When we're in need, we always turn to our parents for help. But would you like them to hear the conversations you have with your friends on the school playground or lunch queue? Social networking sites have become extensions (延伸) of the school hallways, so would you add your parents as “friends” and allow them to view your online activities and conversations with friends?

    In the past the generation gap included a technology gap, where children were up to date with latest technology and parents were left behind, content to continue their day to day lives as they always had because they had no need to know more about technology. However, more and more parents are beginning to realize just how important social networks are in their lives. This realization has given many parents the motivation to educate themselves about social networking sites.

    These days many people are attracted to social networking sites because they can choose who they have around them; there's also a certain amount of control over privacy that we don't get in real life. Sometimes we feel that privacy is violated (侵犯）when we must accept a “friend” request from a parent or family member.

    It's a difficult choice whether or not to allow a parent to become a part of our online lives. On the one hand we don't want to “reject” their request because that might hurt their feelings or make them feel you have something to hide. On the other hand if you do accept, then you could have a sense of being watched and no longer feel free to comment or communicate the way you did before.

    A recent survey suggested that parents shouldn't take it personally if their child ignores their request: “When a teen ignores a parent's friend request, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are hiding something, but it could mean that this is one part of their life where they want to be independent.”

    Perhaps talking with parents and giving explanations would help soften the blow if you do choose not to add them to your friends list.

    How Did the Ancient Chinese Keep Food Warm in Winter?

    Facilities like electric rice cookers, microwaves, and electric kettles, make it easy for people to keep food warm and enjoy a comfortable winter. So how did Chinese people in ancient times keep food warm in winter without these? In fact, ancient Chinese people used their own methods of heat preservation as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.

    ☆ “Wen Ding”, ancient rice cooker

    One of the major functions of an electric rice cooker is to keep food warm. The “Wen Ding”, an ancient cooking container, served the same purpose, but instead of using electric energy, the ancient cooking container preserved heat by burning fuels like charcoal.

    The “Wen Ding” unearthed in Nanjing in 1989 is thought to be the oldest of its kind discovered in China, dating back to the Stone Age. The craftsmanship of making the “Wen Ding” was developed in the Bronze Age. The bronze Ding from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties took on different shapes and structures.

    ☆ “Ran Lu”, ancient small hot pot

    The “Ran Lu” is a small size cooking vessel (器皿) made of bronze, which can be divided into three parts. A charcoal stove forms the main structure, with a bottom tray to hold charcoal ashes, and a movable cup at the top. Some experts have concluded that the vessel's structure suggests it may have been used as a small hot pot and that these vessels became popular in the Warring States Period (475—221 B.C.).

    ☆ Bronze You, ancient kettle

    The Bronze You was one of the most common wine containers during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The Bronze You can also be used to warm wine. For example, the Bronze You with beast mask design, unearthed in Jiangxi Province, has an opening where charcoal could be placed. Just as people today can't do without an electric kettle, the Bronze You allowed people to enjoy a hot drink.

    ☆ Bronze Yan, ancient steamer

    Although the “Wen Ding” was effective at keeping food warm, the ancient Chinese people later found that its burning process produced pollution. As a result, the Bronze Yan made with a two-tier structure and used to steam rice and other grains. After the Eastern Han Dynasty (25A.D.-220A.D.), further improvements to the Bronze Yan led to the modern-day steamer.

    Body language is a broad term for several forms of communication using body movements or gestures, instead of, or as a complement to, sounds, verbal language, or other forms of communication. In turn, it is one category of paralanguage, which describes all forms of human communication that are not language.

    Paralanguage including body language has been extensively studied in social psychology. In everyday speech and popular psychology, the term is most often applied to body language that is thought to be involuntary, but in fact the distinction between voluntary and involuntary body language is often blurred: a smile or a wave may be given either voluntarily or involuntarily, for example.

    Voluntary Body Language is less commonly discussed because it seems unproblematic. It refers to movement, gestures and poses intentionally made by the person: smiling, hands, imitating actions, and generally making movements with full or partial intention of making them and a realization of what they communicate.

    The relation of body language to animal communication has often been discussed. Human paralanguage may represent a continuation of forms of communication that our non-linguistic ancestors already used, or it may be that it has been changed by co-existing language. Some species of animals are especially skilled at detecting human body language, both voluntary and involuntary: this was the reason for trying to teach the chimpanzee Washoe American Sign Language rather than speech and perhaps the reason why the Washoe project was more successful than some previous efforts to teach apes how to dance.

    Body language is a product of both genetic and environmental influences. Blind children will smile and laugh even though they have never seen a smile. The ethnologist (文化人类学者) Iraneus Eibl-Eibesfeldt claimed that a number of basic elements of body language were universal across cultures and must therefore be fixed action patterns under instinctive (本能的) control. Some forms of human body language show continuities with communicative gestures of other apes, though often with changes in meaning. More refined gestures, which vary between cultures (for example the gestures to indicate "yes" and "no"), must obviously be learned or modified through learning, usually by unconscious observation of the environment.

    The summer I turned 16, my father gave me his car — a gift wasted on me at that age. The important thing was that Hannah and I could drive around.

    Hannah was my best friend, a year younger but much taller, almost five foot ten. "Hannah's a knockout, "my mother always said. And that summer she signed with a modeling agency. She was already doing runway work.

    A month after my birthday, Hannah and I went to the movies. On the way home, we stopped at the McDonald's drive-through, putting the fries on the seat between us to share. "Let's ride around a while, "I said. It was a clear night, full moon slung(悬挂)low over the desert. Taking a turning too fast, I plowed (撞)through a neighbor's wall and drove into a full-grown tree.

    We were taken in separate ambulances. I'd cracked(使裂开)my cheek bone; Hannah's forehead had split wide open. End of her modeling career. What would I say to her?

    When her mother, Sharon, came into my hospital room, I started to cry. She sat beside me and took my hand. "I rear-ended(追尾) my best friend when I was your age, "she said. "I totaled her car and mine."

    "I'm so sorry," I said.

    "You're both alive," she said." The rest is window dressing. I forgive you. Hannah will too."

    Sharon's forgiveness allowed Hannah and me to stay friends throughout high school and college, to be at each other's weddings … The scars are so faded no one else would notice, but in the sunlight I can still see it just below her hairline — for me, a mark of grace(优雅).

    One of the most famous buildings in the United States is Carnegie Hall, the home of classical and popular music concerts in New York. Carnegie Hall is known not just for its beauty and history, but also for its amazing sound. It has been said that the hall itself is an instrument. It takes the music and makes it larger than life.

    Carnegie Hall is named after Andrew Carnegie, who paid for its construction. Construction on Carnegie Hall began in 1890 and the official opening night was on May 5, 1891.

    The hall was owned by the Carnegie family until 1924 when it was sold to Robert E. Simon. The building became very old and in 1960, the new owner made plans to destroy it and build an office block. Isaac Stem led a group of people who fought to save Carnegie Hall and finally, the city of New York bought it for $5 million. It was then fixed up between 1983 and 1995.

    Advertisements and stories in newspapers about how Carnegie Hall needed help to recover its history led people to send in old concert programmes and information from all over the world. Over 12,000 concert programmes were received and with these it was possible to make a proper record of Carnegie Hall's concert history.

    Carnegie Hall is actually made up of several different halls, but the Main Hall, now called the Isaac Stern Hall, is the most famous. The hall itself can hold an audience of 2,804 in five levels of seating.

    Because the best and most famous musicians of all time have played at Carnegie Hall, it is the dream of most musicians who want to be great to play there. This has led to a very old joke which is now part of Carnegie Hall's history. Question: "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Answer: "Practise, practise, practise."

Chinese delivery driver, Gao Zhixiao, was featured on the cover of Time magazine in March because of his sense of commitment. Alongside five others, he was picked by the magazine as one of heroes among the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Ever since COVID-19 broke out, many restaurants shut down or switched to takeout-only services. Millions of people have been staying at home to avoid getting infected. "People choose to order food online or buy fruit and vegetables to cook at home," Gao told Time. As a result, delivery orders dramatically increased, placing a huge burden on delivery company.

Born into a poor family in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, Gao started to make a living in Beijing at age 16. After the novel coronavirus broke out, Gao hesitated for a second to continue working, but then picked up orders because he thought customers might be in need.

Due to the danger of person-to-person transmission, Gao must take care to avoid spreading viruses during his route around Beijing, including taking a regular health test and spending 20 minutes disinfecting his motorcycle and clothes each morning. Besides delivering goods, Gao once willingly cooked for an elderly customer who was living alone at her home.

It is the commitment of ordinary people like Gao that has made the biggest contributions in the fight against COVID-19.