The year 2023 saw a wide variety of TV and internet variety shows in China, offering amazing entertainment to audiences. Here are 4 popular variety shows of the year. It's never too late to start enjoying them.
Become a Farmer (Feb.-Jul., iQIYI)
The farming-themed reality show took Chinese social media by storm, shining a spotlight on agriculture. In an effort to connect young urban Chinese with the agricultural industry, the show invites 10 young men from various fields to experience life on the farmland.
Great Escape Season 5 (May-Sept., Mango TV)
This reality show has taken viewers on an immersive journey. It enlisted well-known celebrities, who faced challenges within intricately designed escape rooms. They had to search for hidden clues, solve puzzles and decipher codes to unlock the rooms in which they are trapped.
The Big Band 3 (Aug.-Oct., iQIYI)
The Big Band 3 showcases various musical genres with 27 bands from China. In the 2023edition, folk Chinese musicians took center stage, with notable performances by Wayina from Guangxi and Anda Union from Inner Mongolia.
Call Me By Fire, Season 3 (Aug. -Nov., Mango TV)
Featuring a lineup of 32 male entertainers, this season showcased performances in both group and solo formats, with participants ranging in age from 27 to 55. Throughout the season, the participants showcased their versatility by exploring various forms of artistic expression, including singing, dancing and acting.
Different from regular concerts, roadside concerts in Guiyang, capital city of southwest China's Guizhou Province, allow people to immerse themselves in music. Without tickets or fences, young people held hands together, singing and dancing. Videos showing their relaxing and cheerful performanceswent viral after being posted on social media.
From common people to stars, music brings people together. "Whether they are ordinary people or stars, when stepping onto the small stage by the road, they can enjoy the joy of music together," said Zhou Wenjia, deputy head of the publicity department of Yunyan District.
Sun Guang, head of Nanming District's cultural and tourism bureau in Guiyang, became a hit for the roadside concert.
"I have a music dream," said Sun, who once took part in national competitions and performed on stage in Beijing. But for being busy with his work, he saw his guitar covered in dust. While seeing the flowing crowds, Sun signed up in secret, put on his leather jacket and sunglasses, and stood on his beloved stage.
But perhaps because of his wonderful performance, some audience recognized him. When singing on the stage for the third time, a short video showing his performance became a hit online and received nearly 1 million views, which put him at a loss for a time.
Qingyun Market, one of the venues of roadside concerts, is a famous tourist attraction in Guiyang which sells night snacks and local cultural and creative products. With the popularity of concerts, the market has become an important engine to boost the city's economy.
"Roadside concerts now have become an important economic booster, and I could be a promoter. This is a good combination of my hobbies and duties," said Sun.
As roadside concerts continue to gain steam, music has become a driving force for consumption. Guiyang has made it clear that roadside concerts will continue to require zero tickets, zero business, and zero distance from the people, with an aim to build a city with warmth and hospitality.
Of all the creatures on the planet, the narwhal is one of the strangest looking. It's a whale which has a large protruding tusk coming out of its head; that's how it got, its nickname, the unicorn of the sea. They live in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Canada, Russia and East Greenland. However, experts say some populations of narwhal could be extinct by 2025, and it's all because of noise pollution.
Narwhals rely on echolocation, which they use to find food and navigate their surroundings. The animal produces a sound wave which bounces off an object. They pick this reflected sound up through their lower jaw, and information on features like size and speed passes to their ears. However, increase in human marine activity, as well as climate change, has resulted in the Arctic Ocean becoming noisier, which means it's more difficult for narwhals to rely on sound. Susanna Blackwell, who studies the effects of underwater noise on marine animals, told the BBC that there is noisier activity in the Arctic Ocean than ever because, as sea ice melts, new navigation routes are opening. And while icebergs breaking and creaking have been part of the ocean soundscape for hundreds of years, man-made noise is much harder for animals to adapt to, particularly as these changes are so sudden.
Research published inScience Advances in 2023 recorded the reactions of narwhals to the simulated (模拟的) noises of oil expeditions made by a patrol vessel (巡逻船). The scientists tagged and tracked the creatures and found that, on hearing these sounds, they ended deep dives and stopped clicking, the echolocation signal they use for finding food underwater. This is the same reaction narwhals have to orcas, who hunt them, meaning human-made noise could trigger the creature's "threat button".
So, what can we do? Charlotte Findlay, a postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University, says "noise is actually quite easy to solve. We need to either turn it off or turn it down."
The sporty all-electric car from the Netherlands resembles a BMW car, but is unique: It captures more carbon than it emits. "Our end goal is to create a more sustainable future," said Jens Lahaije, finance manager for TU/ecomotive, the Eindhoven University of Technology student team that created the car. Called ZEM, for zero emission mobility, the two-seater houses a Cleantron lithium-ion battery (锂电池) pack, and most of its parts are 3D-printed from recycled plastics, Lahaije said. The target is to minimize carbon dioxide emitted during the car's full lifespan, from manufacturing to recycling, he added.
Battery electric vehicles emit virtually no CO2 during operation compared with combustion-engine (燃烧式发动机) vehicles, but battery cell production can create so much pollution that it can take EVs tens of thousands of miles to achieve "carbon parity (相同)" with comparable fossil-fueled models.
"Direct air capture is a fairly new method of cleaning the air by capturing CO2 into a filter (过滤器). We have made use of this innovative technology and implemented this in our car. The idea is very simple: while driving, air will move through our self-designed filters and the CO2 will be captured and stored." ZEM uses two filters that can capture up to 2 kilograms (4.41 lb) of CO2 over 20,000 miles of driving, the Eindhoven team estimated. They imagine a future when filters can be emptied at charging stations, based on the fact that there are a nationwide charging infrastructure, which includes residential, commercial and public chargers across the country installed by the Energy Department, automakers and private businesses.
The students are showing their vehicle on a US promotional tour to universities and companies from the East Coast to Silicon Valley, hoping to attract more financial support.
It is hard to tell where the future will take the electric vehicles, but it is clear that they hold a lot of potential for creating a more sustainable future. In the end, only time will tell what road electric vehicles will take in the future.
How to be more productive
Getting things done isn't working all day at 100 miles an hour.. And the following tips can definitely help you.
Smaller tasks like answering emails are "shallow work". Try to be more conscious of what your shallow tasks are, and give yourself permission to block them out for a while so you can focus on the important tasks that require "deep work".
Call it a day
For good productivity, be strict about when your working day is over, and when you get to the end of your planned work session, ease yourself into a more relaxed state. Look through your unfinished work.. Then close that textbook or laptop and say something out loud like "Shutdown complete!" After that? Have some fun. Give your mind the rest it's earned.
Find your top level goal
. Find the big thing that we could call your life's purpose, like inspiring others, or helping people in society. Put that at the top. On the next level you'll have mid-level goals like passing an exam. The goals below-it-should all feed into your top-level. They'll be smaller, more practical things — perhaps writing an email, or doing some research. If they don't help with achieving your top goal, then get rid of them!
Make your breaks smarter
Time-management master Francesco Cirillo says that for every 25 minutes of intense concentration, you should take five off to do nothing at all, which gives the brain time to recover and keeps your productivity high. . Move around, stare out of a window.
A. Shut out the shallow
B. Make out the shallow
C. Find some pictures of kittens and puppies first
D. Organise your priorities by making a pyramid of goals
E. In the five-minute breaks, don't jump on your phone
F. Write a short plan of how you'll tackle it tomorrow
G. Looking for ways to do less and get more done actually makes more sense
Medha Gupta sometimes felt worried making the 20-minute walk from the corner where the school bus dropped her off to her home in Herndon, Virginia—especially during the colder months in winter.
Her mother, Divya Gupta had a 1 : write an app. She was half-kidding, but Medha took the challenge 2 . So she went to work.
The result was Safe Travel, an app 3 by Medha to help walkers feel more 4 when travelling alone. Using the iPhone, a person can programme it to send a warning to someone he or she trusts if he or she 5 to arrive at a destination within a certain time.
It was the first IOS app that Medha had created. While she didn't think much would come from the project, her6 caught the eye of judges for the annual Congressional App Challenge, who selected her as the winner for Virginia's 10th District.
The App Challenge is designed to encourage 7 to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and maths by 8 coding and computer science. Winning students are 9 to attend a reception on Capitol Hill in April and also received $ 250 in Amazon Web Service credits.
Medha said it took her about 40 hours to design,10 and test the app. As for her next app, Medha's not certain. She11 has her app-development tasks on hold because she's12 teaching herself AI to help deal with improper words on Facebook. Yes, she knows that there are teams of13 probably doing the same thing. But she14 it can't hurt her own part, too.
"If we see something15 with the world, we should do something about it," she said. "After all, the only one stopping us from doing something is ourselves."
The Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, has been officially listed as a UN floating holiday in its calendar of conferences from 2024. The UN General Assembly, in a resolution, acknowledges the (significant) of the Lunar New Year and invites the UN bodies at headquarters and other duty stations to avoid (hold) meetings on the Lunar New Year.
The resolution encourages the arrangement (take) into account when drafting future calendars of conferences. The United Nations identifies (globe) observed holidays as floating holidays and refrains from scheduling meetings such occasions.
China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations said the Spring Festival, as a traditional Chinese holiday features family reunion and good wishes for the coming year, not only (bear) the idea s of the Chinese civilization of peace and harmony but becomes the common values of humanity such as (harmony) family, social inclusion and sound relationship between man and nature.
The resolution serves as a showcase of the influence of Chinese civilization and aims at tolerance and interactions between diverse civilizations worldwide. also reflects the values of diversity and inclusion promoted by the United Nations. The deputy added that the listing of the Spring Festival as a UN holiday (welcome) among member states and staff members of the UN Secretary.
注意：1. 写作词数应为80左右；2. 可以适当增加细节以使行文连贯；3. 不能出现真实姓名与学校名称；4. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The notice was posted next to the mailboxes in the apartment building I had just moved into. "A Mitzvah (善行) for Mrs. Green," it read, "Sign up to drive Mrs. Green in 3B home from her chemotherapy (化疗) treatments twice a month."
Since I wasn't a driver, I couldn't add my name, but the word "mitzvah" was always wandering in my thoughts after I went upstairs. It's a Hebrew word that means "to do a good deed". But according to my grandma, it also had another meaning. This was the one she was always pointing out to me because she noticed that I thought it a shame to let people do things for me. "Linda, it's a blessing to do a mitzvah for someone else, but sometimes it's a blessing to let another person do something for you."
One evening, snowflakes had been falling past my window for several hours when the time to leave for class came. I labored to the bus stop, reaching it just as a bus went by. For an hour, I prayed desperately that a bus would come. Then I gave up. The wind at my back pushed me towards home. Even if I wanted to ask someone for a good deed, which I did not, there wasn't a soul on the street.
But as I pushed the door of my apartment open, I found myself face to face with a woman at the mailbox with a set of keys in her hand. Obviously she had a car and was going out. In that split second, desperation overcame my pride and I blurted (脱口而出), "Could you possibly give me a lift?" An odd look crossed her face and she agreed without hesitation.
On our way to my school, she spoke so warmly that I felt comfortable. "You remind me of my grandmother." I said. A slight smile crossed her lips. "Just call me Grandma Alice as my grandchildren do." When she dropped me off, I thanked her again and again.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Back home I heard a neighbor saying "Good night, Mrs Green." to Grandma Alice on the stairs.
Mrs. Green visited me later and said, "May I tell you something?"
