China Daily—Last week, the Beijing municipal government released a list of 192 areas in the capital where spring blooms, including peach, magnolia, apricot and winter jasmine, can be enjoyed from March to May.  The recommended spots cover an area of 22 square kilometers.  Apart from admiring blooms, folklore performances, botany exhibitions and other activities will be put on. 20 travel routes for tourists looking to appreciate floral beauty in the countryside are issued in Hubei, too.

    South Korean drama Descendants of the Sun《太阳的后裔》 has collected more than 200 million views on iQiyi, the Chinese streaming website said Tuesday.

    "Descendants of the Sun", the first Korean show to premiere simultaneously in South Korea and China (中韩同步首播), is a love story between an Army captain (Song Joong-ki) and a doctor (Song Hye-kyo) who find themselves in a fictional war-torn country called Uruk, where both try to save lives.

    "The show has become the talk of the town everywhere. Some shows even had live phone conversations with viewers to discuss its popularity," a Chinese entertainment official said.

    To put things into perspective, a f ifth of South Korea's population is 10 million people. Just a little over that number tuned in to watch Descendants of the Sun.

    Enthusiastic customers snapped up(抢光) the first batch of tickets in just five minutes on Monday for the opening day of the Shanghai Disneyland park on June 16, temporarily crashing the official website.

    "Within half an hour, clicks on the website (www.shanghaidisneyresort.com) reached more than 5 million. The massive volume resulted in our ticketing system temporarily malfunctioning."

    Do other countries' students also have so much homework? What do they usually do in their free time? You may feel curious about them.

    On April 8, a report came out on the lives of high school students in China, Japan, South Korea and the US. It surveyed around 6,200 students from the four countries last year. You will find the answers to many of your questions in this report.

    Who studies hardest?

    Chinese students spend the most time studying. Nearly half of Chinese students spend more than two hours on their homework every day. That's much more than the stud the US (26.496), Japan (8.2%) and South Korea (5.2%).

    Who sleeps most often in class?

    Japanese students fall asleep in class most often. About 45% of them said they sometimes doze off in class. In South Korea, it's 32%; in the US, 21%; and 5% in China.

    South Korean students don't like taking notes. About 70% said they write down what the teacher says in class, many fewer than in Japan (93%), china (90%) and the US (89%).

    Who is the most distracted (走神)?

American students are the most active in class, but also the most distracted: 64.2% said they chat with friends in class; 46.9% said they eat snacks in class; and 38.9% said they send e-mails or read unrelated books in class.

What do they do after school?

    In their spare time, most Chinese students study or surf the Internet. Most American students hang out with their friends. Most Japanese students do physical exercise. Most Korean students watch TV.

    Imagine, one day, getting out of bed in Beijing and being at your office in Shanghai in only a couple of hours, and then, after a full day of work, going back home to Beijing and having dinner there.

    Sounds unusual, doesn't it? But it's not that unrealistic, with the development of China's high-speed railway system. And that's not all. China has an even greater high-speed railway plan to connect the country with Southeast Asia, and eventually Eastern Europe. China is negotiating to extend its own high-speed railway network to up to 17 countries in 10 to 15 years, eventually reaching London and Singapore.

    China has proposed three such projects. The first would possibly connect Kunming with Singapore via Vietnam and Malaysia. Another could start in Urumqi and go through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and possibly to Germany. The third would start in the northeast and go north through Russia and then into Western Europe. The new system would still follow China's high-speed railway standard. And the trains would be able to go 346 kilometers an hour, almost as fast as some airplanes. Of course, there are some technical challenges to overcome. There are so many issues that need to be settled, such as safety, rail gauge(轨距), maintenance of railway tracks. But the key issue is really money. China is already spending hundreds of billions of yuan on domestic railway expansion.

    China prefers that the other countries pay in natural resources rather than with capital investment. Resources from those countries could stream into China to sustain development. It'll be a win-win project. For other countries, the railway network will definitely create more opportunities for business, tourism and so on, not to mention the better communication among those countries.

    For China, such a project would not only connect it with the rest of Asia and bring some much-needed resources, but would also help develop China's far west. We foresee that in the coming decades, millions of people will migrate to the western regions, where the land is empty and resources unused. With high-speed trains, people will set up factories and business centers in the west once and for all. And they'll trade with Central Asian and Eastern European countries.

    Many Americans buy an evergreen tree for Christmas. They put the tree in their home and hang small lights and colorful things on it. The evergreen is usually a pine or a fir tree (冷杉树). It remains green during the cold, dark months of winter in the northern part of the world. So it is a sign of everlasting life.

    Early long ago, Romans probably planted evergreen trees during a celebration in honor of their god of agriculture. The Christmas tree may have developed from a popular play performed hundreds of years ago in what is now Germany. Traditionally, the play was on December 24th, the day before Christmas. The play was about the first people that God created—Adam and Eve. People put apples on an evergreen tree to represent the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

    By the year 1600, some Germans began bringing evergreen trees into their homes. They put fruit, nuts and sweets on the trees. They gave the food to the family members and friends after the holiday season. Some people say the German religious reformer (宗教改革者) Martin Luther was the first person to add lighted candles to the tree. They say he did this to show how wonderful the stars had appeared as he travelled one night.

    In the early 1800's, German settlers in the state of Pennsylvania were the first to celebrate the holiday with Christmas trees in the United States. The Christmas tree tradition spread to many parts of the world. Today, some form of the Christmas tree is part of most Christmas celebrations.

Seeds on Ice

    Close to the North Pole, remote and rocky Plateau Mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment, no grains, no gardens, no trees can grow. Yet at the end of a 130-meter-long tunnel cut out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity's most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection—more than a half-billion seeds.

    A quiet rescue mission is under way. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change-will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity （多样性） of crops around the world, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault （地窖） represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation （贮藏） of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits found within the seeds: the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot, dry weather.

    Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed boxes, behind multiple locked doors, monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below—zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rock, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress. Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of retaining （保留） their ability to grow for thousands of years.

    Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault was a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was proposed, it was viewed as a crazy, impractical, and expensive idea.

    We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired, fed up, and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and its crops might be better prepared for change. If it simply resupplied seed gene banks with samples those gene banks had lost, this would repay our efforts.

    The Seed Vault is about hope and commitment-about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant, long-lasting, and worthy of who we are and wish to be.

    To have a successful job interview, you need to make good preparations beforehand. Here are some suggestions on what you should do before the interview.

    ⑴Find out as much as you can about the company. What goods or services do they provide? How long has it been founded? Read articles about it. Talk with people who work there. Perhaps you can look at the company website, or find some information on the Internet.

    ⑵Be sure of the time of the interview, the place and the person you'll see.

    ⑶Think about the kind of questions that the employer might ask. Write out questions and possible answers.

    ⑷Rehearse the interview with family members or friends. They can ask you questions from the list you've prepared and you can try to answer.

    ⑸Dress properly. Don't be too formal or too informal. Choose your clothes, shoes.

    ⑹Wash. Make sure that you are clean, and that your teeth have been freshly brushed.