A beautiful and very successful actress (女演员) was the star for a new musical show. Her home was in the countryside, but she did not want to go back there every night, so she bought an expensive house in the centre of the city, got some beautiful furniture and got a man to paint the rooms in new colours.

    It was very difficult to get tickets for her show, because everybody wanted to see it. So she decided to give the painter two of the best seats. She hoped that this would make him work better for her. He took the tickets without saying anything, and she heard no more about them until the end of the month, when she got the painter's bill (帐单). At the bottom of it were these words: “ Four hours watching Miss Hall sing and dance : 3 pounds,” with this note: “ After 5 p.m. I get 15 shillings (先令) an hour instead of 10 shillings.”

    With this list, go to travel now!

    Northern Vietnam

    Vietnam is known as a cheap place to travel around, but Hanoi, the north area, often gets ignored by travelers. This is truly a shame, because Northern Vietnam is where the most wonderful scenery and culture can be found. Rice fields, high mountains, winding roads and friendly people are also found there.

   Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

    With 93 percent of the nation covered in mountains and a rich history and culture that goes back to thousands of years, Kyrgyzstan is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. The capital city, Bishkek, is an unbelievable center for exploring Central Asia, with Silk Road remnants(残余部分)like the Burana Tower just a short drive away.

    Lisbon Portugal

    Lisbon offers a good mix of museums, historic buildings, electric music and nightlife, and squares and cafes. You will fall in love with this city when you visit it. It is much less expensive than many other European travelling places, so travelers can afford it

    Seoul, South Korea

    Seoul is an attractive place filled with high-tech, modern and historic buildings, delicious Korean food all at bottom prices. Plus, since Seoul is a major city, it is easy to get to it.

    To above prices, please add $3 for first book and $1 for each additional book for postage & handling. Foreign countries add $5 per book. Send orders to Quackwatch, P. O. Box 1747, Allen Avenue, NY 18105. The checks must be in US dollars. We cannot process credit card orders. Please use our order form from Amazon.com and include your email address.

    From childhood, Moira loved to write. Throughout school she enjoyed writing, but pursuing it professionally was never a possibility. Her father was a doctor, her mother a nurse. “Medicine was a fairly safe choice,” Moira says, “and writing was a career where it wasn't a certainty that you'd have high income.”

    She became a doctor but still wanted to write something. However, being a doctor was so demanding that she didn't take up writing until her thirties. She produced a novel—a fictionalized version of her travel in China after university. She got excellent reviews. Moira sent it off to as many agents as she could find, and found one who wanted to represent her. Suddenly, it seemed she was on her way as an author.

    “I had one lengthy phone call with the agent where we went through all possible areas that she thought needed polishing. I worked on those and sent it back to her but didn't hear anything.” It wasn't long before Moira found another agent who was interested if she was willing to rewrite it from the first person to the third person. She did the hard work and sent it off again. “I got back a really brief letter: 'Thank you, I'm no longer interested.' It was really disappointing.”

    A decade went by, and Moira found herself eager to write again, this time purely for her own enjoyment. She set herself the challenge of creating a thriller and chose Western Australia as her setting.

    As she was writing just for herself, something surprising began to happen. “The characters took on a life of their own; they started doing things I hadn't thought about. It just flew.” One day, an agent called from Australia. Three weeks later, Moira had a publication deal. Her novel, Cicada, was published in March.

    “Even if it hadn't been published I still gained so much from the process,” says Moira.

    We often ask these questions: Are African wild dogs really dogs? What's the difference between African wild dogs and the dogs we know as pets? For one thing, African wild dogs, which live in Africa, only have four toes, while domestic(驯养的）dogs and wolves have five. But you won't want to count for yourself, because they are truly wild animals.

    “Wild dogs are not somebody's domestic dogs that ran away and didn't come back, although some people used to think that,” explains Dr. MeNutt, who studies these animals at Wild Dog Research Camp in the African country of Botswana. “They are actually Africa's wolves, and just like wolves, and they do not make good pets. They need to be out in the wild doing what they are supposed to do — find the food they need to survive and feed their babies.” In fact, they travel so far that researchers have to use radio collars (颈圈) to keep track of them. The collars send out radio signals that tell people where the dogs are. No two wild dogs have the same pattern of coats, so it is easy to tell them apart.

    African wild dogs are smart and sociable, like pet dogs. Adult wild dogs, male and female, are willing to take good care of young ones.

    Millions of domestic dogs live on the planet, but there are probably fewer than 6000 African wild dogs left. Humans hunt them and farmers who don，t want them to go after cows and sheep poison them. Humans are also destroying the wild, natural habitat (栖息地) they need to survive in. Fortunately, today more farmers are finding other ways to protect their cows and sheep from African wild dogs instead of killing the animals.

    There are campus museums all over China that offer various collections and make for eye-opening visits.

    Beijing Air and Space Museum at Beihang University

    Admission: free

    Opening hours: Tuesday and Saturday, 9:00 am -12:00 pm

    Highlights: Included among the more than 300 historic aircraft and space artifacts are one of the two Northrop P - 61 Black Widows in the world and China's first light airliner, Beijing 1.

    Fudan University Museum

    Admission: free

    Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday, 9:00 am - 11:30 am and 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Highlights: A unique collection of native artifacts from the Gaoshan aborigines in Taiwan. Some of them, such as pearl vests, are rarely seen even in Taiwan.

    China Ichthyic Culture Museum at Shanghai Ocean University

    Admission: 10 yuan

    Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am - 11:30 am and 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm

    Highlights: In this collection of more than 40,000 specimens of about 3,000 ocean-dwelling species, the most eye-catching one is an 18. 4-meter-long sperm whale skeleton.

    Yifu Museum of China University of Geosciences

    Admission: 40 yuan; half price for students

    Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30 am - 12:00 pm and 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm; weekends and holidays, 9:00 am - 4:30 pm

    Highlights: It houses a collection of more than 30,000 mineral and rock specimens, more than 2,000 of which are rare ones like the museum's well-known dinosaur fossils.

    China Academy Museum at Hunan University

    Admission: 50 yuan

    Opening hours: Monday to Sunday, 8: 00 am - 6: 30 pm in summer and 8: 30 am - 6:00 pm in winter

    Highlights: China's only museum to feature the history of academies and cultural education in the country.