D

    Taking a shower is relaxing. You can hum a song, daydream or think about nothing, leaving the real world behind you. But did you know that showering can also benefit your mind?

    A research by Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist from Yale University in the US interviewed over 3,000 people around the world. It turned out that nearly two-thirds of the interviewees said they had experienced new ideas in the shower and were more likely to have them in the shower than at work.

    So why does a simple shower have such magic power? Science can explain it.

    Showering can help to raise our level of dopamine, a hormone (荷尔蒙) closely related to our creativity. “People vary in terms of their level of creativity according to the activity of dopamine”, explained Alice Flaherty, a famous American neuroscientist. “Taking a warm shower can make us feel relaxed and therefore make the dopamine level rise and bring 'Aha!' moment to us.”

Besides the chemical changes, showering may give you a break from what you feel you have been stuck with. Especially when you have thought hard all day about a problem, jumping into the shower can keep you from the outside world so that you can focus on your inner feelings and memories. In this way, according to American psychologist Shelley H. Carson, author of Your Creative Brain, “a showering hour may turn into an ‘incubation (孵化) period' for your ideas.”

    Compared with sitting in front of a computer, taking a shower is something we do less frequently in our daily life. When showering, we get a fresh experience with the change of location, temperature and humidity. “New and unexpected experiences can lead to positive changes in thinking,” explained Kaufman. “Getting off the couch and jumping in the shower may create a distance and force you to think from a new point of view.”

    Showering allows us to enjoy the creative juices of our minds, but it needn't just be the bathroom where you get your inspiration. For instance, Gertrude Stein, a female American writer and poet, got new ideas by driving around a farm and stopping at different cows until she found the one that most inspired her. So try to create your own way to free your mind, whether it's a walk near the ocean, a country drive or reading a book at home.

    About 15 years ago, I taught A Problem from Hell, a book on genocides (大屠杀), to a group of 18- and 19-year-olds in a mid-west university in the US. In my class there was a young man who had spent his boyhood in Bosnia as NATO bombed his hometown. My other students, amazed by his connection to the genocide in the textbook, asked him what it was like to grow up in a war-zone. "A pretty normal childhood as you had here," he said. "We played cards inside a lot, and when there was no bombing we kicked a ball in the street."

    In the past few years, the world has seen a rapid increase in refugees (难民), with the number hitting 60 million. Viet Thanh Nguyen's story collection The Refugees reminds us that literature is news that stays news. Set in the Vietnamese communities in California as well as in Vietnam, the stories do not aim to surprise us with new twists or shock us with wonderful details, as war and refugee stories could easily choose to do. Rather, like the young man from Bosnia, Nguyen's characters tell these stories because they are the only ones known to them.

    Included in the collection are two of the most touching pieces, both about siblings (兄弟或姊妹) separated by geography and history. In "Black-Eyed Women", the narrator (讲述人), a young Vietnamese woman, is visited by the ghost of her elder brother, who died young on the boat when the family took flight from the war. The tale of love and loss, violence and violation, may not be unfamiliar to the reader, but the determination of the brother's ghost (he has taken decades to swim across the Pacific to reach America) and the sister's abandoning herself to a half death make the story lasting.

    As an echo, the closing story, "Fatherland", explores a more complex situation between two siblings. The narrator, a young Vietnamese woman, meets her half-sister, visiting from the US for the first time. Adding to the tension is the fact that her father has named the narrator and her siblings after his first set of children. Two sisters, one American and one Vietnamese, yet named the same by the father – it may sound strange, but isn't it the fate many refugees have to face: a life left behind, that could have been theirs; and a life in an adopted country.

    The theme of doubleness –  choice and inevitability (不可避免性), home and homelessness, starting afresh and being stuck – is present not only in the stories of Vietnamese refugees, but also of those who have become refugees from their own homes and loved ones. "Smiling at your relatives never got you very far, but smiling at strangers and acquaintances sometimes did." So a pilot, who fought in the Vietnam war and is now revisiting the country for the first time, thinks while waving at the locals from a tour bus. He's distant from his daughter, just as a Mexican American in the collection is distant from his wife, or a young man from Hong Kong is distant from his father.

    The collection is full of refugees, whether from external or from a deeper, more internal conflict between even those who are closest to each other. With anger but not despair, with reconciliation (和解) but not unrealistic hope, and with genuine humour that is not used to insult anyone, Nguyen has breathed life into many unforgettable characters.

    A famous magazine, Amusement Today, does a survey among parks lovers every year both in the US and overseas, based on which, “Top 5 List of the Best Amusement Parks in the World” has come out as follows:

    Disneyland, California

    Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California, the US. More than 515 million guests have traveled to this American landmark from around the world since the park first opened to guests on July 17, 1955. The park consists of many world-famous sections, such as Main Street, Adventure land, New Orleans Square, and so on.

    Magic Kingdom, Disney World, Florida

    Magic Kingdom is a theme park within the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando opened on October 1, 1971. It is the most famous theme park in Florida. The park's design and attractions don't make much difference from Disneyland Park in Anaheim.

    EPCOT, Disney World, Florida

    EPCOT is the second theme park built at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. The park opened on October 1, 1982, and was named EPCOT Center from 1982 to 1993. It was the largest Disney theme park in the world until 1998, when Disney's Animal Kingdom opened.

    Disney­MGM Studios, Florida

    MGM's streets are the home for some great movie­themed attractions with a history of less than 30 years. With the addition of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock and Roller Coaster, the park is now home to Disney World's most thrilling rides.

    Universal Studios, Florida

    Go behind the scenes, beyond the screen and jump right into the action of your favorite movies at Universal Studios, the number one movie and TV theme park in the world.

    If you want to travel from Xi'an to Chengdu by train, it will take about 16 hours. But starting this month, the new Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway will shorten this travel time to three hours.

    The 643-kilometer line is China's first high-speed railway to run through the Qinling Mountains, which form a natural boundary (分界线) between China's north and south. With a speed of 250 km per hour, it's also the first mountain-heavy train line to provide a 4G network. Along the way, the train passes through two areas for rare (稀有) wild animals — one for pandas and the other for crested ibises (朱鹮).

    To reduce the railway's influence on the animals, workers and experts have designed and built the railway to be environmentally friendly. There were 345 wild pandas living in the Qinling Mountains. China currently has 1,864 wild pandas in total, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

    To avoid disturbing the pandas, the railway was designed to run through tunnels (隧道) within the area. Protective shields (防护屏) are placed near the entrance of each tunnel to stop animals from going in.

    To protect the thousands of crested ibises that fly near one part of the railway, protective nets have been set up to make sure the birds will not fly into a train.

    The nets are about 32 km long and 4 meters high. Experts tested different shapes and materials for building the nets before making their final choice.

Hot Air Balloons

    The basis of how the balloon works is that warmer air rises in cooler air. This is because hot air is lighter than cool air as it has less mass per unit of volume. Mass can be defined by the measure of how much matter something contains. The actual balloon has to be large as it takes a large amount of heated air to lift it off the ground.

    The burner uses propane gas to heat up the air in the envelope to move the balloon off the ground and into the air. The pilot must keep firing the burner at regular intervals throughout the flight to ensure that the balloon continues to the stable. Naturally, the hot air will not escape from the hot at the very bottom of the envelop as firstly, hot air rises and secondly, the floating power keeps it moving up.

    To move the balloon upwards, the pilot opens up the propane value which lets the propane flow to the burner which in turn frees the flame up into the envelope. It works in much the same way as a gas grill: the more you open the valve, the bigger the flame to beat the air and the faster the balloon rises.

    The “Parachute Valve” at the very top of the balloon is what is used to bring the balloon down towards the ground. It is a circle of fabric cut out of the top of the envelop which is controlled by a rope which runs down through the middle of the envelope to the basket. If the pilot wants to bring the balloon down, he or she simply pulls on the rope which will open the valve, letting hot air escape, decreasing the inner air temperature. This cooling of air causes the balloon to slow its rise.

    The pilot can operate horizontally by changing the vertical position of the balloon because the wind blows in different directions at different altitudes. If the pilot wants to move in a particular direction, he or she simply arises and falls to the appropriate level and rides with the wind.

    When I first married my wife, I lived and worked in Ontario, moving from small town to big city as I pursued my career as a radio broadcaster. We have two sons, both of whom were born in Toronto and moved with us to Ottawa. They went to school, grew up there, and then pursuing their own careers, they also moved. One went to Canada's east coast near a city called Halifax and the other headed to the west coast Vancouver. We had a dilemma; we were left in the middle.

    The problem wasn't pressing at the time because I was still working and my job was in Ottawa. However, as we began to considering retirement we wondered where we should spend our final years. We couldn't be close to both of our children and there was no telling when they might again relocate. For several reasons, we settled on a small town on Vancouver Island. At least we were close to one of them. However, he had his sights set on Hollywood and, when an opportunity presented itself, he left Canada and headed south. So, there we were, and still are, in our little west coast town. We love our little corner of paradise (乐园）but we paid a price. We have not been there for some important events such as the births of two of our grandchildren. We have missed watching them grow up, backyard barbecues, and the normal, noisy households. Our home, while comfortable, is also very quiet.

    Every fall we travel to see the children and try to spend a week or more with them and we make the even longer trip to see our grandchildren, who are now teenagers, actually into their twenties. They seldom come to visit us. The distances are just too great and it is costly.

    Fortunately, both our boys are doing well and our grandchildren are growing straight and tall. We love all of them and they love us but the reality is that they don't need us. We have done our jobs and at least in theory，we can sit back, relax and enjoy the time remaining to us. In fact, we're happy but there were times I think about the things we didn't see. They have also missed having a set of parents and grandparents around.

    Life has been good for our family but we have paid a price.