It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Our children were upstairs unpacking, and I was looking out of the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him.

    He looked up, smiling. “I'm making you a surprise.” I thought it could be just about anything. When we were kids, he always created something surprising for us. Today, however, Dad would say no more, and caught up in the busyness of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise.

    Until one gloomy day the next March when I glanced out of the window, I saw a dot of blue across the yard. I headed outside for a closer look. They were crocuses (番红花）throughout the front lawn — blue, yellow and my favorite pink, with little faces moving up and down in the cold wind. I remembered the things Dad secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dullness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timely to my needs?

    My father's crocuses bloomed (开花） each spring for the next five seasons, always bringing the same assurance： Hard times are almost over. Hold on, keep going, and light is coming soon.

    Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms and the next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses, so I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs. But I never did. He died suddenly one October day. My family were in deep sorrow, leaning on our faith.

    On a spring afternoon four years later, I was driving back when I felt depressed. It was Dad's birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual — my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived up to his faith. Suddenly I slowed as I turned into our driveway. I stopped and stared at the lawn. There on the muddy grass with small piles of melting snow, bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.

    How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years ago, one that hadn't bloomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.

    Hold on, keep going, and light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day, but it built my faith for a lifetime.

    Embassy Suites by Hilton Santa Ana Orange County Airport

    Neighborhood: John Wayne Airport (SNA), Orange County 1325 East Dyer Road, Santa Ana, CAOVERALL GUEST SCORE Very Good Based on 163 Guest Ratings

    Hotel Description

    Being close to airport and freeway access makes the Embassy Suites a top choice for our guests in the area. The 300-room Embassy Suites offers homey comforts for those on business and vacation alike—suites with separate living and sleeping areas, refrigerators, microwaves, coffeemakers, Wi-Fi access and two TVs. Wake up to a free cooked-to-order breakfast and enjoy the indoor pool and fitness center. A two-hour evening reception offers drinks and appetizers and the on-site restaurant serves American favorites. The property also has a business center with copy and fax services. Parking is available for an additional fee. Less than two miles from I-405, the Embassy Suites is within a half-mile of various restaurants and just three miles from John Wayne Airport. Our guests say the Embassy Suites' location, “brilliant” breakfast and “friendly” staff make it one of their favorite Santa Ana properties.

    Even though it's not the most popular time of year to get married, I allow my thoughts to wander and consider the most unusual marriage habits across the world.

    In some parts of India it is believed that ghosts can stay with certain people of the living world. In general, girls who are born with a baby tooth and girls who are very ugly or have some facial damage are believed to be owned by ghosts. The only way to free from the ghosts is for the girl to marry an animal, typically a goat or a dog. She is free to marry a man later on, when the ghosts are proven to be freed from her. I wonder who makes this decision and how they come to their conclusion.

    In Korea, it is a custom for grooms to request that their successfully married friends carve them wooden ducks as a symbol of great marriage. Hand-carving a wooden duck can't be easy. This leads me to wonder why it's a duck and not another animal.

    Imagine being as young as 5 and already your parents are sending you to a fat farm where you are forced to eat too much food until you vomit (呕吐). Then, the old woman watching you eat forces you to eat that vomit. This is not a TV show. This is really happening in some parts of Africa. Men there want women fat; the fatter the better. It doesn't matter if it ruins their health or make them live shorter lives. All that matters is that the woman is as large as possible in order to sell her for a high price when she reaches the age for marrying.

    Many people, both men and women in the world love drinking. The popular wisdom for years has been that drinking in moderation (适度) —that's one “standard” drink a day for women and two for men—is linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular (心血管的) disease. But recent studies are casting some doubt on that long-held learning. Science now says it depends on your age and drinking habits.

    A 2017 study of nearly 2 million British with no cardiovascular risk found that there was still a modest benefit in moderate drinking, especially for women over 55 who drank five drinks a week. Why that age? Alcohol can influence the substance in the blood in positive ways, experts say, and that's about the age when heart problems begin to occur.

    Also, a 2018 study found that drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol per week—equal to roughly seven standard drinks in the United States or five to six glasses of wine in the UK—surely increases your risk of death from all causes and in turn lowers your life expectancy. Links were found with different forms of cardiovascular disease, with people who drank more than 100 grams per week having a higher risk of stroke, heart failure.

    Another 2018 study found that consistently drinking moderately, within the recommended amount of alcohol, had a protective effect on the heart over time. Unstable drinking habits were associated with a higher risk of heart disease, which the authors reflected might indicate broader lifestyle changes, such as poor health or stress. Former drinkers were also at greater risk.

    Overall, however, the latest thinking is that any heart benefit may be outweighed by other health risks, such as high blood pressure, certain cancers and liver damage.

    Women who drink are at a higher risk for breast cancer; alcohol contributes about 6% of the overall risk, possibly because it raises certain dangerous hormones in the blood. Drinking can also increase the chance you might develop liver, mouth and oral cancers. One potential reason： Alcohol weakens our immune systems, making us more likely to inflame (发炎)—a driving force behind cancer.

    Shan Tianfang, died at 83 on Sept. 11, 2018 in Beijing because of multiple organ failure. His energetic oral interpretations of classical Chinese novels and historical events pushed the ancient pingshu tradition forward into the modern age for generations of Chinese.

    Mr. Shan tried for many years to avoid becoming a performer of pingshu, the Song dynasty-era storytelling tradition. Growing up in the1950s in a family of folk art performers, he had seen struggle firsthand. It was a life of constant financial troubles and low social status. So it was with great unwillingness when, out of financial necessity, he became an apprentice(徒弟) to a family friend who was a master of pingshu. He made his first public appearance in 1956.

    In the pingshu tradition, the performer wears a traditional gown and sits behind a desk equipped with a folding fan and a wooden block. The storyteller tells a legend — typically a classical Chinese epic — from memory, using different voices and exaggerated gestures as well as adding occasional background detail and commentary.

    Mr. Shan grew to love the storytelling form, which is popular across northern China. It is a demanding profession that combines acting, oration, writing, historical research and literary criticism and requires countless hours of memorization. In teahouses around the northeastern region, he became famous for his fresh takes on the classics.

    In 1976, many Chinese were hungry for some new forms of entertainment, and it was against this background that he grasped the opportunity to record a pingshu radio broadcast. He soon discovered that performing on radio was vastly different from doing so in teahouses. There were no props(道具), no reactions from the audience to guide him — just Mr. Shan and the microphone in a recording studio. So for his first radio performance, a shortened version of the historical novel. The Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, Mr. Shan used the studio's three recording technicians as his audience and adjusted his performance based on their reactions.

    The performance had its first appearance in 1980 on Chinese New Year, and more than 100 million Chinese were estimated to have tuned in during the 56 hours over which it was broadcast. It was the beginning of a dramatic second act both for Mr. Shan and for pingshu in the People's Republic of China. He was soon a household name across the country.

    Over six decades, Mr. Shan recorded more than 110 stories for radio and television totaling about 12,000 episodes and lasting 6,000 hours. His best-known works include his interpretations of Chinese classics like 'White-Eyebrow Hero' and 'Sanxia Wuyi' and his dramatizations of historical figures like Zhuge Liang and Lin Zexu.

    Even today, hop into a Beijing taxi and the driver may be listening to one of Mr. Shan's recordings. "For my generation, Shan Tianfang was a master," said Zhao Fuwei, 48, a Beijing taxi driver. If back then there was such thing as a viral star, then Shan Tianfang was definitely the hottest viral star.

    "Listening to his stories has made it easier to kill time in bad traffic," Mr. Zhao added. "He was so good at making complicated historical stories simple and interesting". You feel like you could empathize with the characters in his stories, even though they lived a long time ago.

    But in recent years many of the great pingshu performers have died, and the tradition is fading. By the time Mr. Shan retired in 2007, interest in pingshu among Chinese had all but been replaced by mobile phones and gaming. Nevertheless, even after retiring, Mr. Shan worked tirelessly to promote pingshu among young Chinese, instructing apprentices and starting a school dedicated to the folk arts.

    Ever willing to adapt to new technologies, he posted a message to his Sina Weibo microblog account on Sept. 6, five days before his death. It was an announcement about a new live-streamed(直播) lecture series about pingshu.

Discover Nature Schools programs

Becoming Bears (Kindergarten-2 grade)

    By becoming baby bears, children learn from their "parent" to survive the seasons. Kids will find safety in the spring and learn kinds of food bears eat during the summer, and then create a cave for winter hibernation(冬眠). After learning the skills needed to survive, students will go out of the cave as an independent black bear able to care for themselves. (1.5-2 hours)

Whose Clues? (3-5 grade)

    Kids will discover how plants and animals use their special structures to survive. Through outdoor study of plants and animals, kids will recognize their special structures and learn how they enable species to eat, avoid their enemies and survive. Using what they have learned, kids will choose one species and tell how they survive in their living places. (3-4 hours)

Winged Wonders (3-5 grade)

    Birds add color and sound to our world and play an important ecological (生态的) role. Students will learn the basics of birds, understand the role birds play in food chains and go bird watching using field guides and telescopes. Students will do hands-on activities. Students will use tools to build bird feeders, allowing them to attract birds at home.(3-4 hours)

Exploring Your Watershed (6-8 grade)

    We all depend on clean water. Examining how our actions shape the waterways around us. Go on a hike to see first-hand some of the challenging water quality problems in a city. Students will test the water quality to determine the health of an ecosystem.

● Each program is taught for a class with at least 10 students.

● All programs include plenty of time outdoors. So please prepare proper clothing, sunscreen and insect killers for children.

● To take part in a program, please email dcprograms@mdc.mo.gov.