Letter One

Dear Editor,

    After I finish my homework, I often go online and chat with my friends. Sometimes I play Internet games. But my parents hate to see me playing games on the computer. Maybe they have heard too much news about how QQ and Internet games harm children. Once I went to a net bar to play games after school. But after that I told my parents that I was playing basketball at school. I said so because I didn't want to make them unhappy. I feel bad about it. However, I need to rest for a while by playing computer games after studying for a long time. I really want my parents to understand that. Do foreign parents do the same to their children? Please help me.

Li Ping, Nantong

Letter Two

Dear Li Ping,

    I think it's not strange for parents to keep their children away from anything bad. Foreign parents will do the same as your parents! They may not let their children watch TV for too long a time, or like your parents, they don't want their children to play computer games.

    Talk to your parents and be honest to them, I think. Tell them what you are doing and why you are doing so to make them understand you. It's never good to do things behind your parents' backs. They aren't fools as you think sometimes! Our parents seem to know what is the best for us. Remember: to be honest is the best way.

Good luck,

Rebecca

    Chinese writer and translator Yang Jiang died early on May 25, 2016 in Beijing at age 104. The longest-living Chinese woman writer, she was known for her modest, subtle and witty writing style.

    Yang became a household name in China for her novels, essays, plays and translated works. Her most popular novel, Baptism, describing a group of intellectuals (知识分子) adjusting to a new society in the early 1950s, has been translated into French and English.

    Yang began learning Spanish in 1959 at age 48, and started to translate Don Quixote in 1962. She was the first to translate Don Quixote into Chinese. The work was stopped twice due to the "cultural revolution". She completed it in 1976, and the Chinese edition was published in 1978 and has sold more than 1 million copies. In that year, the Spanish king and queen visited China, and then-leader Deng Xiao-ping gave the royal couple Yang's translation as a gift. Yang was received by Deng at the Great Hall of the People. While shaking hands, Deng asked her when she had completed the translation. "It's just published," she replied, having no time to tell the full story.

    She was married to Qian Zhongshu, a well-known scholar and author of the best-selling novel Fortress Besieged. Yang's memoir about her family, The Three of Us, written after her husband and daughter died, in 1998 and 1997 respectively, was translated into German.

    Yang never stopped writing. At 94, she started writing the book Walking onto the Edge of Life to reflect on her life. It won China's top book award in 2007. At 100, she was still writing articles for newspapers.

    The US teenager Thomas Cheatham had planned to study Latin during his time at Hebron High School in Texas. But when he learned that the school district was going to offer a Mandarin class, he quickly changed his mind.

    “I thought Mandarin would be more beneficial than Latin,” said Cheatham, who is now in his second year of studying the language. He speaks Mandarin to order food at Chinese restaurants and can read social media posts from his Chinese-speaking friends.

    While it's a difficult language to master, the high school junior, who plans to study computer engineering, thinks it will be important for his career. “Chinese is a good language to know, especially with China becoming a growing power,” he said.

    Many experts agree that proficiency in a language spoken by a billion people worldwide will give American students an edge in the global economy. “People are looking at China as our next economic competitor, and interest in Mandarin is growing,” said Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. “We're seeing it in all parts of the country. ”

    Abbott estimates that as many as 100, 000 students are now studying Mandarin throughout the US, in public and private schools. She said the US government has designated (指定) Mandarin as a “critical needs” language and provides professional development programs for teachers. “Our government wants to increase our language competency for national security and economic competitiveness,” Abbott said.

    At the same time, the Chinese government is spreading knowledge of the Chinese language and culture through Confucius Institutes established in many US states. For example, the Confucius Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas has been the home of a Confucius Institute for 10 years. It sponsors Confucius Classrooms at 21 local public and private schools, where tens of thousands of students are learning Mandarin.

    Most heroes are not super. They don't appear in comic books, on television, or in movies. They just do what they believe needs to be done to make their world a better place. Bike Batman is one of them.

    Bike Batman is a 30-year-old married engineer who lives in Seattle, Washington. He's a cyclist who also buys and sells bikes as a hobby.

    About three years ago, he was looking for a bike for his wife. He found one on Craigslist, a website where people list things they want to sell. As he often does, he also looked at Bike Index, a popular website that allows users to register their bikes and post reports when they're taken. The bike, which he was considering purchasing, clearly matched one reported stolen on Bike Index.

    Then he called the person who claimed to be the bike's owner and arranged to meet him— supposedly to complete the sale. When the two men met, Bike Batman told the thief, “You've got two options. You can wait until a police officer gets here, or you can just get out of here.” You can imagine what the thief did.

    After that first success, Bike Batman developed a safer routine. When he sees questionable bike ads on Craigslist, he cross-references the image with bikes reported on Bike Index. Once he has confirmed it with the owner, he arranges a meet-up with the thief and will call the Seattle police department so that officers can participate in the action. In more than half of the 22 cases in which he has got back and returned bikes, the thieves have been arrested. In one case, Bike Batman even helped a family recover a wide range of prized possessions that suspects had stolen during a home burglary.

    His nickname came from a discussion with a police officer who suggested he be called “Robin Hood”. Since he wasn't exactly stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, “Batman” seemed a better fit. The idea of a superhero punishing criminals feels pretty silly to him, but the main reason he continues his work is to keep up Seattle's reputation as a friendly city.

    It is a question people have been asking for ages—is there a way to turn back the aging process?

    For centuries, people have been looking for a "fountain of youth." The idea is that if you find a magical fountain, and drink from its waters, you will not become old. Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León searched for waters with magical powers in the early 1500s. But what he found instead is the American State of Florida.

    Researchers in New York did not find a fountain of youth in fact, but they may have found a way to turn back the aging process. It appears the answer may be hidden right between your eyes, in an area called the hypothalamus (丘脑下部).The hypothalamus is part of your brain. It controls important activities within the body, including growth, reproduction and the way we process food.

    Researchers at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that hypothalamus stem cells also influence how fast aging takes place in the body. What are stem cells? They are simple cells that can develop into specialized cells, like blood or skin cells. Stem cells can also repair damaged parts in the body.

    Professor Dongsheng Cai was the lead researcher in a study on aging in mice. Cai explains in the Journal Nature what they found. "Aging speed can be controlled by a particular place in the body, which is the hypothalamus. And it can be controlled by a particular type of cells, which are hypothalamus stem cells. I think these findings are quite interesting."

    He adds that when the hypothalamus starts aging, so does the body. "So when hypothalamus function is decreasing, particularly the loss of hypothalamus stem cells, this protection against the aging development is lost. It finally leads to aging."

    Using this information, the researchers began trying to activate (激活) the hypothalamus in mice. They did this by putting stem cells from younger mice into middle-aged animals. Later, the researchers examined mice and tested for changes in behavior. They also looked for changes in the strength of the animals' muscles and the way they worked. The researchers say the results show that the treatment slowed aging in the animals.

    Cai says when hypothalamus stem cells, which were derived from young mice was put into middle-aged mice, the mice aged slowly and they also have increased the length of their lives.

    But these results were just from studying mice in a lab. If the mice can live longer, does that mean people could have longer lives? The next step is to see if the anti-aging effects also work in human beings.

Walking has been considered as one kind of rewarding exercise. For many people, daily walking offers massive and long-term physical and mental benefits. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} A Stanford University study found that participants were more creative when walking as opposed to sitting. 

{#blank#}2{#/blank#} You've probably heard the phrase "exercise your creativity". Our creative mindset is stirred up by physical movement, which is exactly why walking with your dog, a friend, or alone feeds creative thinking. 

But the scenery is almost as important as the sweat. Just by going outside, you are stepping out of your habitual surroundings and your comfort zone, which is necessary if you want to open your mind to new possibilities. You can walk through a tree-filled neighborhood. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Even when you walk down a busy street, you can't help but get distracted by the sweet smells from a food cart or the child pointing to a building you haven't even noticed before. 

Walking outside develops our ability to collect new ideas and take in new sights, sounds, smells, and flavors. Shinrin-yoku, a common form of relaxation in Japan, suggests that being in the forest and walking among the trees there can lower your stress levels. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Research has shown that getting close to nature around your neighborhood or taking a break from multimedia increases performance on a creative problem-solving task. 

So instead of setting a fitness goal, why not set a creativity goal that starts with walking outdoors? {#blank#}5{#/blank#} For example, you can turn off your phone and give yourself the chance to be present in the world, to hear conversations and natural sounds, and to notice the way people move and the way the sun reflects in a lake. 

Walk not just for exercise. Walk for wonder.

A.Unfortunately, you often fail to do it.

B.Expose yourself more to your surroundings.

C.The movement during walking is obviously key.

D.Without enough energy, you cannot wonder or create.

E.But to receive the benefits, you do not have to live in a forest.

F.This habit, however, not only benefits well-being but also contributes to innovation.

G.Wandering around a park and observing people relaxing or birds singing is also a choice.