it to the edge of your pot so you can keep your counters clean and your hands free. It's heat-resistant and dishwasher safe!

    Available on Amazon, $7.88

    Reusable Silicone Lids

    These are useful to cover your food before putting it in the fridge if you often have leftovers. These silicone lids are flexible, reusable, dry airtight, allowing you to leave your food right in its original dish or bowl and keep it fresh for days. They're clear, eco-friendly, and super easy to store, since they hardly take up any space. Available on Amazon, $15.97

    Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, who received Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, is one of the central writers in Latin America, but he began his literary career in Europe.

    Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, but from age one he lived in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where he was brought up by his mother and grandparents after his parents separated. However, Vargas Llosa once said that "I feel very much an Arequipan"．He also spent some time in Piura, northern Peru (1945～1946)．

    Vargas Llosa attended Leoncio Prado Military Academy (1950～1952), and Colegio Nacional San Miguel de Piura (1952), Peru． In 1955 he married Julia Urquidi; they divorced in 1964.From 1955 to 1957 Vargas Llosa studied literature and law at the University of San Marcos, Peru. He then attended post-graduate school at the University of Madrid, Spain, where he received his Ph.D.in 1959.

    In the 1950s, while still a student, Vargas Llosa worked as a journalist for La Industria. His first collection of short stories, LOSJEFES, appeared in 1959."I liked Faulkner but I imitated Hemingway, "he said later. Vargas Llosa moved to Paris because he felt that in Peru he could not earn his living as a serious writer. Although the boom of Latin American fiction in the 1960s opened doors to some authors for commercial success, the great majority of Peruvian writers suffered from the problems of the country's publishing industry. In France Vargas Llosa worked as Spanish teacher, journalist and broadcaster. From the late 1960s Vargas Llosa worked as a visiting professor at many American and European universities. In 1970 Vargas Llosa moved to Barcelona and five years later he settled back in Peru. Most of his novels are set in Peru.

    In addition to the Nobel Prize, Vargas Llosa has received many other honors. Among the most notable are Leopoldo Alas Prize (1959), Peruvian National Prize (1967) and Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1994).

    Dr. Amanda Harris was ready for sleep since it was already 11 pm. The phone rang. On the other end of the line was a woman about to break a promise. The woman was her mother's neighbor. Flora Harris had made the neighbor swear she wouldn't tell her daughter she'd had a heart attack and was in hospital. The neighbor wisely decided to disobey orders.

    Amanda desperately wanted to get to the hospital immediately, but she couldn't. She lives in Washington D. C. and her mother lives in California. For the past year and a half, Amanda has gone to Los Angeles every other month to take care of her mother. Flora Harris takes care of her husband, James, who's 91 and has Alzheimer's disease. They live in their own home, and a caregiver comes to help them a few hours a day.

    Amanda is one of many Americans facing the heartache of how to take care of aging parents from afar. She's often worried and guilty, not to mention busy with a demanding job, two teenage daughters and the frequent trips to California.

    In some ways, Amanda is lucky. She has the resources to make the trips to Los Angeles. Plus, she is a doctor who treats the elderly. She's treated countless patients whose children live far away.

    “But it's still tough,” she says. “I can foresee what the next few years are going to look like, and it's not a pretty picture. There will come a time when my father won't recognize me and I worry he's going to be violent and hurt my mother.”

    So what do you do when you live a continent away from your aging, sick parents? You can hire someone to help, but you can't count on it completely.

    The Japanese have always been at the forefront at deploying (利用) robots to perform jobs that are traditionally done by humans. Over the past year, humanoid robots have been seen helping customers at the Mitsubishi Bank and even filling in for human science communicators at museums. Therefore, it is not surprising to hear that the country has the worlds first hotel that is staffed almost entirely by the Androids!

    The aptly (巧妙地) named Henn-na ("strange" in Japanese) Hotel which opened its doors on July 17 is located at Nagasaki's Huis Ten Bosch theme park. It is the idea of Hideo Sawada, a Japanese businessman who is fascinated by the possibility of replacing humans with robots. His aim is to have this futuristic hotel be run mainly by the intelligent humanoids.

    Guests checking-in are welcomed by a family friendly English-speaking robot wearing a bow tie and bell-hop (侍者) hat. Though experienced at his job, he does request guests not to ask him "a difficult question" since he is after all, "just a robot!" Those seeking a more "regular" experience, can approach the human-like Japanese-speaking robot.

    When ready, visitors can request the robot "porters" to help carry belongings to their room. Those that need to stow away valuables can hand them to a helpful robot who will place them inside an individual safe box in exchange for a small fee. A one-foot-high concierge (管理人) is available to provide information about the hotel's amenities (便利设施), nearby attractions, and even order a taxi if needed.

    So how much does it cost to live in this crazy cool hotel? It depends on when you decide to go. During the low season, guests can get away with paying as little $60 a night for a basic room. However, during the peak season when rates, are determined by an online auction, the price can get as high as $153.

    I always feel sorry for world leaders busy dealing with fights between nations. When my three children were young, most days it was hard to keep my house from becoming a battlefield.

    It got worse as they grew older. Three years ago, Zack, then 16, couldn't make it through a day without making his sisters, Alex 11 and Taryn 9, angry.

    My husband and I tried to be understanding the boy at such an age. We reasoned, punished, and left heartfelt notes on his bed about how he was hurting our family. His answer was" I say it because it's true."

    I even tried telling the girls to fight back. Bad idea. Now I had three children at war. Whatever I said to them, they paid no attention. When there was no way out, I told everything to my sister, Mary, in an e-mail. She replied, "Don't e-mail me. E-mail him."

    Our son was online every day, mailing and talking with his friends. Maybe he would actually hear me this way. I didn't say anything different, but e-mail just took the tension away. There'd be no shouting or door banging. Zack wouldn't feel under attack.

    Zack didn't reply for days. When he finally did, his entire message was four small words. I smiled when I read them: "You're right. I'm sorry."

    The children still fought, of course, but Zack changed. Best of all, I now have a better way to talk with not one but three of them. I like it that they don't tune me out as much as they used to. They like not having to listen to me shouting to them. Or as Alex says, "You're so much nicer online."

    All I know is that the house is quiet. But we're talking.

Bogre Udell, who speaks four languages, met Frederico Andrade, who speaks five, at the Parsons New School in New York City.In 2014, they started a project to make the first public records of every language in the world.They've already recorded more than 350 languages, and plan to hit 1，000 in the coming years.

"When humans lose a language, we also lose greater diversity (多样化) in art and traditions，"said Bogre Udell.Between 1950 and 2010, 230 languages disappeared.Today, a third of the world's languages have fewer than 1，000 speakers left.Every two weeks a language dies with its last speaker, and 50 to 90 percent of them are said to disappear by the next century.

Wikitongues has asked for volunteers in 40 countries to film native speakers talking in the past, present，and future tenses of their mother languages.Native speakers are asked to recall childhood, share their stories, and discuss their hopes and goals.One volunteer in the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu recorded a language that had never been studied by language experts before.Another volunteer found a speaker of Ainu, a language in Japan that has no relation to any other known language, and he also recorded it.However, priceless recording opportunities disappear regularly.Not long ago, one of the last two speakers of a Saami language in the Russian steppes died right before his recording session with Wikitongues.

A lack of protection and globalization are responsible for diminishing language diversity.For much of the 20th century, governments across the world forced some local people to use official languages.More than 100 languages in Australia have disappeared since European settlers arrived.However, most languages die today because of other factors; climate change and urbanization contribute (是……的原因之一) greatly to the disappearance of languages.