The hottest TV drama in China – “Nirvanain Fire” or “Langya Bang” has just ended. Millions of people waited every day after midnight for the latest (two) episodes. Are you one of them? What is the story about? Why the show is so popular?

  “Nirvana in Fire” is based on an Internet novel by author HaiYan, who was invited to pen the screenplay for the television adaptation. The 55-episode series, set in a fictionalized kingdom, weaves together two storylines — one about a betrayed general's revenge and the other about princes fighting for the throne.

    The series was put on screen on Sep. 19th, and the number of Internet views exceeded 140 million times the next day. Only during the week of National holiday, the number increased by 1.6 billion.

    It's now the hottest Chinese TV show with a very high score of 9.3 on Douban. (The classical TV drama, Journey to the West, produced in 1986 is with the same score). Previous and recent costume dramas such as “The Journey of Flower” and “Yun Zhong Ge” only scored 6.4 and 3.5.

    Drawing comparisons to “The Count of Monte Cristo”, the story revolves around a gifted young man named Lin Shu, whose father serves as a general. Already a high-ranking military officer by his teenager years, Lin Shuenjoyed a close friendship with Prince Xiao Jingyan and was even engaged to Princess Nihuang.

   At age 17, however, Lin Shu's life turned upside down when his father's army was framed and destroyed by a foxy political rival. LinShu escaped death, but due to the poisoning, his body became weak and frail, and he lost his martial arts abilities. From then on, his face was pale and his fingers always ice-cold.

    After twelve years, Lin Shu returned to his country's capitalwith a new name, Mei Changsu, and a new identity, the leader of the Jiang ZuoAlliance. He then became the strategic adviser for his friend, Prince Jingyan, who had been exiled(流放) by the king. Despite the efforts of Prince Xiao Jingheng and the crown prince to win the throne for themselves, Mei Changsu succeeds in paving the road for his friend to take over as king, as well as the avenging the injustices dealt to histroops many years before.

    Laws that would have ensured pupils from five to 16 received a full financial education got lost in the 'wash up'. An application is calling on the next government to bring it back.

    At school the children are taught to add up and subtract(减法) but, extraordinarily ,are not routinely shown how to open a bank account — let alone how to manage their finances in an increasingly complex and demanding world.

    Today the parenting website Mumsnet and the consumer campaigner Martin Lewis have joined forces to launch an online application to make financial education a compulsory element of the school curriculum in England. Children from five to 16 should be taught about everything from pocket money to pensions, they say. And that was exactly the plan preserved in the Children, Schools and Families bill that was shelved by the government in the so-called “wash-up” earlier this month — the rush to legislation before parliament was dismissed.Consumer and parent groups believe financial education has always been one of the most frustrating omissions of the curriculum.

    As the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) points out, the good habits of young children do not last long. Over 75% of seven- to 11-year-olds are savers but by the time they get to 17,over half of them are in debt to family and friends.By this age,26% see a credit card or overdraft(透支) as a way of extending their spending power.Pfeg predicts that these young people will “find it much harder to avoid the serious unexpected dangers that have befallen many of their parents' generation unless they receive good quality financial education while at school.”

    The UK has been in the worst financial recession(衰退)for generations.It does seem odd that — unless parents step in — young people are left in the dark until they are cruelly introduced to the world of debt when they turn up at university. In a recent poll of over 8,000 people, 97% supported financial education in schools,while 3% said it was a job for parents.

    Last Saturday on the way to the mall, two children, a boy and a girl, came running towards me with bottles on their hands, asking if I wanted bottled water. It was a surprising gesture. I was wondering if they were doing fund-raising. I knelt and asked them where their parents were and how much a bottle of water cost. Then two adult women came up to me explaining what the children were doing. “We are teaching the children to give without anything in return. We are teaching people to accept without giving in return. ”

    Two mothers had bought bottled water and placed a sticker(小贴纸)on all bottles with five different quotes(引述):

    ⒈Smile at everyone. You'll never know when someone may need it.

    ⒉If Plan A does not work, there are 25 more letters in the alphabets.

    ⒊Have a thirst for life. Every day is filled with possibilities.

    ⒋In your thirst for knowledge, be sure you don't drown in all the information.

    ⒌Dig your well before you're thirsty.

    The bottle I have has quoted No.5. A sudden change of attitude opened up between me, the mothers and the children. We are no longer strangers to each other. We were having such a great time chatting and I ended up helping them give away the rest of the bottled water.

    One young lady was so thankful that she happily accepted the water and said it was the best thing that happened to her all day since she had a bad day at work. A man refused and walked away saying “No, thanks”. A couple kept on bowing to us in gratitude. When it was all done, the children and I were giving each other high-five. It was so much fun. I think I had more fun doing this than the mothers and the children.

    Getting less sleep has become a bad habit for most American kids. According to a new survey by the National Sleep Foundation, 51% of kids aged 10 to 18 go to bed at 10 pm or later on school nights, even though they have to get up early. Last year the Foundation reported that nearly 60% of 7- to 12-year-olds said they felt tired during the day, and 15% said they had fallen asleep at school.

    How much sleep you need depends a lot on your age. Babies need a lot of rest: most of them sleep about 18 hours a day! Adults need about eight hours. For most school-age children, ten hours is ideal. But the new National Sleep Foundation survey found that 35% of 10- to 12-year-olds get only seven or eight hours. And guess what almost half of the surveyed kids said they do before bedtime? Watch TV.

    “More children are going to bed with TVs on, and there are more opportunities(机会) to stay awake, with more homework, the Internet and the phone,” says Dr. Mary Carskadon, a sleep researcher at Brown University Medical School. She says these activities at bedtime can get kids all excited and make it hard for them to calm down and sleep. Other experts say part of the problem is chemical. Changing levels of body chemicals called hormones not only make teenagers' bodies develop adult characteristics, but also make it hard for teenagers to fall asleep before 11 pm.

    Because sleepiness is such a problem for teenagers, some school districts have decided to start high school classes later than they used to. Three years ago, schools in Edina, Minnesota, changed the start time from 7:25 am to 8:30 am. Students, parents and teachers are pleased with the results.

    As any plane passenger will confirm, a crying baby is almost impossible to ignore, no matter how hard you try. Now scientists believe they may have worked out why. A baby's cry pulls at the heartstrings(扣人心弦)in a way while other cries don't, researchers found.

    Researchers found that a baby's cry can trigger unique emotional responses in the brain, making it impossible for us to ignore them—whether we are parents or not. Other types of cries, including calls of animals in great pain, fail to get the same response…suggesting the brain is programmed to respond specifically to a baby's cry.

A team of Oxford University scientists scanned the brains of 28 men and women as they listened to a variety of calls and cries. After 100 milliseconds — roughly the time it takes to blink (眨眼) —two parts of the brain that respond to emotion lit up. Their response to a baby's cry was particularly strong. The response was seen in both men and women—even if they had no children.

    Researcher Dr Christine Parsons said, "You might read that men should just notice a baby and step over it and not see it, but it's not true. There is a special processing in men and women, which makes sense from an evolutionary(演化的)view that both men and women would be responding to these cries." The study was in people who were not parents, yet they are all responding at 100ms to these particular cries, so this might be a fundamental response present in all of us regardless of parental status.

    Fellow researcher Katie Young said it may take a bit longer for someone to recognize their own child's cries because they need to do more "fine-grained analysis". The team had previously found that our reactions speed up when we hear a baby crying. Adults performed better on computer games when they heard the sound of a baby crying than after they heard recordings of adults crying.

    Attention from strangers is nothing new to me. Questions about my height is the center of almost every public interaction. My friends say my height is just a physical quality and not a personality aspect. However, when I reflect on my life, I realize that my height has shaped my character in many ways and has helped to make me who I am.

    I learned how to be kind. When I was younger, some parents in my neighborhood regarded me kind of dangerous because I was so much larger than other children of my age. I had to be extra welcoming and gentle simply to play with other children. Of course, now my coaches wish I weren't quite so kind on the basketball court.

    I learned the quality of not being too proud about myself. At 7 feet tall, everyone expects me to be an amazing basketball player. They come expecting to see Dirk Nowitzki, and instead they might see a performance more like Will Ferrell (successfully starred a professional basketball player). I have learned to be modest and to work even harder than my fellows to meet their (and my) expectations.

    I developed a sense of lightheartedness. When people playfully make fun of my height, I laugh at myself too. On my first day of high school, a girl dropped her books in a busy hallway. I got down to her level and gathered some of her notebooks. As we both stood up, her eyes widened as I kept rising over her. Astonished, she dropped her books again. Embarrassed, we both laughed and picked up the books a second time.

    All of these lessons have defined me. Looking back, I realize that through years of such experiences, I have become a confident, expressive person. Being a 7-footer is both a blessing and a curse (诅咒), but in the end, accepting who you are is the first step to happiness.