People living in the country enjoy several advantages that people living in the city cannot enjoy. They are in close contact with nature. They make friends with trees and stones. They can own dogs. They breathe fresh air. They fight with strong winds. They listen to the songs of birds.

    This contact with nature is good for health. There are many diseases that are common in the city. but are not to be found in the country. For example, near-sightedness is almost unknown to country people.

    Because of the absence of cars, one can walk more freely in the country than in the city. There are no rules of the road, nor traffic signs to obey.

    People living in the country can easily get fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and fresh milk. And they get them at lower prices than in the city.

    Country life is economical in other ways, too. There are practically no temptations（诱惑）to waste money.

    Country people are mostly honest. They say what they mean, and make and keep promises with sincerity（诚意）. They do not put on air. They do not pretend to have those ridiculous（荒谬的）manners which are necessary in what we call polite society.

    Every week in China, millions of people will sit in front of their TVs watching teenagers compete for the title Character Hero, which is a Chinese-style spelling bee (拼写大赛). In this challenge, young competitors must write Chinese characters by hand. To prepare for the competition, the competitors usually spend months studying dictionaries.

    Perhaps the show's popularity should not be a surprise. Along with gunpowder and paper, many Chinese people consider the creation of Chinese calligraphy (书法) to be one of their primary contributions to civilization. Unfortunately, all over the country, Chinese people are forgetting how to write their own language without computerized help. Software on smart phones and computers allows users to type in the basic sound of the word using the Latin alphabet. The correct character is chosen from a list. The result? It's possible to recognize characters without remembering how to write them.

    But there's still hope for the paint brush. China's Education Ministry wants children to spend more time learning how to write.

    In one Beijing primary school we visited, students practice calligraphy every day inside a specially decorated classroom with traditional Chinese paintings hanging on the walls. Soft music plays as a group of six-year-olds dip brush pens into black ink. They look up at the blackboard often to study their teacher's examples before carefully attempting to reproduce those characters on thin rice paper. “If adults can survive without using handwriting, why bother to teach it now?'' we ask the calligraphy teacher, Shen Bin, “The ability to write characters is part of Chinese tradition and culture,” she reasons. "Students must learn now so they don't forget when they grow up.” says the teacher.

    With her pretty face and soulful voice, Zhang Bichen was thought a possible champion when she first set foot on the stage of the TV show The Voice of China.

    On Oct 7, 2014, the 25-year-old girl won the fierce competition and received the title of the “Voice of the Year”. Zhang's dream of being a singer star came true as last. What impressed people was not only Zhang's singing skills, but her willingness to make an effort. “I gained the opportunity to sing on The Voice of China,” she said.

    In fact, being a singer has always been her dream. She wanted to apply to a college for singing, but her parents insisted that she should have an easy job after graduation because she did very well at school. So Zhang gave in to her parents and learned French at university. However, in the first year of her college, she was discovered by a South Korean company when she entered a singing competition. To realize her dream, Zhang signed a contract（合同）with the company, started her career in South Korea, and became a member of a band.

    “My company had rules that did not allow us to use cell phones. During the first few months after I arrived in South Korea, a totally unfamiliar country, I felt terribly homesick. But I could only phone my parents in the restroom when nobody noticed.” Zhang said. “When I did not have much income, I had to eat noodles every day for months.”

    It was her positive attitude and outgoing character that helped her through. “When I feel down, I tell myself it is not winning or losing that matters. The most important things are standing on the stage and singing for people.” she said.

    One day, a patient came to see me. He worked as a waiter in a restaurant and his problem was acid reflux (胃酸倒流), a disease that influences as many as 40 percent of Americans, a marked increase in recent years. Reflux can lead to esophageal (食道的) cancer, which has increased by about 500 percent since the 1970s. The drugs we use to treat reflux don't always work and may even increase the risk of developing cancer when used long term.

    What is responsible for these worrying developments? For one, our poor diet, with its huge increases in the intake of sugar, fat, soft drinks, and unhealthy foods. But another important fact has been overlooked: dinnertime. Over the past twenty years, the time of my patients' evening meals has become later and later. Dinner — already pushed back by longer work hours — is often further delayed (推迟) by activities such as shopping and exercise.

    In my experience, the single most important treatment for reflux is to avoid late eating. A patient with reflux came to see me because her father and uncle died of esophageal cancer, and she was afraid of getting it too. Her nightly routine (常规) included a 9 p. m. dinner with at least two bottles of red wine. The reflux was serious, and changes were needed.

    She listened, then did not come back to see me for a year. “For the first two months, I just hated you,” she told me, “and for the next two months, I was having some trouble eating. I guessed I was going to die of esophageal cancer.” Then she added, “You know, we're the reason that it's not so easy to get 6 p.m. reservations (预约) at the good restaurants anymore.”

    To stop the increase in reflux disease, we have to stop eating at least three hours before bed. As for my waiter patient? I told him to eat dinner before 7 p.m. Within six weeks, his reflux was gone.

Terrific New Technologies

•A fashionable smart speaker

    The new Amazon Echo smart speaker has the same popular feature as the original-an always listening voice assistant ready to play music and news, set timers, and use third-party apps. Only now it's actually stylish. The $120 speaker comes in different finishes, including fabric and wood.

•A helping hand for parents

    10 Suzy Snooze helps babies and kids sleep so parents can catch up on their own sleep. It's a sound machine and a nightlight. It connects with an app over wi-fi and turns into an audio monitor. If a kid cries at midnight, it'll detect the sound and try to calm him back to sleep. It can also let early risers know when it's OK to get out of bed. Made by Bleep Bleeps, the $249 "smart nightlight" has an adorable little face.

•Safety for ding dongs

    Doorbells used to just ring, ding, and dong. But thanks to modern technology, doorbells can now double as Internet-connected- surveillance(监视) devices. Rings $249 Video Doorbell Pro can record HD video of your front steps, even at night. It includes motion sensors and two-way audio, so you can yell "get off my lawn" from anywhere. You can also use the app to see what's going on in front of your house while you're at work or in the backyard.

•The must-have kitchen gadget

    The Instant Pot makes food fast in one pot. The surprise kitchen hit is a combination of pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker and even yogurt maker. It has sensors and settings to make cooking as safe as possible. Starting at $80, an Instant Pot can make dishes in less time than it typically takes to cook them.

    The fiddler crab (蟹) is a living clock. It indicates the time of day by the colour of its skin, which is dark by day and pale by night. The crabs changing colour follows a regular twenty-four hour plan that exactly matches the daily rhythm (节奏) of the sun.

    Does the crab actually keep time, or does its skin simply answer to the sun's rays, changing colour according to the amount of light strikes it? To find out, biologists kept crabs in a dark room for two months. Even without daylight, the crab's skin colour continued to change exactly on time.

    This characteristic(特性) probably developed gradually in answer to the daily rising and setting of the sun, to help protect the crab from sunlight and enemies. After millions of years it has become completely regulated (受控制) inside the living body of the crab.

    The biologists noticed that once each day the colour of the fiddler crab is especially dark, and that each day this happens fifty minutes later than on the day before. From this they discovered that each crab follows not only the rhythm of the sun but also that of the tides (潮水). The crabs period of greatest darkening is exactly the time of low tide on the beach where it was cought!