Singles' Day — the Chinese opposite of Valentine's Day has turned into a massive online shopping event. It is a day when single people are supposed to buy themselves presents. But there are sociological reasons behind China's “celebration” of single life. And the imbalance could have big consequences for the country.

    There were 34 million more men than women in China in 2011. Part of that is natural – usually there are 105 boys born for every 100 girls. But the Chinese gender ratio (性别比例) at birth is much more obvious. It was 116 boys to 100 girls in 2012. The one child policy is largely to blame. Brought in to limit population expansion, the policy allows only one child per family. But because male children are seen as more valuable, as well as more likely to support their parents in old age, some parents choose to have a son over a daughter. The result is that large numbers of men will likely never get married. In fact, one study has predicted that by 2030, 1 in 5 Chinese men in their 30s will never have married, while another states that 94% of unmarried people in China are men.

    Traditionally, China has seen high levels of marriage, usually among the young. Besides, the increased education and career opportunities for women have meant that marriages are happening later. It is also traditional that women often marry men of a higher socioeconomic status than themselves. So women at the top and men at the bottom find themselves alone. One study has even suggested a link between an imbalanced gender ratio and growth in violent crime in the country.

    Singles' Day can't solve all the problems China's singles face. Indeed, it is possible that it is causing even more problems, as men resort to(诉诸于) increasingly risky lines of work to increase their chances of gaining money and thus a wife. I am worried that as money starts to overcome romance, there is evidence that China's marriage market is increasingly materialistic.

    Are you truly happy? Do you ever know what it means to be happy and what it takes to achieve happiness? {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The following are a few tips that I follow to create happiness in my life.

※ Make a plan for attaining goals that you believe will make you happy. Your moods will very likely increase if you are going after something you value.

※ Surround yourself with happy people. It is easy to begin to think negatively when you are surrounded by people who think that way. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} .

※When something goes wrong, try to figure out a solution instead of being absorbed in self pity. Truly happy people don't allow setbacks (挫折) to affect their mood because they know that with a little thought they can turn the circumstances back to their favor.

※ {#blank#}3{#/blank#} These few minutes will give you the opportunity to focus on the positive things in your life and will lead you to continuous happiness.

※ {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Whether you treat yourself to lunch, take a long, relaxing bath or simply spend a few extra minutes on your appearance, you will be subconsciously (下意识地) putting yourself in a better mood.

※Finding the humor in situations can also lead to happiness. Find a way to make light of a situation that would otherwise make you happy.

※Keeping healthy is another way to achieve happiness. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

A．It's also important to take some time each day to do something nice for yourself.

B．What makes one person happy may be very different from what makes someone else happy.

C．On the contrary, if you are around people who are happy, their emotional state will be infectious.

D．Being overweight or not eating nutritious foods can have a negative effect on your mood．

E．These are important questions for anyone who is seeking happiness to ask themselves.

F．Spend a few minutes each day thinking about the things that make you happy.

G．There are some tips in life that lead to happiness.

    Bamboo is one of the world's most useful plants. For thousands of years, bamboo has been used in many different ways-from food to medicine to clothing and, in small ways, as a building material.

    However, bamboo is not often used as a building material in the developed world. A professor at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania is trying to change that. The professor and his students are testing the strength of bamboo.They are testing how much pressure or weight it can take before breaking.

    Kent Harries is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Harries says that testing methods for bamboo need to be the same for all. They need to be standardized. Standardizing test methods for bamboo will help to bring the plant into common use. It will also give engineers and builders around the world a dependable standard.

    Harries says that bamboo is strong in nature. The strength of at least three species of bamboo is similar to steel.Besides its strength, bamboo has other features that make it very useful in building. He says it is resilient(有弹力的), meaning it keeps its shape and strength even under pressure.

    Bamboo also grows quickly. Bamboo that is suitable for construction needs much less resources than wood. The harvest cycle of bamboo is about 3 years. Softwoods such as cedar, pine and spruce have a harvest cycle of about 10 years. And hardwoods that come from flowering plants such as oak and walnut need more than 30 years.

    Bamboo is widely used as food for panda bears. It is also used for flooring and window covers. However, for building, bamboo is not used much outside its native growing area. This is mostly because of its round shape. But there are other reasons too. People think -- or have the mentality--that bamboo is a low quality building material.

    A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago found that too many kids are eating too much pizza and too many calories are doing harm to children's health.

    "There are a lot of takeaways from the study. But the biggest thing is that parents are serving their kids too much pizza," said Dr. William Dietz, one of the study's authors and the director of the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at the Milken Institute of Public Health at the George Washington University.

    The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which tracked the diets of more than 11,000 children and teenagers. Researchers figured how many children eat pizza in the United States, how often they eat it, and how much they eat when they do.

    Pizza, pretty alarmingly, is the second leading source of calories in the diets of America's children, next only to grain desserts, such as cookies and other sweets. On any given day, roughly 20 percent of all children aged 2 to 11 and adolescents aged 12 to 19 eat pizza. And when they do, they eat a lot of it. When children eat pizza, they eat roughly 400 calories, according to the study. For teenagers, it's upwards of 600 calories.

    All that is pretty problematic, according to Dietz largely because kids don't tend to balance the pizza slices with salads, vegetables and other more nutritional(有营养的) foodstuffs. Days on which children and teenagers eat pizza are not only associated with considerably higher intakes of fat, but also, quite simply, with more food: on average, children consume 84 extra calories on the days they eat pizza, while adolescents consume an extra 230 calories.

    "When you eat extra calories and don't compensate(抵偿) for them at another point of the day or week, it can lead to weight gain and even obesity." Dietz said.

    There is a Silver lining. Pizza consumption is still too high by nutrition standards, but it's lower than it used to be. Consumption(消费) fell by roughly 25 percent between 2007 and 2016, according to the study. Much of that has come at dinner where it's fallen by 40 percent for children and about 33 percent for teenagers. It's unclear whether the decline has been in connection with a growing concern over obesity, especially among the country's youth.

    But the drop in pizza consumption, while significant hasn't been big enough "It's a positive trend," Dietz said. "But we're not quite them yet."

    It's easy to see the appeal of pizza. It's cheap. Parents can buy a lot of pizza for not a lot of money. Besides, they can buy pizza from a chain shop, a mom-and-pop store or a grocery freezer. And it's universally loved. The estimated 3 billion pizza eaten each year in the United States is a proof of the food's unmatched popularity. Given how much the country loves pizza, what's to be done? Dietz suggests pizza with smaller serving sizes and healthier toppings(配料). "We're not suggesting that kids avoid pizza altogether." said Dietz. "But when parents serve it, it's important that they understand it's extremely caloric. They should serve smaller pizza, or at least smaller slices."

    The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows that one in every 12 kids is living in homes where no one has worked for at least a year. That may be due to unemployment or issues such as sickness or disability that mean they can't work, and aren't required to. This is known as being in a "long term workless" family.

    The issues faced by children in workless families have very bad influence on their development and education, limiting their future employment prospects, and reducing their opportunities to succeed throughout their lives.

    Not only does worklessness reduce family income, it can also damage families' health and stability, and thus destroy children's development. This is because many workless families are held back by disadvantages such as debt, drug and alcohol dependency, and by homelessness. Suffering from the family problems, many children face a greater and greater possibility of repeating the poor outcomes of their parents. Government research has shown that children in workless families are almost twice as likely not to reach the expected level at all stages of their education. For example, three-quarters of children from families where no one works failed to reach the expected level at General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), compared to around half of children in lower-income working families.

    So attention should be paid to children in out-of-work homes. Having working parents means a child is more likely to do better at school, to have better health, education and development, and also means they are less likely to fall into crime.

    But for some families, worklessness, or not employment, is the norm. They just choose not to work. These families often face huge barriers to getting on with their lives but they take the opportunities offered by the society. Parents' ability to work is frustrated by issues like low skills or poor mental or physical health, or drug and alcohol dependency, leaving children without the stability they need.

    We all want to help workless families with complex problems so that their children can take advantage of the opportunities in Britain. We all want parents to have the chance to go out to earn a living and to enjoy the pleasure of work, so that their children can benefit from the good examples of working parents. In doing so, we should know the need to understand the complex issues that some families face and to develop a new approach to deal with poverty. Because the root causes are not financial. It is about helping families overcome the problems they face so that they can go as far as their talents and hard work will take them. We shouldn't retreat from acting to deal with disadvantages, because we know the costs of inaction to individuals, communities and society.

Located in southern Anhui Province, Mount Huangshan (黄山) covers {#blank#}1{#/blank#} area of 250 kilometers, of {#blank#}2{#/blank#} 154 square kilometers are scenic attractions. Its landscape features "four wonders" of imposing peaks, spectacular rocks, odd-shaped pines, and a sea of clouds. 

Mount Huangshan boasts 72 peaks, more than 1, 000 meters above sea level, with three main peaks rising majestically. They are both fascinating and {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(danger). Cliffs, stone forests, stone pillars, stone blocks and egg-shaped stones form the unique granite geomorphological(地貌的） scenery. 

The pines on the mountain are tall and have fascinating{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(shape). The famous Welcoming Guests Pine (Yingke Song) (1, 500 years old) and See-Guest-Off Pine have become a symbol of being faithful, unyielding(不屈的) and hospitable. More than 200 days each year on Mount Huangshan are misty and cloudy. The vapors coagulate(凝结）to form a sea of clouds. As the clouds cloak the mountain, they give a feeling of being in fairyland. 

Mount Huangshan has more than 400 famous scenic attractions of which 140 have been developed and opened to {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(tour). 

In 1990, Mount Huangshan went on both the world cultural {#blank#}6{#/blank#} natural heritage lists. Is it really so beautiful?