Polar bears are suffering in a {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (warm) world.

    Polar bears live in environments too cold for most animals. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} much of the year, they live and hunt on the frozen Arctic sea ice. Nature has prepared {#blank#}3{#/blank#} for the cold conditions. But nothing has prepared the bears for the danger that {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (threat)the only home they know.

    The polar bears' world is melting. Studies show that the polar ice has reduced by 9.8% every 10 years {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 1978. Now about 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears live in the Arctic. Polar bears depend on the sea ice for their {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (survive). “The sea ice is more than just this platform that the bears walk over,” says Andrew Derocher, {#blank#}7{#/blank#} scientist who studies North American polar bear populations. “{#blank#}8{#/blank#} it, they can't exist.”

    Some melting and refreezing of the polar ice is natural. {#blank#}9{#/blank#} in a warmer world, these cycles speed up, and bears have less time to hunt. Normally, they have three months in the spring when they gain more weight. The extra fat is used later, {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the bears are not actively hunting.

    It was my first day in Hangzhou, the Chinese city famous for its {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (nature) beauty and history and I didn't have much time to spare. I wanted to see {#blank#}2{#/blank#} much of the city as possible in the two days before I was to return to Guangzhou.

    My first task was to decide where to go and how to get there. I took out my guide book {#blank#}3{#/blank#} there was a lot of information about the city's well-known tourist {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (attraction) and started to read. At that moment, an attractive young lady who noticed my book came up {#blank#}5{#/blank#} me and introduced herself. She said her name was Bai Li and {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (kind) offered to show me around the city. I was delighted and was about to accept her suggestion when she {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (suggest) we first go to the West Lake and walk along the Broken Bridge.

    I liked the idea of visiting the West Lake, but wasn't so sure about crossing the Broken Bridge. If it was broken, did she expect me {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(jump) across? And I couldn't swim, so if I fell in then I {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (die). That was definitely not an attractive idea, so I politely declined her {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (invite), closed my book and walked away.

    Dragon Heads-raising Day, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} falls each year on the second day of the second lunar month, is one of the Chinese traditional {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (festival) as the proverb goes: “The dragon is awake, {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (raise) his head.” On this day, dragons, a prominent totem (图腾) in Chinese culture, raise {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (they) heads with the sound of thunder. Around this time, the earth is bursting with life—grass and trees are beginning to shoot up. In ancient China, people {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (pray) the dragon god beside a river or a lake for the precious spring rain to breed their crops.

{#blank#}6{#/blank#} (tradition), food eaten on this day was renamed after parts of the dragon. For instance, wontons (馄饨) were called “dragons' eyes”. The special foods usually eaten on this day include dragons' scales, popcorn and pigs' heads.

    In Shanxi, people get their hair {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (cut) in a symbolic move to remove the old and embrace the new. In {#blank#}8{#/blank#} countryside in Hebei Province, people would fetch water from a well {#blank#}9{#/blank#} dawn. It was believed {#blank#}10{#/blank#} on this day the well was full of dragon eggs which would bring the collectors good harvest.

    Fu Xuewei, a 25-year-old girl from Chengdu, China {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (recent) shared a beautiful set of wedding photos on the Internet. However, there's a debate on the photographs, {#blank#}2{#/blank#} no groom (新郎) seems to be found in the photos. In fact, the only people {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (feature) in the photos are Ms. Fu and her 87-year-old grandfather.

    Despite having no plans of getting married anytime soon, Fu decided {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (wear) the wedding dress for her grandfather. The man fell seriously ill last September, with doctors warning that he could pass away {#blank#}5{#/blank#} any time. Fearing he might never get to fulfill the dream of walking her down to the Mr. Right, Fu arranged the surprise photoshoot. She took {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (she) grandfather for a regular hospital check-up, only to reveal that they were going to take pictures later and he agreed.

    Ms Fu {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (raise) by her grandparents from the age of ten, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} makes them mean a lot to her. She insists that she takes care of them in return. The young woman even {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (have) a tattoo of her grandfather. "I had my grandfather's appearance tattooed on my arm because I want all my new {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (friend) to know what he looks like in the future," she said.