When Mark Levine, an English-language instructor at Beijing's Minzu University of China, was first invited to attend a Chinese colleague's wedding in Jiangsu Province in 2016, his second year in China, the California native was ready to present a small decorative gift for the new couple as he used to do in the United States.

    However, his gesture suddenly seemed inappropriate as he realized the Chinese at the ceremony had red envelopes filled with cash to present rather than a packed gift.

    "It's a little bit embarrassing when you present something that people didn't expect to receive on certain occasions," Levine told China Daily recently. "In the US, people do that as well but only for close relatives. People would normally give things as presents, while here in China red envelopes are more commonly welcomed."

    It was the first time that the 66-year-old had discovered the Chinese rules in gift giving. He was not alone.

    British Minister of State for Transport Baroness Susan Kramer presented a watch in January to Ko Wen-je, mayor of Taipei, when she visited the city, immediately sparking headlines as she broke a long-held tradition in Chinese culture.

    A clock or watch, or zhong in Mandarin, represents "the end" in Chinese, and many associate it with death. Therefore, giving someone, especially an elder, a clock or watch implies "your time is up".

    Kramer later apologized for the mistake, but Ko also came under fire for his response as he told reporters that he had no use for the watch and would sell it for cash.

    However, some foreigners in China stand by Ko in this particular debate, such as Mark Dreyer, a British citizen who has lived and worked in China since 2007."After all, 'don't give clocks or watches to your hosts' is on page l of most China travel guides. I'm embarrassed by the lack of respect shown by the British for not even reading about the customs beforehand."

    It's Friday morning in the year 2050, and you're running late. You got carried away watching the music video that is playing in the corner of your bathroom mirror while you were brushing your teeth. How will you get to your office at Mega Giga Industries on time?

    A quick check of your Internet-connected refrigerator tells you your train is a bit behind schedule, too. So you decide to drive your environmentally hydrogen fuel（环保氢燃料）car instead-or rather, let your car drive you. It's programmed to know the way and it will get you there without getting lost.

    Settling into your office chair, which changes color to match what you're wearing, you pick up yesterday morning's newspaper. Printed on reusable electronic paper, it rewrites itself. Now it's time for your big meeting. Uh-oh! You've left your handwritten notes at home. No problem. The smartpen you used has stored an electronic copy of what you wrote.

    Your wristwatch videophone（可视电话）suddenly rings. Your best friend's face pops up on the screen asking what you're doing this weekend. Will you play virtual soccer with the U.S. Olympic team? No, no. Your friend says, so you have to take the new elevator (made of microscopic fibers many times stronger than steel) 60000 miles into space.

    Could this scene really take place in just a couple of decades? The researchers who are now developing all these things think so. These high-tech products（高科技产品）may be as common in 20 years as cell phones today.

    Norman Borlaug, who is making a difference, is known around the world. He is often described as the man who has saved more lives than any other person in history. Norman Borlaug is considered the father of what has been called the Green Revolution. His ideas about agriculture increased crop production and ended hunger in many nations. Mr. Borlaug continues to be a leader among agricultural researchers.

    Norman Borlaug was born in 1914 on a farm in the American state of Iowa. In the middle of the 20th century, world population was expanding faster than food production. Experts said many people in developing countries would face starvation.

    Norman Borlaug was an agricultural researcher at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico. He developed methods of growing wheat that increased the amount harvested by three times. He later repeated this success in India, Pakistan and Africa.

    His methods of farming saved millions of people who would have starved to death. Norman Borlaug was given the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1970.

    Norman Borlaug is still urging experts to think about the needs of people around the world. His latest concern is a disease in wheat called UG99. He says it has the power to destroy most of the wheat being grown around the world. He says reductions in agricultural programs have made it harder to take action against such threats.

    Mr. Borlaug's granddaughter Julie works at the center named after him at Texas A&M University in Dallas. She says his worry about food problems rises from the belief that hunger is unacceptable. She says Norman Borlaug still believes it is our responsibility as human beings to feed one another.

    Should Parents Teach Children How to Tweet?

    Social media is a seemingly endless source of concern for parents, with worries that it weakens their children's confidence and attention spans. But others counter that it could also be broadening their horizons.

    The latest round of worry was sparked by a study of the impact of social media use on 8-12- year-olds published by Anne Longfield, Children's Commissioner for England. The report focused on 32 children, who said they used social media to stay connected with friends and family and to have fun, by watching videos for example. But they also described pressures from constant contact, online comments that weaken their self-esteem, and the need to shape offline activities to make them shareable. "You see your friends going ice skating, partying or talking about how much revision they have done, and it can make you feel inadequate," says Bea, a junior school student from Bristol, UK. "It's just so hard to get away from."

    Children have to take risks on their journeys to adulthood, and desires to fit in and be popular existed before Mark Zuckerberg came along with Facebook. However, in previous generations these pressures came largely from people they knew, and they mostly stayed outside the home. Now the pressures could come from any one of the nearly 3 billion people online, and follow them from school to home, and can even continue through the night.

    The pressures do get on parents' nerves, among which the utmost concern is how their children can be protected from harms, given that social media is now integral to the way many young people interact. A good starting point is a basic understanding of childhood development milestones.

    Broadly, children have a high dependency on carers for security and guidance up to the age of 5, increasing independence and self-care from 6 to 11, and increasing autonomy and growing reliance on peers from 12-18 years old. Against this background, the suitability of social media for children of different ages should be considered respectively.

    According to Longfield's study, children should be taught about online safety from an early age, better before secondary school. There is growing evidence that efforts need to be extended to provide earlier guidance on less extreme but more common risks, including oversharing, low selfesteem, addiction and insomnia. The evidence suggests she is right. However, approaches that focus merely on the potential negatives are unlikely to work.

    "My school has tried to do a lot, but it often involves trying to drill into us how bad social media can be," says Bea. "People of my age really like social media, so I think a better approach would be if they said ‘Although it is good, here are some negatives'."

    A large body of research has been developed in recent years to explain many aspects of willpower. Most of the researchers exploring self-control do so with an obvious goal in mind: How can willpower be strengthened? If willpower is truly a limited resource, as the research suggests, what can be done to make it stay strong?

    Avoiding temptation (诱惑) is an effective method for maintaining self-control, which is called the "out of sight, out of mind" principle. One recent study, for instance, found office workers less attracted to candy in the desk drawer than that on top of their desks, in plain sight.

    The research suggesting that we possess a limited reservoir of self-control raises a troubling question. When we face too many temptations, are we to fail? Not necessarily. Researchers don't believe that one's willpower is ever completely exhausted. Rather, people appear to hold some willpower in reserve, saved for future demands. The right motivation allows us to tap into those reserves, allowing us to carry on even when our self-control strength has been run down. High motivation might help overcome weakened willpower-at least to a point.

    Willpower may also be made less vulnerable (脆弱) to being exhausted in the first place.

    Researchers who study self-control often describe it as being like a muscle that gets tired with heavy use. But there is another aspect to the muscle comparison, they say. While muscles become exhausted by exercise in the short term, they are strengthened by regular exercise in the long term. Similarly, regular practices of self-control may improve willpower strength.

    The evidence from willpower-exhaustion studies also suggests that making a list of resolutions on New Year's Eve is the worst possible approach. Being exhausted in one area can reduce willpower in other areas, so it makes more sense to focus on a single goal at a time. In other words, don't try to quit smoking, adopt a healthy diet and start a new exercise plan at the same time. Taking goals one by one is a better approach. Once a good habit is in place, Baumeister says, you'll no longer need to draw on your willpower to maintain the behavior. Eventually healthy habits will become routine, and won't require making decisions at all.

    Sports can help you keep fit and get in touch with nature. However, whether you are on the mountains, in the waves, or on the grassland, you should be aware that your sport of choice might have great influence on the environment.

    Some sports are resource-hungry. Golf, as you may know, eats up not only large areas of countryside, but also tons of water. Besides, all sorts of chemicals and huge amounts of energy are used to keep its courses (球场) in good condition. This causes major environmental effects. For example, in the dry regions of Portugal and Spain, golf is often held responsible for serious water shortage in some local areas.

    There are many environment-friendly sports. Power walking is one of them that you could take up today. You don't need any special equipment except a good pair of shoes; and you don't have to worry about resources and your purse. Simple and free, power walking can also keep you fit. If you walk regularly, it will be good for your heart and bones. Experts say that 20 minutes of power walking daily can make you feel less anxious, .sleep well and have better weight control.

    Whatever sport you take up, you can make it greener by using environment-friendly equipment and buying products made from recycled materials. But the final goal should be "green gyms". They are better replacements for traditional health clubs and modem sports centers. Members of green gyms play sports outdoors, in the countryside or other open spaces. There is no special requirement for you to start your membership. And best of all, it's free.