Most people who move to a foreign country may experience a period of time when they have a lot of stress in the new culture. This feeling is often called “culture shock” and it is important to learn how to deal with culture shock. First of all, you should know that everyone in a new situation will go through some form of culture shock. There are four general stages of cultural adjustment(适应).

    The first stage is usually referred to as the honeymoon stage. Upon arriving in a new environment, you'll be interested in the new culture. Everything will seem exciting, and everyone will seem friendly and helpful.

    The second stage is called the withdrawal stage. The excitement that you felt before changes to frustration(沮丧) as you find it difficult to deal with new problems. The language is hard to learn; friends are hard to make; simple things like shopping and going to the bank are challenges. It is at this stage that you are likely to feel anxious and homesick.

If you are one of those who manage to stick it out (坚持下来), you will enter the third stage—- the recovery stage. At this point, you'll feel more confident in the new culture. You'll start to understand and accept the way things are done and the way people behave in your new environment.

The last stage is the stability stage—- this is the point when people start to feel at home in the new culture. At this stage, you will behave well in the new culture, and prefer some aspects(方面) of the new culture to your own culture.

    There is, in a sense, a fifth stage to this process. If you decide to return home after a long period in a new culture, you may experience what is called “reverse culture shock”. This means that you may find aspects of your own culture “foreign”, because you're so used to the new culture. Reverse culture shock is usually pretty mild(温和的) and doesn't last for very long.

    People around the world are superstitious about numbers; even those ancient Greeks believed that all numbers and their multiples had some mystical significance.

    Those numbers between 1 and 13 were in particular to have a powerful influence over the affairs of men.

    For example, it is commonly said that luck, good or bad, comes in threes; if an accident happens, two more of the same kind may be expected soon afterwards. The arrival of a letter will be followed by two others within a certain period.

    Another belief involving the number three has it that it is unlucky to light three cigarettes from the one match. If this happens, the bad luck that goes with the deed falls upon the person whose cigarette was the last to be lit. The ill-men linked to the lighting of three things from one match or candle goes back to at least the 17th century and probably earlier. It was believed that three candles alight at the same time would be sure to bring bad luck; one, two, or four, were permissible, but never just three.

    Seven was another significant number, usually regarded as a bringer of good luck. The ancient astrologers believed that the universe was governed by seven planets; students of Shakespeare will recall that the life of man was divided into seven ages. Seven horseshoes nailed to a house will protect it from all evil.

    Nine is usually thought of as a lucky number because it is the product of three times three. It was much used by the Anglo Saxons in their charms for healing.

    Another belief was that great changes occurred every 7th and 9th of a man's life. Consequently, the age of 63 (the product of nine and seven) was thought to be a very perilous time for him. If he survived his 63rd year he might hope to live to a ripe old age.

    Thirteen, as we well know, is regarded with great awe and fear. The common belief is that this derives from the fact that there were 13 people at Christ's Last Supper. This being the eve of his betrayal, it is not difficult to understand the significance given to the number by the early Christians.

    In more modern times 13 is an especially unlucky number of a dinner party, for example. Hotels will avoid numbering a floor the 13th; the progression is from 12 to 14, and no room is given the number 13. Many home owners will use 12 1/2 instead of 13 as their house number.

    Yet oddly enough, to be born on the 13th of the month is not regarded with any fear at all, which just shows how irrational we are in our superstitious beliefs.

    I was sure that I was to be killed. I became terribly nervous. I fumbled(摸索) in my pockets to see if there were any cigarettes, which had escaped their search. I found one and because of my shaking hands, I could barely get it to my lips. But I had no matches, they had taken those. I looked through the bars at the guard. He did not make eye contact with me. I called out to him “Have you got a light?” He looked at me, shrugged and came over to light my cigarette. As he came close and lit the match, his eyes unconsciously locked with mine. At that moment, I smiled. I don't know why I did that. Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was because, when you get very close, one to another, it is very hard not to smile. In any case, I smiled. In that instant, it was as though a spark jumped across the gap between our two hearts, our two human souls. I know he didn't want to, but my smile leaped through the bars and caused a smile on his lips, too. He lit my cigarette but stayed near, looking at me directly in the eyes and continuing to smile.

    I kept smiling at him, now thinking of him as a person and not just a guard. "Do you have kids?" he asked. “Yes, here, here.” I took out my wallet and nervously fumbled for the pictures of my family. He, too, took out the pictures of his family and began to talk about his plans and hopes for them. My eyes filled with tears. I said that I feared that I'd never see my family again, never have the chance to see them grow up. Tears came to his eyes, too. Suddenly, without another word, he unlocked my cell and silently led me out. Out of the prison, quietly and by back routes, out of the town. There, at the edge of town, he released me. And without another word, he turned back toward the town.

    Climbers at Qomolangma are being asked to clean up after themselves.

Qomolangma has earned the nickname（绰号）the World's Highest Garbage Dump（垃圾场）.

    Climbing Qomolangma,the world's highest mountain,just becomes more challenging.The government of Nepal is telling climbers they cannot leave trash on the trails.Each climber will have to come down the mountain with at the least 18 pounds of garbage.That's the average amount of trash a climber leaves behind on Qomolangma.

    Officials say climbers are responsible for their own trash.“We are not asking climbers to pick up trash left by someone else,”said the Nepal Tourism Ministry.“We just want them to bring back what they took up.”

    More than 4,000 people have reached the 29,035-foot summit（顶峰）in more than 60 years.Leaving trash along the way helps climbers keep their bags light so they have energy to reach the summit.“The trash problem in Qomolangma is not new.”Burlakoti says.“When the people started to climb the mountain,they started to leave their garbage there.”They have left behind bottles,food boxes and equipment.

    The new rule came into effect in April,2014.To make sure it is followed,climbers will have to deposit money（交保证金）before they climb.Once they climb back down the mountain,officials will check climbers at a return camp to make sure they have the required 18 pounds of trash.If they do,their money will be returned to them.If they do not,climbers will not receive their deposit and they will not be given a permit the next time they want to climb Qomolangma.

    The goal is to make sure no more litter will be left on Qomolangma."As we offer Qomolangma to all the people of the world they should take responsibility to clean it."Burlakoti says,“After seeing the results from this,we will also apply this rule to other mountains.”

    The pillage (掠夺) and destruction of ancient shipwrecks and sunken archaeological sites by treasure hunters seeking gold and other valuables may be illegal under the terms of an international treaty under discussion by UNESCO's 188 Member States.

    "Protecting our underwater heritage is extremely important and increasingly urgent as no site or shipwreck is now out of bounds for treasure hunters. New technologies have made deep-water wrecks easily accessible and these technologies are getting cheaper," warns Lyndel Prott.

    According to estimates by commercial salvors (寻宝者), there are some three million undiscovered shipwrecks scattered across the world's oceans. Even the figures for the known wrecks are impressive. The Northern Shipwrecks Database for example contains 65,000 ship loss records for North America alone from 1500 AD to the present. The Dictionary of Disasters at Sea by Charles Hocking (1969) lists 12,542 sailing ships and war vessels lost between 1824 and 1962.

    Then there are sunken cities such as the trading town and pirate stronghold(海盗堡垒) of Port Royal in Jamaica, which disappeared beneath the waves after an earthquake in 1692. Or the remnants of ancient civilisations, such as the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, and the Neolithic villages being discovered under the Black Sea, which some believe could help explain Noah's great flood.

    These treasures of cultural heritage are under serious threat. Technology now allows extraordinary access to the ocean depths for determined and well-financed treasure hunters. And the potential rewards are huge. In 1985, American salvor Mel Fisher discovered the wreck of the Señora de Atocha, a Spanish ship that sank off the Florida Keys in 1622 with her cargo of gold, silver and jewellery worth an estimated US $400 million.

    An archaeologist can spend ten years or more studying a ship, conserving its objects and publishing its findings. We gain an enormous amount of information and knowledge from this work. With treasure hunters, all of this is lost. This is tragic, for humanity as a whole.

    While staring out of the window during a flight, not everyone will think carefully about the question why airplanes have rounded windows rather than square ones.

    Over the years, aerospace engineering has made huge steps in airplane technology, meaning planes can carry more passengers and go faster. The planes have also changed shape to increase safety—including the windows. As commercial air travel took off in the mid－20th century, airline companies began to fly at higher altitudes to lower their cost—the air density(密度) is lower up there, creating less drag(阻力)for airplanes. However, higher altitudes came with problems, like the fact human beings can't really survive at 30，000 feet. To make that possible, the cabin was changed to a cylindrical(圆柱体) shape to support the pressure inside. But at first, plane builders left in the standard square windows and this expansion meant disaster. The de Havilland Comet came into fashion in the 1950s. With a closed cabin, it was able to go higher and faster than other aircraft.

    However, where there's a corner, there's a weak spot. Windows, having four corners, have four potential weak spots, making them likely to crash under stress—such as air pressure. By curving the window, the stress that would eventually break the window corner is distributed and the chance of it breaking is reduced. Rounded shapes are also stronger and resist deformation(变形), and can thus survive the extreme differences in pressure between the inside and outside of the aircraft.

    Fortunately, designers figured out the lack of design pretty quick. Now we have nice, rounded airplane windows that can resist the pressure of traveling altitude. It gives being able to gaze out of your window to the world from 35，000 feet a whole new outlook, doesn't it?