When you are travelling by plane, there are some passengers you just don't want to have next to you.

      ①  

    Perhaps you normally like them , but when you are sitting next to them on a plane it is a different thing. They usually spend all flight moving around and dropping their toys on the floor, and when they are drinking their orange juice ,it ends up on your trousers. Then they decide they want to play with you. So you can't have the little sleep.

      ② 

     You can realize this type as soon as you sit down. They immediately start talking about the plane , or the weather, or they ask you a personal question. It is very difficult not to talk to these people . You'll probably have to keep talking until the plane landed.

      ③  

    These are the people with white faces who sit down and immediately ask for something to drink. Every five minutes they call a flight attendant(服务生)to ask if there are any problems with the plane. They also tell you about air accident. The best thing to do is to pretend to sleep.

       ④    

    These people are not necessarily very big. But they have a terrible habit of taking up all their room, and some of your room too. They usually sit with their arms and legs in your space.

    K.L. Rothey, 71, from the United States, a retired lawyer (退休律师)

    Rothey has given himself the Chinese name of Luqi or “roadside beggar (乞丐)”. In his eyes, beggars are doing important work—collecting rubbish. What they do is not dirty.

    Rothey first visited China in 1984 and soon he became interested in Chinese culture. Married to a Chinese woman, he lived in Huangshi. Many people know him because he often shows up in the street collecting rubbish. “Huangshi is my home so I hope it becomes cleaner and more beautiful,” says Rothey. He has also organized volunteers to collect rubbish in other cities, including Wuhan.

    Jill Robinson, 50, from Britain, founder (创立者) and CEO of Animals Asia Foundation.

    She has been working for nearly 20 years to stop people from getting the bile (胆汁) from moon bears.She began working for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Hong Kong in the mid-1980s. A business trip to a bear farm in 1993 changed her life. She saw so many moon bears killed by people. She said she would be back to set them free.

    In 1998, she set up the Animal Foundation. In July 2000, the foundation agreed to free 500 farmed moon bears. In 2002, the Moon Bear Rescue (救援) Center was set up in Chengdu.

    “As much as we save them, they save us. These bears save us every day and they teach us to be better people,” Robinson says.

Huge Waves Destroying Arctic Ice Faster than Expected

    Ice covers much of the Arctic Ocean (北冰洋). Some pieces of ice are huge, like moving islands. As temperatures have increased, however, some of the ice has begun to disappear. Scientists have discovered huge waves (海浪) in the arctic waters.

    The waves were discovered by accident in May, 2010. Scientist Aleksey Marchenko and his students set out on a trip. They wanted to study the icy waters.

    On May 2, the ship traveled east and stopped next to a large chunk of ice around 50 miles from the small island of Hopen. Marchenko prepared to lead his students out onto the ice.

    "We were ready to go but when I went out, I discovered many cracks (裂缝) around," he remembers.

    He decided to move the ship deeper into the ice to keep safe. The farther in they went, he thought, the harder the ice would become. As they pushed forward, however, the ship experienced small waves, and then bigger ones. Soon, the waves broke up the ice around the ship into thousands of smaller pieces.

    Within an hour, Marchenko and his team saw a wave that was about 13 feet high. The ship's navigation (航行) system finally recorded the largest waves. They were more than 20 feet in height. The waves were so strong that they forced huge pieces of ice to jump up and down, breaking the ice into smaller pieces within just one hour. Scientists had never imagined that the process could happen so fast. The waves in these areas used to be small.

    The speed and force of the huge waves there makes it impossible to know in advance when they are coming. That could be dangerous for navigators and local communities who are unprepared for huge waves or depend on sea ice to protect them. Wildlife like polar bears and walruses that depend on sea ice to live is also in danger.

    Some scientists think people will soon see even bigger waves in these icy waters. As waves break up ice, the seas will become more open, and the waves will get even stronger. There are stormy times ahead.

    The People's Bank of China will come out the fifth edition(版本)of the renminbi (RMB) from August 30, 2019. These banknotes(纸币)will have brighter colors and new security features(防伪特征).

    We've been using banknotes for around 1,000 years. Back in the Northern Song Dynasty, Chinese people made the worlds earliest paper money to replace(代替) metal coins. These banknotes were called jiaozi.

    Paper money is cheaper to make and easier to carry. These advantages made it more popular than other forms of money. But now, in the digital (数码的)age, paper money seems to be disappearing for the same reason.

    China seems to be heading towards becoming a cashless(不用现金的) society. From supermarkets to street stores, people pay by using the We Chat Wallet and Alipay apps on their mobile phones. Sweden is even closer to a future without paper money. Many Swedish banks no longer even have cash on hand.

    But there are worries about creating cashless societies. Some say it is unfair to the poor and people without much education. It's not easy for them to open bank accounts( 账户)or deal with mobile phones. And if all of your money is" digital, it may not be safe enough.

    Is paper money going away? Although paper money is used less than electronic payment (电子支付) in some countries, it won' t disappear at once in most parts of the world.

    Febri's is a very friendly place. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} We did not see one unhappy staff member (工作人员) — all have smiles on their faces. It is very clean and it has good service.

    The pool is wonderful and deep and there is a baby area in it. My kids loved the elephants around the pool spraying water. We often bad lunch by the pool. You only just push the bell and the staff will bring you a menu. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} It serves the usual food with little change each day.

    Lots of visitors stay here because it's a very good family hotel. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} If you have young kids, I advise you to ask a ground floor rooms, because stairs are too hard for young kids. These rooms are at the back of the hotel, so there is no street noise. It's very quiet. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} I slept with 3 pillows (枕头) under me. The spa is quite relaxing! The location is good. Everything is close by, and the street is not one way here. Next to the hotel door there is a good DVD shop, and you can rent DVD at a good price from it. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} It's a $1 taxi ride to Kuta Market. If you want to go to the beach, you can walk through the hotel opposite to Febri's to get to Tuban Beach.

    Do you remember the name of your kindergarten teacher? I do. Her name was Mrs. White.

    I don't remember much about what we learned in her class, but my mother once told me that we used to write a lot. And I would bring back what I wrote and she would look at it and see there were so many mistakes. But there were no red corrections but always a star. Sometimes even a word "Good"! That would make my heart filled with happiness, but it worried my mother.

    So one day when she went to meet Mrs. White, Mother asked her why she never corrected my mistakes, and why she never pointed out those mistakes. Mrs. White said, "The children are just beginning to get excited about using words, about making sentences. I don't want to make them lose that enthusiasm (热情) with red ink. Spelling and grammar can wait. The wonder of words won't ..."

    And thanks to Mrs. White, I had no qualms (顾忌) about writing what I meant even if I couldn't quite spell it out. Life isn't Perfect. It's Beautiful. She helped me understand it.