Check out our tsunami (海啸) facts and lean some interesting information related to these great walls of water that can cause so much destruction. Find out what causes tsunamis and read about some notable recent examples of tsunamis that have occurred around the globe.

    Tsunamis are huge waves of water that are usually caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

    As a tsunami approaches the shore, water may move back from the coast. If it is shallow enough, the water may be pulled back hundreds of meters. If you are in the area, observing this is a good indication that a tsunami is on the way.

    Regions in tsunami danger zones often have warning systems in place to give people as much time to evacuate (撤离) as possible.

    When tsunamis hit shallow water (often near the coast), they slow down but increase in height.

    An earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Indonesia in December 2004 caused a tsunami that killed over 200, 000 people in 14 countries.

    In March 2011, the Tohoku earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan caused a tsunami that was a major factor in the death of over 15, 000 people.

    The tsunami waves created by the Tohoku earthquake reached heights of over 40 metres (131feet) in mine areas, wiping out coastal towns and causing a number of nuclear accidents.

    The Japanese word "tsunami" literally means "harbour wave".

    Tsunamis are sometimes referred to as tidal waves but this term has fallen out of favour because tsunamis are not related to tides.

    Most of us feel very tired after working for eight hours a day, five days a week. When we get home, we watch at least one film because it's well-deserved and the only time we get to "relax" before going to sleep. Wake up and repeat. No wonder you feel tired. So how do you get out of this vicious circle? How do you restart your life?

    ⒈YOUR MINDSET

    "Oh man, another one of these self-improvement things. I hope I can do it, but I've tried these things before, and I just never stick to it."

    This was something I used to say to myself every time I try to start something new for myself. There's a fear-driven side of your brain which tells you, "You can't do this."

    What can you do? Well, the tip here is to talk to yourself like you're talking to a friend, or a coworker. So the next time you try something new, be kind to yourself like you would be kind to others. You are your own worst critic. But you can also be your firm defender.

    ⒉YOUR DIET

    If you are looking at what you eat for the reason to feel energized, then the general rules are:

    1) Eat when you're hungry. Don't eat when you're not.

    2) Be mindful when you eat. Chew at least 20 times. Let yourself taste and digest your food.

    3) Don't do three things at once when you're eating. Your body wasn't made for that.

    4) Preferably, eat "real" food. Eat what your great-grandmother would recognize as food.

    Don't let your days pass by in a boring way. Start by re-examining these key habits in your life to build a body that can start doing things you want.

    ⒊YOUR SLEEP

    Without enough sleep, we're basically going through the day drunk. This means tiredness, difficulty to respond quickly and smartly to anything that comes up. The sleeping hours needed for an average adult ranges from 7 to 9 hours.

    People generally tend to pick out the best-looking fruits and vegetables when shopping for produce, but Canadian supermarket chain Loblaws is attracting customers with badly-shaped and faulty produce at the price of 30% lower than normal-looking ones.

    A trial run of the ugly food line, named "Naturally Imperfect", began with only apples and tomatoes to choose from. Consumer demand has been so huge that Loblaws is going to introduce more unsightly vegetables and fruit options like onions and mushrooms. The line is available at other stores, including Real Canadian Superstore and Your Independent Grocer.

    All the produce that will be sold through Naturally Imperfect would otherwise have been used in juices, sauces, or soups, or have not been harvested at all. The director Dan Branson explained that this program benefited both food producers who would otherwise have to let abnormal harvest go to waste, and consumers who could buy fresh produce at low prices. And he was right, given how popular the line has become.

    "It really went well beyond our expectation," Branson said. "I think it really spoke to the fact that Canadians are out there really looking for some options."

    Of course, Canadians know that beauty is more than skin deep, but they also recognize that they can get the same flavor and nutritional benefits in spite of appearances. The positive response to the initial offering of apples and potatoes showed the opportunity to expand the line and offer more options at a greater price to Canadian families.

    "If you grow produce in your backyard, there will be a lot of produce that won't look as pretty as what you will see in a grocery store," said Branson. "And nature doesn't grow everything perfectly. I'd like to think if somebody were to take a No Name Naturally Imperfect apple, put right beside a No.1 apple, close their eyes and eat them, there would be no difference."

    Today the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded journalist Svetlana Alexievich approximately $970,000 in recognition of a lifetime of excellence. The 67-year-old author of Voices From Chernobyl and War's Unwomanly Face was praised by the Swedish Academy "for her polyphonic(复调式的) writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."

    Prizes like the Nobel inspire much expectations before the announcement. People give their best guesses as to who will win, look back on past winners, and even place bets as if spectators at a Derby(赛马会).

    Literary prizes reward artistic brilliance. They help writers earn a decent living. But is the public's fascination with prize-winning authors healthy? Our impulse seems to increasingly contribute to a culture of turning authors into celebrities, where readers follow the author instead of the book.

    A story should stand on its own, as a considered, complete book, without biographical information from author. It's an idea perhaps best conveyed in Roland Barthes's 1968 essay The Death of the Author. "The image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is arbitrarily centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions."

    Nearly 50 years later, a few still agree. "I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors," New York Times bestselling author Elena Ferrante once wrote. "If books have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won't, "she continued. "True miracles are the ones whose makers will never be known."

    ①But the rules for submission for the Man Booker International Prize, for example, strongly encourage authors to "make themselves available for publicity". And the foundation behind the National Book Award requires finalists to participate in their "website-related publicity".

    ② In 2007, a reporter who showed up uninvited at Doris Lessing's house was the first to inform her that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Today the Twitterati came knocking on Alexievich's digital door hour before the award was even official. To be considered for a prize is to be a public figure.

    ③ Harry Potter series author J. K. Rowling, with over 5.6 million Twitter followers, has actively addressed readers through public appearances and social media, revealing much more than we could have imagined when we closed the final Harry Potter book. We now know the house Harry's children will be sorted into, that Dumbledore is gay," Voldemort" is actually pronounced with a silent "t", and a whole host of the other minor and major details about the backstory of the characters.

    The magical world Rowling created in her books—a relatively tight mystery with well-laid clues that led to a satisfying conclusion, which had to prove their merits to the reader based on an internal logic—is being unraveled by her own hand.

    ④ Of course, public attention also has very important benefits for authors. For three months after receiving the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad sold about triple its print sales from before the prize, Publishers Weekly reports. On Oct. 5, 2010, in the first FT/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Awards, as Nigerian-born Chigozie Obioma accepted the prize for fiction with an easy smile, his excitement was appreciable. Given the cash prize of $40,000 for each winner, it's hard to downplay the importance of such an honor. Such awards bring necessary visibility and funding to writers facing a literary landscape dominated by white men.

    But our culture of celebrity is often too wrapped up in the way we read: How might the meaning of a work change if the author really didn't grow up in a poor neighborhood, or if he or she was abused in childhood? Readers studied the author's life as if it were the key to interpreting his or her novels.

    Behind our fascination is the question that drives all such questions: What did the author intend? By all means, let us praise brilliant work and in doing so trust that the author has already told us enough, and that the story he or she meant to tell ended with the final page.

At thirteen, I was diagnosed (诊断) with a kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

    In my first literature class, Mrs Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, "Mrs Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it."

 She glanced at me through her glasses, "You are not different from your classmates, young man."

 I tried, but I didn't finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

    In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn't get much education. But Louis didn't give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots (点), which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

    Wasn't I the "blind" in my class, being made to learn like the "sighted" students? My thoughts spilled out (涌出) and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was not different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way to solve his problems, why should I ever give up?

    I didn't expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day—with an "A" on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: "See what you can do when you keep trying?"

"I'm going to fail!" My best friend cried. She and I had this conversation almost every day while we were in high school.
    The truth was that my friend never failed in any subjects. I just think that she can't accept failures because she lives her life as a perfectionist. What she fails to understand is that a lot of good can come from failures.
    For example, failure can help build relationships. Once I was cooking dinner for a friend, I was tired, and several dishes I tried to make turned out bad. I grew more and more upset until my friend told me that I shouldn't worry. She cared more about our friendship than the dishes. That day, I learned that failure doesn't always make people dislike you. In fact, after she said those words to me, I grew closer to her.
    Failure can make success evermore exciting. Every few years, there would be an important test in the PE class at our school. Students had to run a mile within eight minutes. I was never good at running, so I failed every time until the third year at school. Then I began working out regularly, and yet still failed that year. A few days later, however, the teacher gave me and some other students another chance to run and I got a pass finally! You can't imagine how excitedly I was after that. I felt the memory of the success was as sweet as honey, because I had to overcome failure to reach it.
    Now it's clear to see that failure can teach us good lessons. It's not an end, but it can be a beginning