Jason Weiner is a cook in New York For the past four years, he has offered a "Meatless Monday" menu at his restaurant. The idea is to encourage people to eat more vegetables. To do this, he relies heavily on a vegetable everyone is familiar with: cauliflower.

    Over the years, his cauliflower dishes have enjoyed huge popularity.

    Weiner, in fact, isn't the only cook experimenting with the vegetable. Cauliflower used to be boring. It was something to buy only when there was nothing else on the shelf. Now, however, it's "taking on a starring role," says food writer Elena North-Kelly. Across the United States, sales of cauliflower have grown rapidly for two years. On the Internet, DIY cauliflower recipes(烹饪法) have been viewed thousands of times each.

    Cauliflower can be cooked in many different ways. It can be roasted-like a steak. It can be sliced into a sandwich along with other vegetables. The hottest recipe is cauliflower "rice.” The dish is made by mixing the flower part of cauliflower and then lightly cooking the pieces in oil. The "rice" is rich in vitamins C, K and B6, and very low in calories(卡路里). No doubt it has become very popular.

    Unlike other healthy foods, cauliflower is almost always in season. That's because it can be grown everywhere, throughout the year. The vegetable also sells at a low price.

    The favorite food in the United States is the hamburger. The favorite place to buy a hamburger is a fast food restaurant. At fast food restaurant people order their food, wait a few minutes, and carry it to their tables themselves. 人们也可以把快餐带出餐馆 and eat in their cars or in their homes. At some fast food restaurants, people can order their food, pay for it and pick it up without leaving their cars.

    There are many kinds of fast food restaurants in the United States. They usually sell some popular food among Americans, like hamburgers, French fries and milkshakes. But fast food restaurants also serve Chinese food, Mexican food, Italian food, Chicken, seafood and ice cream.

    Fast food restaurants are very popular, and many American people like them.

    Thank you for watching Around China. I'm Li Ling, a reporter from CCTV. Now, we're in Penghu, Taiwan. The beach here is really beautiful and clean. Today is sunny, but the weather is hot and humid. There are lots of people. Some people are taking photos; some are swimming in the sea, and others are lying on the beach. Look at this group of young men playing beach soccer. They are only wearing sports shorts and sunglasses. They are running barefoot (赤脚的). They really look cool. I'm surprised that they can play so well in this heat. This is a very beautiful and interesting place. It's also a good place to relax. I like here so much that I really don' t want to leave.

    In a school, you may hear a student saying in Chinese,“我对汉语很感兴趣。“ but you're not in China. You're in a foreign country. Like the student, many foreigners are learning Chinese. But it's not easy. The Chinese use a different character(汉字) for each word. People have to memorize about 600 characters before they can do even basic reading and writing. For foreigners, it's hard to memorize them. And the following chart shows the top 3 difficulties for foreigners while learning Chinese.

    However, Chinese is more popular around the world today. The long history and colorful culture of China attract many foreigners to learn Chinese. With the rapid development, China is staying ahead in many fields and is playing its role in the world.

    Chinese is becoming a global (全球的) language and its popularity has risen around the world. Many countries set up Chinese courses in their schools.

    For example, in the UK, students used to choose between Spanish, Latin, French and other foreign languages. But now schools encourage their students to study Chinese. The increase in popularity of Chinese has been surprising. 1031 people took Chinese language exams in 2001, and the number was 2062 last year, while 2561 people chose Spanish. It's predicted that studying Chinese in the UK could overtake (超过) Spanish in less than five years.

    Just like the foreigners do, we also learn foreign languages. Different languages carry different cultures. So exchanges are necessary. By learning a foreign language, we not only have a useful tool of communicating, but experience a new culture, what's more important, learning a foreign language well will help us tell our own stories to the world.

    One day, when Sunee reached her house, she saw a brown package(包裹). She ran inside the house with her package and showed it to her grandmother. Sunee opened the package. As she did, she noticed there was Thai writing on the box. This package had come from her aunt in Thailand.

    Inside the box, Sunee saw something uncommon. It was a red silk umbrella. She had never seen anything like it! Next to the umbrella she found a silk purse (钱包).They were both beautiful.

    "Shipping a package overseas used to take a lot of time," said Grandmother. "Packages traveled by train and ship. It could take many months to get a package from across the ocean. How long did your package take to arrive?"

    Sunee and her grandmother looked at the postmark (邮戳). It showed that the package had been sent eight days ago. "That's fast!" said Sunee.

    Her grandmother agreed. "We have resources (资源)now that we didn't have years ago. Now, packages are flown across the ocean. Because airplanes travel so fast, packages arrive very quickly. Now our economy (经济)depends on fast delivery (快递)!"