We once had a poster competition in our fifth grade art class.

    “You could win prizes,'' our teacher told us as she wrote the poster information on the blackboard. She passed out sheets of construction paper while continuing, “The first prize is ten dollars. You just have to make sure that the words on the blackboard appear somewhere on your poster.”

    We studied the board critically. Some of us looked with one eye and held up certain colors against the blackboard, rocking the sheets to the right or left while we conjured up our designs. Others twisted their hair around their fingers or chewed their erasers while deep in thought. We had plans for that ten-dollar grand prize, each and every one of us. I'm going to spend mine on candies, one hopeful would announce, while another practiced looking serious, wise and rich.

    Everyone in the class made a poster. Some of us used parts of those fancy paper napkins, while others used nothing but colored construction paper. Some of us used big designs, and some of us preferred to gather our art tidily down in one corner of our poster and let the space draw the viewer's attention to it. Some of us would wander past the good students' desks and then return to our own projects with a growing sense of hopelessness. It was yet another grown-up trick of the sort they seemed especially fond of, making all of us believe we had a fair chance, and then always — always — rewarding the same old winners.

    I believe I drew a sailboat, but I can't say that with any certainty. I made it. I admired it. I determined it to be the very best of all of the posters I had seen, and then I turned it in.

    Minutes passed.

    No one came along to give me the grand prize, and then someone distracted me, and I probably never would have thought about that poster again.

    I was still sitting at my desk, thinking, What poster? when the teacher gave me an envelope with a ten-dollar bill in it and everyone in the class applauded for me.

    Amazon is breaking into physical retail(零售) in a new way. The online retail giant revealed a new kind of physical store concept in a video published on Monday.

    The store, called Amazon Go, doesn't work like a typical Walmart or supermarket. Instead, it's designed so that shoppers will use an app, also called Amazon Go, to automatically add the products that they plan to buy to a digital shopping cart by scanning a QR code. They can then walk out of the building without waiting in a checkout line because Amazon will charge their Amazon account and send them a receipt(收据).

    The first Amazon Go store is located in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered. For years, there have been rumors the e­commerce company would expand its dominance(主导地位) from digital to physical shopping. Amazon began experimenting with physical bookstores a year ago, but Amazon Go may mark its boldest(大胆的) bet on physical ones yet. By removing much of the staff needed to operate a store, Amazon keeps costs lower than traditional competitors. It's also in a strong position to bring together data on its customers' shopping habits online and offline to make better suggestions in all situations.

    However, the company could be thought of as being a threat to some of the 3.4 million Americans who work as cashiers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos, “He's using the Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don't tax Amazon like they should be taxed.”

    “Four years ago we asked ourselves: what if we could create a shopping experience with no lines and no checkout? Could we push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning to create a store where customers could simply take what they want and go?” The company says on an informational page about Amazon Go. For now, Amazon is starting slow. The Amazon Go is only open to Amazon employees in our Beta program, and is scheduled to open to the public in 2017.

    If you're dreaming of visiting one of those picture-perfect European towns filled with old-world attractiveness and scenic beauty, here is a look at the most beautiful small towns in Europe.

    Manarola

    Manarola, Italy, is filled with rainbow-colored homes along the Mediterranean(地中海) coast. This attractive fishing town is famous for its unbelievable wine, and the paintings. There are no cars here, no traffic lights, or traffic noise. You can drive to Manarola, but you'll have to park just outside the town and then take a shuttle bus or walk in on foot.

    Garmisch-Partenkirchen

    Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, is a fascinating(迷人的) mountain town. Once two separate(分开的) towns, one Roman and the other Teutonic, the 1936 Winter Olympics forced them to become one, though the two sides still have different characters(特点). The town dates back to 15 AD, filled with narrow, cobblestoned streets lined with historic three or four-story buildings painted with religious scenes(宗教场景).

    Marsaxlokk

    The energetic trading port of Marsaxlokk, Malta, was built in 900 BC. Today, this pictures-like town is the main supplier(供应地) of fish to the island nation that sits in the Mediterranean Sea. It has no modern buildings to ruin its attractiveness. With such quiet surroundings, including the traditional luzzu's (fishing boats), it's a particularly charming(迷人的) place to visit.

    Portmagee, Ireland

    In a country filled with beautiful towns, Portmagee, is a standout, sitting on the southwest coast of Ireland. This postcard-perfect seaside fishing town has a row of brightly colored buildings along with a rich and colorful history. At The Bridge Bar, you'll find live music many nights of the week along with nice food and a fine glass of beer.

    I can hear the sound of insects and feel autumn is nearing. This means my year of study at Nara University of Education is coming to an end.

    The time I've spent here has flown by so quickly. It seems as if I came here a month ago, but in reality I have to go home soon. When I came here, I missed my family and friends back home and found it hard to overcome loneliness, but on the other hand, I was interested in the new environment and had a lot of fun.

    I had visited Japan three times before coming to study at this university, but when I started living in Japan, many days were filled with a mixture of anxiety and excitement. I sometimes made silly mistakes, but I thought this was the best way to learn about Japanese culture. I was not the only one that was not accustomed to the different customs of Japanese people.

    My plan before coming to Japan was to make friends with some Japanese students in universities. However, I found my best friends were those who came from other countries. I didn't know much about other countries but I came to be more interested in them through making friends from different places, which made me aware of many different and sometimes hard-to-understand customs. Furthermore, I was surprised to see myself thinking more about my own culture and realized I should come to know it better.

    I am really happy that I came to Nara. During my stay, I felt the closer connection between humans and nature here than in Europe.

    About three decades ago, China was known as the "Bicycle Kingdom".But the two­wheeled transport's popularity began to fade, with many bikes soon replaced by their fuel­powered competitors.

    But recent months have seen a renaissance of the bike across China, with an increasing number of people choosing cycling instead of driving to schools, to workplaces or to do sightseeing. The introduction of bike­sharing schemes, first developed by new companies like Ofo and Mobike, has brought the trend to a new level. According to data from iResearch Consulting Group, the first week of this year saw 5.85 million active users of Mobike while Ofo had 1.4 million active users.

    People can unlock the shared bikes by simply using their smartphones. The bikes are equipped with GPS and can be left anywhere in public places for the next user. They're popular among many Chinese people as they provide an effective answer to the "last mile" problem, which refers to a person's final journey. "In places where the subway doesn't reach and where it's difficult to change from one kind of transport to another, it's so easy to get where you want to go with Mobike," Hu Hong, 29, said. She rides a bike to work.

    However, the schemes have also led to problems such as illegal parking, vandalism (故意破坏) and theft. "Bike­sharing is a greener method of transportation and provides a user­friendly experience," said Liu Xiaoming, Vice­Minister of Transport. "But it's a combination of online and offline business. Operators are usually strong in online services, but lack offline business experience."

    In fact, these problems are also shared by bike­sharing schemes abroad. Set up in 2007, Vélib is a large­scale public bike sharing system in Paris. By October, 2009, a large number of Vélib's initial bikes had to be replaced due to vandalism or theft. Bikes were found hanging from lampposts (街灯柱) or thrown into the Seine River.

Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.

Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as "bracketing". Bracketing includes the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else's world from the inside,stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.

Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don't want to hear.

It wasn't until toward the end of my doctor career that I have found the knowledge that one is being truly listened to is frequently therapeutic. In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy, before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient's sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.