Qu Juanru is the official inheritor(官方继承人) of Jiaxing City Tongxiang flower­drum opera. She began to be on the stage when she was a teenager. "My mother died when I was 14. I've lived with my father since then. In the old days, women were not allowed to perform opera. However, my father always supported me when I tried to sing," Qu said.

Qu started performing in the local troupe(剧团) called Aimin Flower­Drum Opera. Later, the troupe was disbanded(解散), and she went back to farming.

After that, the young girl tried to set up the troupe several times but failed. She really lived a hard life at that time. But she didn't give up.

In 2001, some developers planned to rebuild Wuzhen. They thought a place which has no culture is of little significance(意义). So they wanted to bring back local customs, including the Tongxiang flower­drum opera. Qu was their only hope.

Knowing she could sing again, Qu was so excited. Whether it's cold or hot, Qu always gives her everything on stage in Wuzhen. She has six rounds(场) of performing every day and each round lasts 30 minutes. In 2017, she was badly ill, yet it didn't stop her.

"I can still sing and perform. I'd love to be here," Qu said. In her opinion, opera life is a wonderful dream that can't be missed.

    Mary likesto run. Ever since she was in the third grade, she has been training to runlong distances. Now that she was in her eighth grade, her parents agreed to lether run in the Banana Classic. The Banana Classic is a ten-kilometre race. Ittakes place every year in Mattydale. The winners get a lifetime supply (提供) of peanuts and fruit juice.

    Marypractised by running ten kilometres, twice every day. On the average (平时的) run, she would finish inthirty minutes. Last year's winner finished the race in twenty-six minutes andten seconds!

    On the dayof the race, Mary ran faster than she ever had in the past. As she came acrossthe last kilometre, she was in the fourth place. She picked up the pace (步伐) and quickly reached the secondplace, just as she could see the finishing line. She ran as fast as she couldin a mad dash (冲刺) to the finish line, but she justwasn't fast enough to get ahead of the leader.

Working as a city cleaner in the Chaoyang District of Beijing, a busy city, Zhang Jianna has earned the respect and attention of many with her good English skills and her kindness in helping foreigners. Born in the countryside of Hebei Province, 49-year-old Zhang Jianna moved to Beijing after finishing high school. She has worked in different jobs, including being a restaurant waitress and working as a salesperson in a shopping center. In 2012, she started working as a city cleaner. However, it was a chance encounter with a foreigner that encouraged her. The foreigner praised the cleanliness of the streets in English, but Zhang could only understand the word " good". This experience developed her interest in learning English. Even though it's hard to find time to study, Zhang used any free time she had to learn new words and practice speaking English. At night, she wrote down everything she learned, filling up many notebooks with what she was learning. She also used English-learning apps on her phone and computer to help her study. 

Now knowing about 3, 000 words, Zhang talks confidently with people from other countries, helping them with what they need and showing them around the city streets. Learning English has not just helped her meet people but also made her very happy. "I got more confident from learning, " said Zhang. "I feel joyful every time I help a foreigner. "

Zhang Jianna stands as an inspiring example of lifelong learning and the power of a positive spirit. Her spirit reflects a deep sense of responsibility to present the best face of the capital city to the world. Looking ahead, she hopes to use her English to encourage people to visit her hometown when she stops working and help Hebei Province develop. 

When you go to the park, you might find many older people listening to audiobooks (有声书) instead of reading paper books. Audiobooks have become quite popular these days. Why are more and more people choosing audiobooks over traditional books? Is listening to an audiobook just as good as reading a book? 

Reading needs us to focus on the words in a book, and we also need to find time and a place to sit down and read. However, you can listen to audiobooks anytime and anywhere you like, and it gives your eyes a break, too.

But the big question is, do we get as much information from audiobooks as we do from paper books? Scientists did an experiment (实验) to find the answer. People in group one were asked to listen to an audiobook while people in group two read the same paper book. It turned out that people in group one remembered as much information as people in group two do. They remembered the same amount (量) of information, whether they listened to it or read it.

Another study from a scientific magazine further supported the result above. In the study, scientists studied people's brains when they listened to and read books. The result showed that listening to audiobooks activates (激活) almost the same parts of the brain as reading does.

However, some people still believe that they learn better from reading paper books. One reason might be that when we listen to audiobooks, we are often doing other things at the same time. "If you're trying to learn while doing two things, you're not going to learn as well," Daniel Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia, told The New York Times.