NANJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) — Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou will shake hands in their historic meeting scheduled in Singapore on Saturday, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said on Wednesday.

    The two-part meeting includes one session open to the media and another behind closed doors, said Zhang Zhijun, who is also head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, when interviewed at the Zijinshan Summit for Entrepreneurs across the Taiwan Strait.

    According to Zhang, Xi and Ma, as "leaders of the two sides" of the Taiwan Strait, will exchange views during the closed-door meeting.

    After the meeting, press conferences will be held by both sides. Later, the two leaders are expected to attend a dinner, said Zhang.

    Zhang said the meeting will lift cross-Strait communication to a new high.

    The landmark meeting is a breakthrough in face-to-face exchange and communication between the leaders across the Taiwan Strait after the relationship became strained following the events of 1949.

    Zhang said the meeting will improve mutual trust and allow for an exchange of opinions on handling the cross-Strait ties.

    In addition, the meeting will help strengthen the 1992 Consensus(共识), which was reached in talks between the two sides in 1992 and recognizes the one-China principle, and safeguards the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties, according to Zhang.

    Zhang added that the scheduled meeting will also benefit regional peace and stability.

    Also at Wednesday's summit, Chiang Pin-kung, former chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation, hailed the upcoming meeting between the two leaders as a milestone for cross-Strait ties.

    Chiang told the media that he believed the meeting will give a boost to the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties.

    Fun day

    To celebrate the Year of the Dog

    Organized by Lam Tin Youth Centre and Kwun Tong High school

    Date：2 February 2018

    Time：10 am – 5 pm

    Place：Kwn Tong Playground

    Fee: $ 20 (buy three get one free)

    Programmes：drama, lion dance, magic show and ballet performance

    Highlights: 1) enter the lucky draw to win a digital camera

    2) learn to make festival food

    Join us on the Fun day! Free Soft Drinks

    All are welcome!

    Note:

    Ticket are available at the General Office of Lam Tin Youth Centre.

    For those who would like to be a volunteer, please contact Miss Olivia Wong one week before the activity.

Surviving Hurricane Sandy(飓风桑迪)

    Natalie Doan, 14, has always felt lucky to live in Rockaway, New York. Living just a few blocks from the beach, Natalie can see the ocean and hear the wave from her house. “It's the ocean that makes Rockaway so special, ” she says.

    On October 29, 2012, that ocean turned fierce. That night, Hurricane Sandy attacked the East Coast, and Rockaway was hit especially hard. Fortunately, Natalie's family escaped to Brooklyn shortly before the city's bridge closed.

    When they returned to Rockaway the next day, they found their neighborhood in ruins. Many of Natalie's friends had lost their homes and were living far away. All around her, people were suffering, especially the elderly. Natalie's school was so damaged that she had to temporarily(临时地，暂时地) attend a school in Brooklyn.

    In the following few days, the men and women helping Rockaway recover inspired Natalie. Volunteers came with carloads of donated clothing and toys. Neighbors devoted their spare time to helping others rebuild. Teenagers climbed dozens of flights of stairs to deliver water and food to elderly people trapped in powerless high-rise buildings.

    “My mom tells me that I can't control what happens to me,” Natalie says. “but I can always choose how I deal with it. ”

    Natalie's choice was to help.

    She created a website page matching survivors in need with donors who wanted to help. Natalie posted introduction about a boy named Patrick, who lost his baseball card collecting when his house burned down. Within days, Patrick's collection was replaced.

    In the coming months, her website page helped lots of kids: Christopher, who received a new basketball; Charlie, who got a new keyboard. Natalie also worked with other organizations to bring much-need supplies to Rockaway. Her efforts made her a famous person. Last April, she was invited to the White House and honored as a Hurricane Sandy Champion of Change.

    Today, the scars(创痕)of destruction are still seen in Rockaway, but hope is in the air. The streets are clear, and many homes have been rebuilt. “I can't imagine living anywhere but Rockaway, ” Natalie declares. “My neighborhood will be back, even stronger than before. ”

    Oct.15th was International White Cane Safety Day. You may have never heard of it, but it was a day to remember for Peng Baier, 17, of Nanjing Foreign Language School. After school that day, he visited his local Disabled Persons' Federation (残疾人联合会). He wanted to know about the sales and feedback (反馈) of his newly published book, How to Help a Disabled Person.

    Since he lives with his disabled grandparents, he understands that life can be hard for this group of people. Peng decided to write the book because he wanted to create a better life for disabled people in China.

    “Crossing the street is a big problem for them,” Peng said. “Speeding cars, people walking in a hurry, bikes on the sidewalk for the blind - accidents can happen everywhere. That's why we hardly ever see disabled people on the street, even though there are millions of disabled people in China.”

    Peng's book with pictures is easy to understand. It is a guide to the right and wrong ways to treat disabled people. The left-hand pages show the reader the right way; the right-hand pages point out mistakes that are commonly made.

    The teenager had 2,000 copies of his book printed. With the help of the Disabled Persons' Federation, he gave them to the disabled community.

    “The book is bilingual, so foreigners can also use it,” said Peng.

    Peng put great effort into the book. For example, he interviewed many disabled people to get first hand materials. He also studied textbooks from different schools for the disabled. Peng finally completed his handbook, but he still had the problem of getting it printed.

    How does a high school student raise money needed for that?

    With a smile, Peng said how he went about it. “I visited three local companies, dressed up in a suit and tie. I was lucky. The companies were warm-hearted and willing to give me a hand.”

    When Kim Chil-doo was young, he says, he wanted to be a model. But he gave up that idea to make money. Now, at age 65, he appears in television advertisements and fashion magazines. With his gray beard and long hair, he is South Korea's first senior model.

    Kim is one of many older people in South Korea the country has the world's fastest growing ageing population. Almost half of the country's older people live in poverty. Some take low-paying jobs to support themselves after retiring. But Kim and some other seniors have shown how older South Koreans can find unusual job opportunities later in life.

    You Sung-lae is 59. When she was a child, she wanted to be an actress. But instead, she says, she got married and had children. Now she is training to appear on a catwalk to show clothes. She was wearing a bright blue jacket, orange high heeled shoes and designer sunglasses.

    You is also helping the fashion business by attracting older buyers. Older buyers have become big players. While many older people do not have much money, others have bought their homes and built savings. Now, those seniors are ready to spend some of their money on themselves.

    Some businesses are also trying to use older people's skills and experiences. For example, Cho Young-min started a company using Skype to connect older instructors in Korea with students around the world. The students are interested in learning Korean, and the instructors are interested in sharing their knowledge.

    Another man, Ji Byung-soo found success by performing a dance song on a televised singing contest. He is 77. Now he earns enough money to donate to a local support center. Last month, he danced nonstop at a youth festival in Seoul while young people called his name. "Life begins in your 70s," Ji said. "Let's be happy and have fun."

(2023年·广州二模)

In 1977, Irene Pepperberg, a Harvard graduate, decided to investigate the thought processes of another creature by talking to it. To do this, she would teach a one-year-old African gray parrot(鹦鹉), Alex, to reproduce the sounds of the English language.

Pepperberg bought Alex in a pet store, where she let the store's assistant choose him because she didn't want other scientists to say that she had intentionally chosen an especially smart bird. Given that Alex's brain was just the size of a walnut, most researchers thought Pepperberg's communication study would be futile(徒劳的).

But with Pepperberg's patient teaching, Alex learned how to follow almost 100 English words. He could count to six and had learned the sound for seven and eight. But the point was not to see if Alex could learn words by heart. Pepperberg wanted to get inside his mind and learn more about a bird's understanding of the world.

In one demonstration, Pepperberg held up a green key and a green cup for him to look at. "What's the same?" she asked. "Co-lour," Alex responded without hesitation. "What's different?" Pepperberg asked. "Shape," Alex quickly replied. His voice had the sound of a cartoon character. But the words—and what can only be called the thoughts—were entirely his. Many of Alex's skills, such as his ability to understand the concepts of "same" and "different", are rare in the animal world. Living in a complex society, parrots like Alex must keep track of changing relationships and environments.

During the demonstration, as if to offer final proof of the mind inside his bird's brain, Alex spoke up. "Talk clearly!" he commanded, when one of the younger birds Pepperberg was also teaching mispronounced the word "green". Alex knew all the answers himself and was getting bored. "He's moody," said Pepperberg, "so he interrupts the others, or he gives the wrong answer just to be difficult." Pepperberg was certainly learning more about the mind of a parrot, but like the parent of a troublesome teenager, she was learning the hard way.