I was waiting for a phone call from my agent. He had left a message the night before, telling me that my show was to be cancelled. I called him several times, but each time his secretary told me that he was in a meeting and that he would call me later. So I waited and waited, but there was still no call. Three hours passing by, I became more and more impatient. I was certain that my agent didn't care about my work, and he didn't care about me. I was overcome with that thought. I started to shout at the phone, “Let me wait, will you? Who do you think you are?”

    At that time I didn't realize my wife was looking on. Without showing her surprise, she rushed in, seized the phone, tore off the wires, and shouted at the phone, “Yeah! Who do you think you are? Bad telephone! Bad telephone!” And she swept it into the wastebasket.

    I stood watching her, speechless. What on earth...?

She stepped to the doorway and shouted at the rest of the house, “Now hear this! All objects in this room—if you do anything to upset my husband, out you go!”

    Then she turned to me, kissed me and said calmly, “Honey, you just have to learn how to take control.” With that, she left the room.

    After watching a crazy woman rushing in and out, shouting at everything in sight , I noticed that something in my mood (情绪) had changed. I was laughing. How could I have trouble with that phone? Her anties helped me realize I had been driven crazy by small things. Twenty minutes later my agent did call. I was able to listen to him and talk to him calmly.

    Those who are used to looking through thousands of books in big bookstores may find Japan's Morioka Shoten a little strange. That's because this tiny bookstore that is located in Ginza, Tokyo sells only a single book at a time.

    Opened in May 2015, Morioka Shoten is the brainchild of Yoshiyuki Morioka. The experienced bookseller began his career as a bookstore clerk in Tokyo's Kanda district before branching out to open his own store. It was here while organizing book readings that he realized that customers usually came into the store with one title in mind. Morioka began to wonder if a store could exist by selling many copies of just one single book. In November 2014, he partnered with his two friends, to establish a unique bookstore with the idea of “A Single Room, A Single Book.”

    Like its offering, the bookstore is simple. The selections that are picked by Morioka change weekly and vary widely to attract customers with different interests. Recent choices include The True Deceiver, an award-winning Swedish novel by Tove Jansson, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, and a collection of artist Karl Blossfeldt's photography of plants. Morioka has also chosen books written by famous Japanese authors Mimei Ogawa and Akito Akagi.

    To highlight his only offering, Morioka often uses clever methods. For example，when selling a book about flowers, he decorated his shop with the ones that had been mentioned in the book. He also encourages authors to hold talks and discussions so they can connect with customers. Morioka says his goal is for the customers to experience being inside a book, not just a bookstore!

    Risky as the idea might seem, things appear to be going well. Morioka says he has sold over 2,100 books since he opened it. Things can get better considering that his bookstore is becoming increasingly popular not just among the locals but also visitors from other countries.

    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.

    In life, we will succeed and fail often for reasons that are entirely out of our control. For instance, we can be incredibly nice and love someone deeply, and they may not love us back. We can work harder than anyone else in the office and still not be promoted to management. We can eat healthy food, exercise and stay away from alcohol and cigarettes, and still get sick.

    The bottom line is that life is not fair.

    That is a tough pill to swallow for many of us. As a result, some people shut down after being hit by even one unfair blow from life. They can't handle the fact that our efforts don't always get the results that we expect. But if we let life's unfairness defeat us, we will never receive the beautiful blessings (幸事) that life has in store for us.

    For example, my first marriage ended in divorce. To me, it felt very unfair. I had worked hard to be a good wife and mother. However, no matter what I did, I could not make the relationship work.

    I could have been shut down by that experience. I could have decided that if one person didn't appreciate me as a wife, then no one would. I could have given up. But I knew that I wanted to be married. I knew that I wanted to experience traditional family life. So I didn't let one seemingly unfair experience stop me from believing that I could one day be happily married. And then one day, I met this kind, thoughtful, generous man with whom I now have a wonderful friendship and marriage. But that wouldn't have happened if I had decided to give up after one failed marriage.

    What I've learned over the years is that we can do all the things that deserve a good outcome, but get bad things in return instead.

    When we are faced with life's seeming unfairness, our faith needs to jump in. When life doesn't go according to plan, we have to let go of the outcome that we are looking forward to and keep trying, working hard and doing the right thing. Please don't be discouraged. Accept that life is neither fair nor straightforward. And by knowing that if we remain confident, we can drive our unfair experiences away and use them for our benefit.

    Alibaba started taking the lead in China by connecting big Chinese manufacturers（制造商）with big buyers across the world. Its business-to-business site, Alibaba.com allowed business to buy almost everything. Alibaba's advantage wasn't hard to judge: size. Alibaba is just big, even by Chinese standards. Its market attracts 231 million active buyers, 8 million sellers, 11.3 billion orders a year—and Alibaba is just the middleman. It encourages people to use its markets—not charging small sellers a percentage of the sale.

    If you want a quick look into the influence of Alibaba on daily Chinese life, take my experience. I moved to Beijing a year ago and quickly got tired of visiting small stores across the crowded, polluted city of 20 million people in search of new electronics, bathroom furnishings, and anything else my wife wanted. “You're looking for what exactly? Why not try it?” My Chinese teacher asked me one day. With that, my wonderful new relationship with Alibaba began.

    Alibaba's original business-to-business model now is second to consumer buying. Chinese retail（零售）buying makes up 80% of Alibaba's profit, and leading that group is Taobao, with 800 million items for sale and the most unbelievable selection of things you'll ever find. TMall.com is Alibaba's other big site, where you can find brand name goods from Nike and Unilever near the lowest prices.

    What I have a hard time explaining to friends and family back in the U.S.is how China has gone beyond traditional shopping—big-box retailers especially—in favor of online purchases on Taobao and a few other sites. In smaller towns than Beijing, where big retailers have not yet traveled, shopping online is shopping, and shopping is Taobao.

    I have a list of some of my recent purchases on Taobao for a sense of how wide the marketplace is. Almost everything arrived a day or two after ordering with free shipping. I'm not even a big buyer, because I need friends to help me search the Chinese-language site. When I was searching my purchase history on my Chinese teacher's iPad, which helps me buy goods, I looked through with great difficulty about 10 of her purchases for every one of mine.

Lizzie's diary from Antarctica (南极洲)

Day 3: Tuesday   December 2

    We planned to go to Rothera that morning. We'd be staying there for the next two weeks. Because Antarctica is the windiest place on earth, sometimes you can't fly at all.

    We had a nervous wait over breakfast to find out if we'd be leaving that day. People have to stay in Stanley for weeks while the pilots wait for good weather.

    It turned clear at 9:30 and we took off at 10:30 on a little red plane called a Dash-7. But even when we were in the air, there was still a chance we wouldn't be able to fly the whole day.

Day 4: Wednesday   December 3

    After waking up in the Antarctic for the first time today I can understand why everybody who comes here falls in love with the place. It is really beautiful.

    We're staying at Rothera Survey base with mountains of ice all around. It is about minus 2⁰C today, which for me is very cold, but the regulars(常客) here are often seen walking around in T-shirts !

Day 5: Thursday   December 4

    I woke up to another beautiful sunny day here in the Antarctic. I'm told it's a bit colder today, about minus 5⁰C, but it's not very windy so it feels warmer. Those of us who are new to the base have to do a special training course before we're allowed to go off base to other stations or to go snowboarding over the nearby hill.

Day 7:  Saturday   December 6

    Not a cloud in the sky and it's warm enough to sit outside (in a jacket).

    The most amazing thing about this place is how the scenery (风景) changes every day.

    At first I thought I was going mad. I'd step outside in the morning and think, "I'm sure that big mountain of ice wasn't there yesterday." It's because the sea ice is always moving—slowly thankfully !