The bamboo is nature's most surprising plant. Many people call this plant a tree, but it is a kind of grass.
Like other kinds of grass, a bamboo plant may be cut very low to the ground, but it will grow back very quickly. A Japanese scientist reported one bamboo plant grew about 1. 5 metres in 24 hours! The bamboo grows almost everywhere in the world except Europe. There are more than 1,000 kinds of bamboo in the world.
Not all bamboo looks the same. Some bamboo plants are very thin. They may only grow to be a few centimetres wide while others may grow to more than 30 centimetres wide. This plant also has different colours.
Bamboo has been used to make many things such as hats and kitchen tools. Because it is strong, bamboo is also used to build buildings.
Many Asian countries have used bamboo for hundreds of years. People often use bamboo to support new buildings and bridges while they are being built.
In Africa, poor farmers are taught how to find water by using bamboo. These African countries need cheap ways to find water because they have no money. Bamboo pipes (管子) help poor farmers bring water to their thirsty fields without spending a lot of money.
I sometimes find that watching a film adaptation (改编) of a book helps me to understand a book. This is especially true for books from a different period or with a difficult dialect (方言).
My favourite examples of these include Pride and Prejudice, which is also my favourite book, and Trainspotting, which is written in Scottish dialect.
Film and TV adaptations of books also mean that books reach a wider audience (观众). If people really like the film, they will be encouraged to read the book. As for language learning, watching film or TV adaptations of books can help to provide an understanding of a story. They also help to give a story a more modern adaptation. For example, Oliver is a good adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. The language in the book can be enough to make a native speaker moved, but the adaptation means that everyone can enjoy the story of the orphan Oliver.
Similarly, the 1996 film Romeo and Juliet, an adaptation of the Shakespeare play of the same name, makes those of us who haven't studied Shakespeare still enjoy his play in a more interesting and understandable way.
Of course, there are limitations (局限) and not every story that is translated onto the screen is liked by fans of the book, or even the writer. For example, as a writer, P. L. Travers hated Disney's adaptation of her own book Mary Poppins, but it's now a well-loved film. For me, I dislike the adaptation of Still Alice by Lisa Genova and her group. They changed the location from Boston to New York for no real reason, which for some readers changes the whole feel of the book.
Anyway, adaptations are a great way to introduce yourself to the story and characters of a book before reading it. They're also a good way for people who may not feel confident enough to read a whole novel in a different language, but still want to know the story.
