Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when English rulers tried to conquer (征服) Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally, in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result is that today there are two "Irelands". Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland, in the south, is an independent country.

    In the 1840s, the main crop, potatoes, was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a shortage (短缺) of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result of these problems, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.

    For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Today, many people still work on the land but more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.

    The Irish are famous for being warm-hearted and friendly. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were “the greatest talkers since the Greeks”. Since independence, Ireland has revived (复兴) its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish songs which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.

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    The Mandarin version of The Sound of Music will return to Beijing from Aug 18 to Sept 3,after its first tour of the country last year.Performed first in July 2016,the musical,produced by Seven Ages,a Beijing-based company devoting to adapting classical Western musicals into Chinese versions,has been staged more than 100 times and attracted over 100,000 people.

    The Broadway show,based on the book The Trapp Family Singers,which was written by Maria Von Trapp about her real-life experiences and published in 1949,made its debut in 1959.With music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II,it won five Tony Awards,including Best Musical.When the Oscar-winning film with the same title was screened in China in the 1970s,the movie,which was released by Twentieth Century Fox in 1964,was very popular,especially its songs,such as Do-Re-Mi and Edelweiss.The Broadway production and the production by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber both toured China in 2008 and 2014,which expanded its Chinese fan base.

    The upcoming tour will see actors,including 11-year-old Beijinger Qiu Jiahao and 5-year-old Liang Xiaoxian, play the seven children in the family.Fu Zhenhua,a graduate of the Shanghai Theater Academy,and Dang Wenwei,a graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music,will play the roles of Captain Georg von Trapp and Maria Rainer.

    "My favorite aspect of this musical is the way it takes a look at various kinds of love we experience as human beings and even the love of things spiritual and unexplainable.And that is what I like most about The Sound of Music－it really is the sound of love," says Graves,a veteran Broadway director,who has lived and worked in China since 2002.

    After Beijing,the musical will be staged in Shenzhen in December and Shanghai next January.

If you go

    7:30 pm,Aug 18-Sept 3.Poly Theater,14 Dongzhimen Nandajie,Dongcheng district,Beijing,400-028-2577.

    A bicycle may be seen by most people as just another vehicle (交通工具), but for many Londoners, cycling is a way of life. According to an official UK government survey in 2017, about 570,000 bike journeys are made every day in London. In fact, almost half of the vehicles that pass over London Bridge each day are bikes.

    London introduced a public bike-sharing system in 2010. "There can be no doubt that our trusty bicycles have changed the way people get around our great city," Johnson told the Guardian in 2015.

    In London, bikes are used for more than just taking short trips to and from the subway. No matter where you want to go in the city, taking a bike is usually the quickest and easiest choice.

    And it's not just shared bikes that the government is encouraging people to ride. In many companies across the UK, the UK government's Cycle to Work scheme (骑行倡议) allows employees to buy a brand new bike without having to pay any tax (税). This means that it's common to see many people cycling to and from work, and some employers even provide workplace showers and lockers (储物柜) for their workers. More importantly, a cycle-friendly boss may let you off for being late if you rode a bike to work.

    Not only is it great for the environment and our body, cycling is also good for the mind. According to National Geographic Magazine, "Bike riding can improve people's happiness."

    I felt excited, curious and nervous at the same time. I was excited because I would be skipping（跳级）two grades. I was curious because I didn't know how high school students were taught.

    However, I was most nervous at the idea that I would be doing high school homework. I had just walked into the class when the bell rang. This wasn't a good start. But the kid in front of me looked very friendly. Luckily, since it was the first day of school, my teacher talked for about half of the period and we just had the rest of the period to start the class. I didn't know what he was saying at first, but when I saw the problems on the paper, I knew what to do. The next day, the kid said hi and I said hi back. We got into a conversation. It seemed that whenever I was talking to my friend, everyone stopped staring at me. Then the class started. It was easy. But I was still uncomfortable because I couldn't look around without meeting others' eyes, so I just kept my eyes on the whiteboard and on my textbook. However, my friend didn't show up the next day, and the eighth graders just kept on staring at me. I didn't know why.

    The next day everything changed. My friend was back to school. I was praised for my homework. Everyone stared at me less. Some started to be a little friendlier towards me. I felt at home at last here. My teachers also seemed pretty nice.

Ida Nelson and her sister were relaxing and enjoying themselves in the sauna (桑拿室) when she heard a series of long low sounds from a small airplane circling the nearby airport.

It was 11:30 at night in the Alaskan village of Igiugig, population 70, and, as she told the reporter, "Any time a plane flies over that late, you know something is wrong."

Nelson and her sister leaped out of the sauna, ran to the window, and saw the problem: The airport's runway lights were out.

Nelson threw on some clothes, jumped into her ATV, and floored it to the airport, where she found a local pilot trying to turn on the lights manually.

"Normally, if you push the button 10 or 15 times, the lights will just light up," Nelson told KTOO out of Juneau. Not this time. Meanwhile, she and the pilot learned of the plane's urgent mission: It was a medevac (医疗救护直升机), there to transport a seriously ill local girl to the nearest hospital, 280 miles away in Anchorage.

Nelson had a plan. Driving her ATV to the end of the runway, she shone her headlights for the plane to follow. Great idea, but it wasn't enough. More light was needed, so a neighbor called nearly every home in the village—32 of them.

Within 20 minutes, 20 vehicles arrived at the airport, many of the drivers still in pajamas (睡衣). Following directions from the medevac pilot, the cars lined up on one side of the runway.

The medevac made its final approach and, guided by the headlights, landed safely. The young patient was loaded onto the aircraft, and the plane immediately took off again. Her illness was never publicly revealed, but she has since been released from the hospital.

In a world filled with uncertainty, the little community's positive activism was a big deal. Not so much for Nelson. As she told the reporter, in Igiugig, coming together "is kind of a normal deal."

If you want to travel around London, this introduction may let you have a good journey during your travelling time.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is a bascule(悬索) bridge in London, UK. It crosses the River Thames and is named because it's near the Tower of London. It's the first bridge from the mouth of the Thames (there are 15 bridges on the river). It's also a symbol of London. The bridge was built in 1886 and opened to the public on June 30, 1894, connecting the north and south areas of London.

St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral is a landmark in London and the largest church in the UK. Known for its milky-white Baroque tower top, it's a great place to view London. After the 1666 fire, it was redesigned by Christopher Wren and took 35 years to complete. The interior is magnificent. There's a Whispering Gallery and many famous tombstones. It's a representative of British classical architecture.

Big Ben

Big Ben, a London landmark in the Parliament clock tower by the Thames, has kept time since 1859. A must-photo spot, it's grand and complex. After renovation, it's still a British pride and cultural symbol. People gather here on New Year's for fireworks.