Chinese audiences seemed not to have been satisfied with the third season of the highly anticipated food documentary A Bite of China.

    Even though the series has maintained high viewership ratings since its comeback last week, much higher than other programs aired at the same time, the ranking on Douban, a social networking website featuring films, literature and events, slipped to 4.2 out of 10, as of Tuesday, compared with 9.3 and 8.4, respectively, for the first two seasons.

    Picky viewers complain that some of the narration is not accurate, while others pinpoint misleading content. At the same time, food blogger @barbara questioned whether it is appropriate to give a close-up shot of the poisonous plant Nandina（南天竺）in a food program.

    A Bite of China, which debuted in 2012, became hugely popular nationwide for its quality introduction of some rarely-known and mouth-watering domestic cuisine. In the new show, however, watchers are not satisfied with “irrelevant” food references, such as lipsticks made of Chinese traditional medicine and martial arts master.

    The first episode introduced a hand-made iron frying pan from east China's Shandong province, which prompted thousands of Chinese Internet users to buy one from China's leading e-commerce website Tmall in the next few days. Sales of the pan at “Zhensanhuan” surged 6,000 times compared with a year ago, according to Beijing Youth Daily.

    In response to overwhelming criticism and questions, A Bite of China production crew responded on Weibo that they seek innovation despite the risks following the first two phenomenal seasons.

    “It is unavoidable to make comparisons with the first two, and some audiences may not accept the changes,” the crew said. “We explore the culture and civilization behind food, and give food a historic touch. That's why we feature culinary（烹饪的）tools, feast and rituals, as well as a healthy diet to show Chinese wisdom and philosophy, which has not been shown in any food programs before.”

    He was a founder of modem Chinese literature. He was regarded as "an old man always telling the truth". Living across two centuries, he experienced many periods of danger and suffering but never lost his beliefs. His name was Ba Jin.

    As the 101-year-old legendary（传奇的）writer passed away in Shanghai after a six-year battle with disease, millions of Chinese were deeply sad. People in Shanghai and Chengdu gathered around his old house and literature museum to mourn for the great man.

    "My school held a series of ceremonies to express our deep sorrow,'' said Zuo Shang, a 17-year-old girl in Shanghai, who appreciates much of Ba's works. "He is a great writer who wrote so many masterpieces, but what I admire about him the most is his courage to tell the truth, 'Telling the truth, being an honest man.' That's what I learned from him," explained Zuo.

    Ba Jin was born in 1904 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. A son of a wealthy family, Ba helped the poor ever since he was a child. It is they who taught him a strong yet down-to earth way of living.

    Ba finished his first novel, "Destruction", in 1929 during his travels to France. His later masterpieces, "Family" "Spring" and "Autumn", mirrored the struggles, tragedies and loves of the young in a feudal society. The books encouraged Chinese people not to give in to fate and to be their own masters.

    "Ba Jin told the true story of his country and his people. His great love and service to them meant he was thinking about what he could do for them," said Bing Xin, a well-known writer and also his good friend.

    Like other famous writers in China, Ba suffered in the "cultural revolution" during 1966—1976. But several years later, Ba examined his hard experience in strict introspection（自我反省）instead of hatred. His book, "Random Thoughts"， in 1979 displayed his real thoughts with painful sincerity and won him his reputation for honesty.

    "It really hurts to recall my past mistakes, but 1 have to," said the respectable man. "Always tell the truth. Say what you think in the bottom of your heart. That's my life motto."

    I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, __________ just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn't think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.

    I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.

    It takes confidence to make a new start — there's a dark period in-between where you're neither one thing nor the other. You're out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you're too ashamed to say, "Well, I'm writing a novel, but I'm not quite sure if I'm going to get there." My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published.

    I put it aside.

    Then I met an agent(代理商)who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.

The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal — that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.

    It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck — of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there's no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding.

    Have you ever been to a music festival? Well if you live in the UK, the answer is probably yes. The number of festivals has grown greatly over the last few years and now there are around 200 every summer. So let's look at the history of four famous festivals.

    The Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary (当代的) performing arts held most years in Somerset, in the south-west of England. There are a rock and pop stage, a jazz stage, the Avalon stage, a theatre comedy stage, a cinema tent, a dance tent and a circus (马戏团). The festival started in1970and about 120, 000 people go to it every summer.

    The Reading Festival is truly world-class with rock and pop bands (乐队) appearing from all over the world, particularly (尤其) the USA. About 80, 000 music fans go to Reading every August Bank Holiday. The festival first came to its present site on the banks of the River Thames in Reading in 1971, when it moved from Plumpton in Sussex. It is still on the same site over 47 years later!

    WOMAD stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance and was the idea of rock musician Peter Gabriel to promote (宣传) world music. The WOMAD Festival started in 1982 and takes place in July at Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, and you can see different bands and musicians from all over the world. The festival welcomes over 26, 000 visitors each year.

    The one-day Monsters of Rock Festival at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes was first held in 1980 and gave visitors the chance to hear the very best of hard rock and heavy metal. There were no festivals between 1996 and 2003 as a result of changing musical fashions, but now it has returned and grown into a two-day festival with a campsite for the 30, 000 people who go there in summer days.

    If American waterways had ever been voted on the yearbook, the Buffalo River could easily have been named Ugliest. It could be hard to find hope there. It took decades for public perception of the river to shift. But activist citizens, who collaborated with industry, government, and environment groups never gave up on their polluted river—the Buffalo River gradually went from being considered a lost cause to a place worth fighting for. And by now the cleaned—up water is one of Buffalo'S biggest attractions.

    By the 1960s, the river was seen as one of the worst sources of pollution pouring into the Great Lakes. The Buffalo River had caught fire many times. The surface had an oily layer, and any fish caught there were not eatable.

    The waterway's fate started shifting in the mid-1960s. Stanley Spisiak was a local Polish—American jeweler by day, but by evening he was the kind of guy who'd chase down dumpers(垃圾车)he spotted on the Buffalo River. By 1966 he found himself winning the National Wildlife Federation's "Water Conservationist of the Year" award. And before long he got a nickname:" Mr. Buffalo River. "But there was only so much he could do—the river was still declared biologically dead in 1969.

    Jill Spisiak Jedlicka is his great-grandniece. She picks up where he left off by directing the river's protector organization, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper. Professor Schneekloth and seven friends founded the organization as an all-volunteer nonprofit in 1989, after organizing the first river cleanup that year. Today the group employs 27 full-time workers and has helped oversee the Buffalo River's $100 million restoration.

    So far, the Buffalo River's water quality has restored, but it is still an ongoing issue, as sewage(污水)can overflow into the river after storms. Habitat restoration continues as well; fish and plantings are still being sampled to measure how well it's gone.

    We've heard of robots and AI (Artificial Intelligence) taking human jobs, but I bet mayors（市长）don't really think their jobs can be threatened any time soon. They were wrong, and the AI running for the mayor of a Tokyo district was clear proof of that.

    AI can't legally run for high-ranking public management positions yet, but one mayoral candidate from Tama City, Tokyo, intended to maximize the use of artificial intelligence in running city affairs. He was running his campaign (竞选运动) as "AI Mayor". Basically, he was suggesting replacing human public officials with AI and having them collect city data and create fair and balanced policies that will benefit everyone.

    "For the first time in the world, AI will run in an election," human candidate Michihito Matsuda announced on Twitter. "Artificial Intelligence will change Toma City. With the birth of an AI Mayor, we will conduct balanced politics."

    The AI Mayor was campaigning very much like its human competitors. Posters were shown all over Tama City and campaign trucks were blaring out(大声鸣响)promises of an AI utopia (乌托邦)and asking for support.

    Some people called Michihito Matsuda's campaign a stunt (噱头), as a human would still be the one legally in charge. However, others said that they were excited about the future of AI running things in the background, adding that it had to be a better choice.