As is known to all of us, Beijing Opera is one of the most important opera styles in China. It is an art on the stage which has about 200 years' history. It is not only a treasure of the Chinese nation but also a cultural symbol of China. Similar to western operas, Beijing Opera is a combination of singing, dancing, martial arts, music and literature, so it is also called the "Oriental (东方的) Opera" by western people.

    Beijing Opera uses special imagery in creating the characters. All roles are divided according to sex, personality, age and profession and social status. Hangdang is the general term for role in Beijing Opera. There are four types of roles in Beijing Opera today. They are sheng, dan, jing and chou. The sheng is the male protagonist (主角), the dan the female protagonist, the jing (painted face) a male supporting role with a different characteristics, and chou (clown) a comic or negative figure. Each kind of role has their own face-painting and dressing to indicate their identities.

    The Opera's performance requires not only the gentle voice but also the proficiency (熟练) of martial actions. A successful opera actor must suffer from the tough practicing period. In the old time, the children of poor families were sent to the opera group in order to earn a living. While now, the real opera artists are well respected by opera lovers.

    Mei Lanfang, one of the most remarkable performing artists in Beijing Opera, was born in Beijing into a poor family. His life was bitter and he had no opportunity to go to school, so he went to the troupe (戏班子) when he was 8 years old to learn Beijing Opera. Mr. Mei was on the stage when he was 11 years old to perform the plays of Beijing Opera. He has been an opera actor for more than 50 years, performing hundreds of traditional plays and over 30 modern plays. He portrayed many bright and lifelike female figures on the stage and became the model in Chinese Beijing Opera and even within the entire artistic circle.

We can learn by listening to the teacher in class, but is this the only way for students to learn? Of course not. There is another way to learn. That is students can teach themselves. For example, if you can't remember things when you are doing homework, you can look through your book to find the answer. This is a way to teach yourself. And it is not a difficult thing. We can do this at any place and at any time.

How do you teach yourself? The first thing you must do is reading. Read something you like, or you have to read. The second is that you must ask yourself questions. A clever student is usually good at asking questions. The third is to answer the questions yourself by thinking hard, reading the text or other books, or asking other people. These are ways of teaching yourself. And if you do like this for a long time, I'm sure you'll succeed in your study.

Everyone knows that exercise is important. We all need to exercise. Doctors say it's good for us. It keeps body strong. 

When the daytime comes, we must get up. This is the time for exercise. Exercise means doing sports or other physical activities to stay healthy. There're many ways to exercise. You can walk, run, swim, skate or play ball games. Make sure you exercise in the following ways:You should like what you're doing. Exercise enough but not too much. It's good to exercise twice each week. Thirty minutes each time is enough. Try all kinds of things until you find one, two or three sports that you feel right for you. 

Exercising can be fun. Friends can exercise together at a fitness center, or they can play sports together. How do you exercise?

Nowadays, we have kinds of technologies to protect us from different disasters（灾难）. We even know where and when some disasters, like the typhoon, come. While most of the new technologies are far away from us, some around us can help people in disasters.

The drone（无人机）is one of them. It can be used to send food, water and other important things when a natural disaster happens. Very often the buildings are too dangerous for rescue teams to get in. They can make the drone fly into the buildings to search for those who are still alive first.

Social media is also a useful tool when it comes to natural disasters. With its help, people can know about the natural disasters before they hit. And some social media platforms allow people to mark themselves as safe after disasters so others can know their status.

 Social media is also a place for up-to-the-minute news, so people can learn what is going on in the disaster areas. Besides, many social media platforms allow people to donate money to help people in disaster areas. The money will help them get back to their normal life as soon as possible. For example, livestreaming（直播）helped raise a lot of money for Henan after the flood in 2021.

Although these technologies can help when there is a natural disaster, we still need to prepare necessary tools and learn important skills to protect ourselves.

Shadow play, known as"Ying zi xi"in Chinese, is a kind of ancient shadow art. It has a history of about 2, 000 years in China, India and Southeast Asia. The moving shadows on a screen are used to tell history and folk stories. And hand shadow is one of the simplest ways to make shadow play. With a bit of practice, most people can change the shape of hands to make animals, like dogs and birds, on the wall. 

Today, shadow art has developed into one more creative style. In the spring of 2016, Vincent Bal, an artist in Europe, turned the shadows into a clever art form—shadow drawing. He named this special drawing "Shadowology". In the Shadowology, a little drawing is added into the shadows of everyday things to create wonderful pictures. 

Like most good things in life, Shadowology came by accident. One day, during a break from work, Bal noticed that the shadow of his teacup looked like a little elephant. He drew eyes, legs and a smile for the shadow, and took a photo of that. After sharing the photo on the Internet, Bal surprisingly found people's love for it, which encouraged him to continue. 

Since then, Bal has got 600, 000 fans on the Internet. He keeps producing as many different shadow works as possible. For example, he made a pair of sunglasses look like the wings of a butterfly, and a bottle become a lamp. All his works are interesting and playful. In 2023, Bal finished Shadowology films and a museum exhibition. 

Nowadays, Shadowology has won the hearts of people around the world. With the wonderful drawing, people have got a chance to see the beauty in everyday things and discover the joy all around in such a busy world.