The average（平均的）American child spends three to five hours a day watching TV. In 1961, the average child began to watch television at age three; however, today it is nine months. Yet, most parents think that television has bad influence on their children. For example, in the early 1970s, my parents believed that my bad eyesight was the result of sitting too close to the screen, and they therefore made my stay at least six feet from it. Today, most people have no such worry, but many new ridiculous (荒谬的) sayings have appeared:

      *TV makes kids stupid. Many children watch more educational programs when they are pre-schoolers. When they grow up, they can read more books and have much better ideas to solve difficult problems than other children.

     *TV makes kids violent. The real story is not so simple. Hundreds of studies show that watching violence on TV makes children more aggressive (好斗的). But a study of over 5,000 children also finds that some positive programs make children kinder. The problem is that kids are increasingly watching shows with violence instead of those suitable for their age.

      *Sitting around watching TV makes kids overweight. An experiment finds that when children watch less television, they do lose extra weight; however, reducing their television time does not make them more active. The real problem lies in snacking (吃零食). A widespread habit for kids, and junk-food advertisements.

      *TV helps kids get to sleep. The opposite is true. The more television children watch, the more likely they are to have irregular sleep and nap (小睡) patterns. Allowing kids to watch television is part of the problem, not the solution.

    Kenya-Giraffe Conservation

    Preserve and protect Kenya's Wildlife

    After some difficult years, Kenya is back in fashion and welcoming travellers with open arms, with one main aim—help save and protect their unique wildlife. It isn't just the elephant under threat, but it's the smaller species that are also suffering, for example, Rothschild Giraffes. Now there are only 670 left in the wild and they need your help to survive.

    How can you help?

    Head out to the Soysambu Conservancy, which is home to more than 450 bird species and over 50 different mammals, including lions, zebra and more than 100 critically endangered Rothschild's Giraffes.

Get stuck into general reserve conservation but primarily focus on the research and protection of their resident Rothschild Giraffes, which is the reserve's main priority.

    Your Daily Tasks

    Work will be a combination of observational research and hands on work—five days a week.

    Minimum number of weeks is 2. This project is perfect for anyone with a passion for nature, wildlife, and the great outdoors.

    No previous conservation experience required.

    Where will you live?

    You will stay in the houses right in the middle of the reserve with other volunteers.

    The weekends will be free time, so you can explore further up the Rift Valley, Lake El-menteita itself and beyond.

Interested in this; ready to enquire?

    Find out more by filling out the form below and clicking send. The Leap Overseas should then be in touch shortly to help with your enquiry.

    When Wu Jia, then aged 23, returned from Canada to work for her father's Hangzhou-based Zoland Animation (动画) in 2007, she found Chinese animation productions were just-so-so. Back then, Chinese animation shown at overseas events, received a poor response.

    But things soon changed following a boom in China's movie and television industries. By 2011, China developed into one of the world's largest animation producers, with animation and cartoon products reaching a record of 260,000 minutes.

    However, that figure has witnessed a fall in recent years. The latest statistics show that China made only 244 animated productions totaling 83,600 minutes in 2017. But Wu says: “Chinese animators are changing from quantity to quality and Chinese animators are now producing more quality works” at the 14th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival.

    Wu, now the chairman of Zoland Animation, is among those who are part of China's rapidly growing animation industry. She says the company has so far displayed more than 8,000 hours of animated content to 93 countries and regions, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, South Korea and Russia.

    Magic Eye, one of Zoland's most popular animated works, which was sold to just Singapore in 2006, is now reaching the screens of nearly 80 countries and regions worldwide. The 500-episode animated series about an alien boy's adventures on Earth also has a sequel (续集) series Magic Eye is Back, which has 104 episodes. Thanks to Magic Eye's popularity, the sequel quickly arouses interest in overseas markets and is being displayed in 38 countries and regions.

    Speaking about how to succeed abroad, Wu says: “First, the works should be good. And, you need an experienced team who knows international markets.”

    As businesses and governments have struggled to understand the so-called millennials—born between roughly 1980 and 2000—one frequent conclusion has been that they have a unique love of cities. A deep-seated preference for night life and subways, the thinking goes, has driven the revitalization of urban cores across the U.S. over the last decade-plus.

    But there's mounting evidence that millennials' love of cities was a passing fling(放纵). Millennials don't love cities any more than previous generations.

    The latest argument comes from Dowell Myers, an urban planning professor at USC. As they age, says Myers, millennials' presence in cities, will "be evaporating(蒸发) through our fingers, if we don't make some plans now." That's because millennials' preference for cities will fade as they start families and become more established in their careers.

    It's about more than aging, though. Demographer William Frey has been arguing for years that millennials have become stuck in cities by the 2008 downturn and the following slow recovery, with poor job prospects and declining wages making it harder for them to afford to buy homes in suburbia.

    Myers, too, says observers have confused young people's presence in cities with a preference for cities. Survey data shows that more millennials would like to be living in the suburbs than actually are. But the normal career and family cycles moving young people from cities into suburban houses have become, in Myers' words, "a plugged up drain."

    But unemployment has finally returned to healthy lows (though participation rates and wages are still largely stagnant), which Myers says should finally increase mobility for millennials.

    Other trends among millennials, supposedly matters of lifestyle preference, have already turned out to have been driven mostly by economics. What was once deemed their broad preference for public transit may have always been a now-reversing inability to afford cars. Even decades-long trends towards marrying later have been accentuated as today's young people struggle for financial stability.

    Investors are already taking the idea that millennials will return to old behavior patterns seriously, putting more money into auto manufacturers and developers. But urban lifestyles, up to and including trendy bars, aren't just hip—they're a part of what powers a city's economic engines, bringing people together to explore new ideas, create companies, and build careers.

    From the 1960s to the 1990s, we saw that suburbanization(城市郊区化)also means an economic and social hollowing out for cities. Now that the economic shackles are coming off today's young city residents, cities that want to stay vibrant(充满生机的) have to figure out how to convince them—and their growing families—to stick around.

    In the early decades of the United States, the agrarian(土地的) movement promoted the farmer as society's hero. In the minds of agrarian thinkers and writers, the farmer was a person on whose well-being the health of the new country depended. The period between the Revolution, which ended in 1783, and the Civil War, which ended in 1865, was the age of the farmer in the United States. Agrarian philosophers, represented most eloquently by Thomas Jefferson, celebrated farmers extravagantly for their supposed centrality in a good society, their political virtue, and their Superior morality. And virtually all policy makers, whether they subscribed to the tenets of the philosophy held by Jefferson or not, recognized agriculture as the key component of the American economy. Consequently, government at all levels worked to encourage farmers as a social group and agriculture as economic enterprise.

    Both the national and state governments developed transportation infrastructure, building canals, roads, bridges, and railroads, deepening harbors, and removing obstructions from navigable streams. The national government imported plant and animal varieties and launched exploring expeditions into prospective farmlands in the West. In addition, government trade policies facilitated the exporting of agricultural products.

    For their part, farmers seemed to meet the social expectations agrarian philosophers had for them, as their broader horizons and greater self-respect, both products of the Revolution, were reflected to some degree in their behavior. Farmers seemed to become more scientific, joining agricultural societies and reading the farm newspapers that sprang up throughout the country. They began using improved implements, tried new crops and pure animal breeds, and became more receptive to modern theories of soil improvement.

    They also responded to inducements by national and state governments. Farmers streamed to the West, filling frontier lands with stunning rapidity. But farmers responded less to the expectations of agrarians and government inducements than to growing market opportunities. European demand for food from the United States seemed insatiable. War, industrialization, and urbanization all kept demand high in Europe. United States cities and industries grew as well; even industries not directly related to farming thrived because of the market, money, and labor that agriculture provided.

4-Day Classic Beijing Tour

    The 4-day classic Beijing tour is designed for tourists who come to visit China for the first time. It covers the most popular and typical places in Beijing, fully displaying the scenery, culture, history, local lifestyles and features, food and drinks, business, etc. for you.

Day 1: Arrival in Beijing

    Your guide meets you at Capital Airport, and helps you check in at your hotel

    Enjoy Beijing Duck as welcome dinner.

    Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 2: The Great Wall & the Summer Palace

    Start your day at the most famous part of the Great Wall, the Badaling Great Wall. Leave the downtown for the Great Wall at 8 am. Since it is a long drive to the Great Wall (about 2 hours' riding) have a break at the Jade Museum on the way. Lunch will be enjoyed in a local restaurant. In the early afternoon come back to the city and have a sightseeing tour of the Summer Palace.

    Recommended Activity: Beijing Opera Show (Liyuan Theatre, 19:30-21:10 every evening)

    Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 3: Beijing city sightseeing & Local experience

    Your guide meets you at the hotel at 8 am and set out for the day's touring: Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

    After visiting the two sites, have a break and get ready for lunch.

    Hutong visit: see some traditional arts of the old Beijing, such as paper cutting and kite making, and visit a local family.

    Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 4: Beijing Olympic sites

    Visit the Olympic sites: Bird's Nest, Water Cube and Olympic Park, witnessing the fast developing modern China. Enjoy some free time after visiting the sites.

    After lunch, it is shopping time and then the tour is over.