If you watch British television on Friday March 15,you might be surprised to see celebrities wearing funny red noses and joking around. But don't worry. They're not mad. It's all part of a biannual fund-raising event called Red Nose Day.

    Organized by the charity Comic Relief, founded in 1985 by two British comedians, the aim of the event it is to raise money to fight poverty and injustice in the UK and Africa. Celebrities and public figures support the event by making appearances on comic TV shows broadcast by the BBC. This year, for example, UK Prime Minister David Cameron appeared in a music video by One Direction, which the band produced for the event.

    But Britons don't just raise money for charitable causes on one day a year. They do it all year round. One way of doing so is-by shopping in charity shops. These small, inconspicuous shops sell clothes, books and household goods just like any other shop But there's one big difference—everthing sold in the shops is second-hand.

    There are nearly 10,000 charity shops in the UK, according to the Charity Retail Association. Their business model is simple: Anybody who has things they don't want anymore can donate them to a charity shop, where they are checked for damage, cleaned and priced. Most items go back on sale at a small part of their original price and the money that is made by selling them is used for a charitable cause.

    The idea of buying used clothes may sound off-putting, but for shoppers who have less spending money, such as the elderly or those in low-paying jobs, it has been a welcome option for years. Now, shopping at charity shops is also becoming popular with young people looking for alternative fashion." You can find very unique clothes for a very cheap price. It doesn't bother me that other people may have worn them. I simply wash them before I wear them," said Anne Marie, a 19-year-old Internet user from the US, in a comment on a Yahoo forum.

    So next time you spot a charity shop, why not go inside? Who knows, you might find a lovely dress for just a few pounds. Even better, you can enjoy wearing it in the knowledge that your money helped a good cause.

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    At no time in history has there been such a mass movement of people from the countryside to the city as is happening now. By the year 2030, it's estimated that more than two thirds of the world's population will be living in cities, twice as many as today. This means that the problems faced by cities today-overcrowding, poor housing, unemployment, poverty and lack of food and water—will be twice as bad, unless we find solutions soon.

    Another serious issue is how to provide good transportation for their citizens. Many of the world's major cities are already struggling with out-of-date transport infrastructures (基本设施). How can they deal with the additional demands?

    London is a good example. Its enlargement was made possible by the invention of the steam engine, which powered the world's first underground railway. But its transport system are now hopelessly out-of-date and need urgent modernization. London's future success depends very much on developing better public transport

    Over a million people travel into central London every day from outside the city. They, together with the people who live in London, want a public transport system that is efficient, safe and environmentally friendly. What they often get, however, falls far short of that ideal. Passengers complain about cost and pollution, while businesses worry about the problems their staff have in getting to work on time. Yes, the proportion of London households that own a car grew from just over ten percent in the early 1950s to over sixty percent today.

    As the city has become increasingly crowded and polluted, there has been a growing realization that action must be taken soon.

    Auctions (拍卖行) are everywhere. Here are just a few standouts and some of the areas they specialize in. All have brick-and-mortar (实体的) sales rooms in addition to online buying.

    Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

    Headquarters (总部): Chicago

    Founded: 1982

    Best bets: contemporary art, jewelry

    The founder, Leslie Hindman, has been on an expansion kick from her Chicago base and now runs eight offices across the country. Ms. Hindman said that plenty of items sell at her house for around $500. As in the auction world generally, jewelry and contemporary art receive lots of attention from bidders (出价者), and in 2017 a diamond ring sold for $97,000.

    Swann Auction Galleries

    Headquarters: New York

    Founded: 1941

    Best bets: books, works on paper, African-American art

    Founded as a rare-book auctioneers, Swann still holds dozens of such sales a year. The president, Nicholas D. Lowry, noted that Swann was the first auction house to sell old photographs, in 1952. The house has also had a department of African-American art for 12 years.

    Stair Galleries

    Headquarters : Hudson, N. Y.

    Founded: 2001

    Best bets: English and Continental furniture and paintings, modern and contemporary art

    Colin Stair, the founder and president, comes from a long line of antiques dealers. Stair is frequented by dealers and bargain hunters, and it's a place to find interesting things like a Gorge I carved walnut wing armchair, coming up as part of a sale on April 28 and 29.

    Heritage Auctions

    Headquarters : Dallas

    Founded: 1983

    Best bets: coins, sports memorabilia, movie posters

    With roots in coin auctions Heritage has grown quite large. But their bread and butter are items that the company president, Greg Rohan, calls "the kinds of things that everyone has." "People aren't buying what we're selling for decoration or for resale," he added. "They're buying things they absolutely love."

    The biggest challenge faced by travelers, especially those who like to have a backpacking trip is how to ensure a steady supply of clean clothes. Now, thanks to a great invention called Scrubba Wash Pack, that worry may be a thing of the past.

    The portable washing machine was invented by Ash Newland in 2010, while he was planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Struck by the limited packing space, he got inspiration from traditional washboards to create a bag that could be used to clean clothes. Then he quitted his career as a lawyer and focused on perfecting the bag's design. By 2012, the bag was ready for the public. It weighed only 180 grams and required very little storage space, making it perfect for anymore wishing to travel light.

    Not surprisingly, the bag which was worth 55 dollars was an instant hit with travelers, university students and even passengers. However, Newland was not satisfied. He still saw a disadvantage with his invention—dirty clothes had to be carried around in a separate bag! The recently introduced Scrubba Wash Pack solves that problem.

    In order to make the pack active, dirty clothes are placed inside the bag along with two or three liters of water. The bag is then shut tightly to ensure all air is squeezed out and the colors are massaged for a few minutes. After a quick wash, they are clean and ready to be dried. According to Newland, the pack can clean anything from jeans to smelly socks! What's even more amazing is that with a capacity to hold 13 liters of water, it can be used to wash more clothes at a time.

    The best part is that the 99-dollar pack that will be available for sale later this year, only weighs 300 grams and is completely foldable, making it easy to store when it's not in use. With the Scrubba Wash Pack, wandering through foreign cities searching for a washing shop, or paying for washing machines may soon be a thing of the past!

    I became a magician by accident. When I was nine years old, I learned how to make a coin disappear. I'd read The Lord of the Rings and risked coming into the adult section of the library to search for a book of spells (魔法) — nine being that curious age at which you're old enough to work through more than 1, 200 pages of mysterious fantasy literature but young enough to still hold out hope that you might find a book of real, actual magic in the library. The book I found instead taught basic sleight-of-hand (戏法) technique, and I devoted the next months to practice.

    Initially, the magic wasn't any good. At first it wasn't even magic; it was just a trick — a bad trick. I spent hours each day in the bathroom running through the secret moves in front of the mirror. I dropped the coin over and over, a thousand times in a day, and after two weeks of this my mom got a carpet sample from the store and placed it under the mirror to eradicate the sound of the coin falling again and again.

    I had heard my dad work through passages of new music on the piano, so I knew how to practice — slowly, deliberately, going for precision rather than speed. And then I tried the illusion (错觉) in the mirror and an unbelievable scene took place. It did not look like a magic trick. It looked like a miracle. I knew that I had got what I wanted.

    One day I made the performance on the playground. We had been playing football and were standing by the backstop in the field behind the school. A dozen people were watching. I showed the coin to everyone. Then it disappeared. The kids screamed. They yelled, laughed, scrambled away. Everyone went crazy. This was brilliant.

Born in France, but raised in Spain,linguistics and literature professor Juan José Ciruela Alférez from the University of Granada is passionate about Chinese literature and has been doing some research about it. With painstaking effort, his Spanish translation of a Chinese classic was published last year. 

Ciruela said translating the novel was an interesting challenge. In recent years, many Chinese works have been introduced to Spain. However, as most of them had been translated first into English and then from that language into Spanish, much of the originality,was lost. For this reason, when the Spanish publishing house Kailas contacted Ciruela to translate it directly from Chinese, he accepted the mission immediately, even if it presented difficulties like a heavy workload within a short time limit.  

"I encountered various difficulties, especially at the beginning of the task," said Ciruela in an interview. "This novel, in particular, needs a prior reading process in which the translator gets into the plot and the characters, since at first it is difficult to enter the world that the novel constantly raises. So I read the novel first in Chinese, paying attention to all those details and how all of that could be translated in a way that the Spanish readers would understand."

For Ciruela, the most important criterion when translating is fidelity(忠诚) to the original text. While it is true that one cannot always be strictly faithful, he believes translators should not be too far from original texts. For example, the translation of culturemes (expressions of culture in language) is quite complicated due to the cultural gap between Spanish and Chinese. Ciruela believes that these must always be appropriate to the specific function they perform within the text, in each specific case and moment.