-----Module 1 ReadingThe City of the FutureWhat will the city of the future look like? No one knowsfor sure, and making predictions is a risky business. But onething is certain—they are going to get bigger before they get smaller. In the future, care for the environment will becomevery important as earth's natural resources run out. We willuse lots of recycled materials, such as plastic, aluminium, steel, glass, wood and paper,and we will waste fewer natural resources. We will also have to rely more onalternative energy, such as solar and wind power. All this seems certain, but there areplenty of things about city life in the future which are not certain.To find out what young people think about the future of urban life, a teacher at auniversity in Texas in the United States asked his students to think how they would runa city of 50,000 people in the year 2025. Here are some of the ideas they had:will the city rid of garbage problems, get Garbage ships To waste materials and send them towards load huge spaceships with and environmental problems.landfill the sun, preventinginstead of guns.criminals arrestby firing nets Batman Nets Police willNo smoking will be allowed within a future city's limits. Smoking Forget smoking.outdoors will be possible only outside cities, and, and catalogues will In the future all shopping will be done online Forget the malls to place orders.have voice commands-----------Telephones for life Everyone will be given a telephone number at birth that willnever change no matter where they live.Recreation All forms of recreation, such as cinemas, bowling, softball, concertsand others, will be provided free of charge by the city.Cars All cars will be powered by electricity, solar energy or wind, and it will bepossible to change the colour of cars at the flick of a switch. Telesurgery Distance surgery will become common as doctors carry out operationsfrom thousands of miles away, with each city having its own telesurgery outpatientclinic.Holidays at home Senior citizens and people with disabilities will be able to goanywhere in the world using high-tech cameras attached to their head.Space travel Travelling in space by ordinary citizens will be common. Each citywill have its own spaceport.Cultural CornerFamous Last WordsNot all predictions come true. Many of them are wrong, and some are verywrong. Here are just a few of the bad predictions people made in the twentiethcentury about the twenty-first century: AIRPLANESNo flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.Orville Wright, 1908.COMPUTERSI think there is a world market for maybe five computers.-----------Thomas Waston, chairman of IBM, 1943. CLOTHESThirty years from now people will be wearing clothes made of paper whichthey will be able to throw away after wearing them two or three times.Changing Times Magazine, 1957.MEN ON THE MOONWith the first moon colonies predicted for the 1970's, work is now inprogress on the types of building required for men to stay in when they're on themoon.Arnold B. Barach in The Changes to Come, 1962. THE BEATLESWe don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. ROBOTS IN THE HOUSEBy the year 2000, housewives will probably have a robot shaped like a boxwith one large eye on the top, several arms and hands, and long narrow pads onthe side for moving about.New York Times, 1966.KEYSBy the mid-1980's no one will ever need to hide a keyunder the doormat again, because there won't be anykeys.-----------Computer scientist Christopher Evans,The Micro Millennium, 1979.Module 2 ReadingGetting Around in BeijingTaxisTaxis are on the streets 24 hours a day. Simply raise your hand, and a taxi appears in no time. They are usually red, andthey display the price per kilometre on the window. Youshould check the cab has a business permit, and make sureyou ask for a receipt.Buses and trolleybusesPublic transport provides a cheap way to get around in Beijing. There are 20,000buses and trolleybuses in Beijing, but they can get very crowded. It's a good idea toavoid public transport during the rush hour (6:30 a.m.–8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.–6:30p.m.). Fares are cheap, starting at 1 yuan. Air-conditioned buses cost more.Buses numbered 1 to 100 are limited to travel within the city centre. Highernumbers have destinations in the suburbs. Tourists shouldn't miss the 103 bus whichoffers one of the most impressive routes, past the Forbidden City and the WhitePagoda in Beihai Park. If you get on a double-decker bus, make sure you sit upstairs.You'll have a good view of the rapidly changing city.Most buses run from about 5:00 a.m. to midnight. However, there is also a nightbus service, provided by buses with a number in the 200s. Minibuses-----------Minibuses with seats for 12 passengers offer an alternative to expensive taxis andcrowded public transport in some areas. They run regular services and follow the sameroutes as large public buses. And in a minibus you always get a seat even in rush hours.UndergroundThere are four underground lines in Beijing, and several lines are underconstruction. Trains are fast and convenient, but rush hours can be terrible. A one-waytrip costs 3 yuan. Station names are marked in pinyin. The underground is open from5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.PedicabsTourists like these human-pedalled ricycle taxis, but they can be expensive. Youshould talk to the driver, and make sure you know the price before you begin thejourney, for example, if it is per person, single or return. Tricycles are worth using ifyou want to explore the narrow alleys (hutong) of old Beijing.Cultural CornerThe London Congestion ChargeBeijing isn't the only city with traffic problems. You can get stuck in a traffic jamanywhere in the world. The worst problems occur in cities which are growing fast,such as Sao Paolo in Brazil and Lagos in Nigeria. But even cities in developedcountries such as the US suffer. Los Angeles, which was built with the motor car inmind, and is famous for its six-lane highways, is now theUSA's most congested city.In Europe most capital cities were planned and builtbefore cars, and city centre traffic jams have been part ofdaily life for a long time. The situation in central London,-----------where drivers spent fifty percent of their time in queues, became so bad that the localgovernment decided to do something about it. In February 2003 theMayor of London,敋?楌楶杮瑳湯?椠瑮潲畤散??捜湯敧瑳潩?档牡敧—a tax for cars entering the centreof the city.The idea is simple: every car coming into the centre has to pay ￡5 a day. Driverscan pay the charge at any of 10,000 pay points in the capital before 10 p.m. As the carscome into the centre, video cameras record their registration numbers, and these arechecked with a list of drivers who have paid the charge for that day. People who do notpay the charge will face a fine of ￡80.Most Londoners are not happy with the idea. They agree that London has a trafficproblem, but the congestion charge is expensive, and limits their freedom ...But does the congestion charge work? A survey carried out at the end of 2003suggests it does. After only six months, traffic coming into central London wasreduced by about 30 percent, and journey times by 15 percent. Morepeople usedpublic transport to get to work, and bicycles were suddenly very popular. What's more,central London shops did not lose business even though there were fewer cars.But there are a few people who think the charge should be much higher, forexample rich businessmen who work in the city centre and can easily afford it. Thiswould keep even more cars out of central London, and the roads would be nearlyempty. However, there are no plans to increase the charge.Module 3 ReadingGreetings Around the WorldIf you say the word communication, most people thinkof words and sentences. Although these are very important,-----------we communicate with more than just spoken and written words. Indeed, bodypositions are part of what we call ody language. We see examples of unconsciousbody language very often, yet there is also learned body language, which varies fromculture to culture.We use learned body language when we are introduced to strangers. Like otheranimals, we are on guard until we know it is safe to relax. So every culture hasdeveloped a formal way to greet strangers, to show them we are not aggressive.Traditionally, Europeans and Americans shake hands. They do this with the righthand—the strongest hand for most people. If our right hand is busy greeting someone,it cannot be holding a weapon. So the gesture is saying, I trust you. Look, I'm notcarrying a threatening weapon. If you shake hands with someone,you show you trustthem. We shake hands when we make a deal. It means, We agree and we trust eachother.Greetings in Asian countries do not involve touching the other person, but theyalways involve the hands. Traditionally in China, when we greet someone, we put theright hand over the left and bow slightly. Muslims give a salaam, where they touchtheir heart, mouth and forehead. Hindus join their hands and bow their heads in respect.In all of these examples, the hands are busy with the greeting and cannot hold aweapon.Even today, when some people have very informal styles of greeting, they still usetheir hands as a gesture of trust. American youths often greet each other with theexpression, Give me five! One person then holds up his hand, palm outwards andfive fingers spread. The other person raises his hand and slaps theother's open handabove the head in a high five. Nowadays, it is quite a common greeting.-----------Body language is fascinating for anyone to study. People give away much more bytheir gestures than by their words. Look at your friends and family and see if you are amind reader!Cultural CornerClappingWhy do we clap? To show we like something, of course. But we don't clap at theend of a television programme or a book, however good they are. We clap at the endof a live performance, such as a play, or a concert, to say thank you to the performers.First they give, and then we give. Without us—the audience—the performance wouldnot be complete.The custom of clapping has early beginnings. In classical Athens,applause meantjudgement and taking part. Plays were often in competition with each other, andprolonged clapping helped a play to win. The theatre was large—it could hold 14,000people, half the adult male population of the city, which meant that the audience couldmake a lot of noise.Applause was a sign of being part of the community, andof equality between actors and audience. The important thingwas to make the noise together, to add one's own smallhandclap to others. Clapping is social, like laughter: you don'tvery often clap or laugh out loud alone. It is like laughter in another way, too: it is infectious, and spreads very quickly. Clapping at concerts andtheatres is a universal habit. But some occasions on which people clap change fromone country to another. For example, in Britain people clap at awedding, but in Italythey sometimes clap at a funeral.-----------Module 4 ReadingThe Student Who Asked QuestionsIn a hungry world rice is a staple food and China is theworld's largest producer. Rice is also grown in many otherAsian countries, and in some European countries like Italy. Inthe rice-growing world, the Chinese scientist, Yuan Longping,is a leading figure.Yuan Longping was born and brought up in China. As a boy he was educated inmany schools and was given the nickname, he student who asks questions.From an early age he was interested in plants. He studied agriculture in college andas a young teacher he began experiments in crop breeding. Hethought that the key tofeeding people was to have more rice and to produce it more quickly. He thought therewas only one way to do this—by crossing different species of rice plant, and then hecould produce a new plant which could give a higher yield than either of the originalplants.First Yuan Longping experimented with different types of rice. The results of hisexperiments were published in China in 1966. Then he began his search for a specialtype of rice plant. It had to be male. It had to be sterile. Finally, in 1970 a naturallysterile male rice plant was discovered. This was the breakthrough. Researchers werebrought in from all over China to develop the new system. The research was supportedby the government.As a result of Yuan Longping's discoveries Chinese rice production rose by 47.5percent in the 1990's. There were other advantages too. 50 thousandsquare kilometresof rice fields were converted to growing vegetables and other cash crops. Following-----------this, Yuan Longping's rice was exported to other countries, such as Pakistan and thePhilippines.In Pakistan rice is the second most important crop after wheat and will be grown inmany parts of the country. The new hybrid rice has been developed by the YuanLongping Hightech Agricultural Company of China. Its yield is much greater than theyield of other types of rice grown in Pakistan.Cultural CornerRocketsToday rockets are very advanced machines which we can use to send astronautsinto space. They are also used in firework displays to celebrate great events, such asthe end of the Olympic Games or the beginning of the new millennium in the year2000.Rockets were probably invented by accident about 2,000 years ago. The Chinesehad a form of gunpowder which was put in bamboo tubes and thrown into fires tomake explosions during festivals. Perhaps some of the tubes jumped out of the fireinstead of exploding in it. The Chinese discovered that the gas escaping from the tubecould lift it into the air. The idea of the rocket was born.The first military use of rockets was in 1232. The Song Dynasty was at war withthe Mongols. During the battle of Kaifeng, the Song army shot arrows of flying fire.The tubes were attached to a long stick which helped keep the rocket moving in astraight direction. Soon the Mongols learned how to make rockets themselves and it ispossible that they introduced them to Europe. Between the 13th and 15th centuriesthere were many rocket experiments in England, France and Italy. They were used for-----------military purposes. One Italian scientist even invented a rocket which could travel overthe surface of water and hit an enemy ship.But not everybody wanted to use rockets in battles. Wan Hu, a Chinese governmentofficial, invented a flying chair. He attached two big kites to the chair, and 47 rocketsto the kites. The rockets were lit, there was a huge explosion and clouds of thicksmoke. When the smoke cleared Wan Hu and his chair had disappeared. No oneknows what happened. Did Wan Hu die in the explosion? Or was he carried miles intospace, becoming the world's first astronaut?Module 5 ReadingA Trip Along the Three GorgesIn August 1996, Peter Hessler, a young American teacher of English, arrived in thetwo years were to spendcolleague town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. He and athere teaching English at a teacher training college. They were the only foreigners inthe town. The first semester finished at the end of January and they had four weeks offfor the Spring Festival. They could go anywhere they wished. They decided to take a-----------boat downstream.You said, Our colleagues tickets for the Jiangyou boat. decided We to buyand goods shouldn't go on those ships. They are very crowded. They are mainly forpeople trading along the river. They don't stop at the temples and there won't be anyother foreigners. That sounded fine to me. We just had to show our passports and theylet us get on the boat.we brightly as sun was shining beautiful We left the docks on a afternoon. Theriver's the rafts along region. hilly Men rode bamboo through saileddownstream aedge and coal boats went past. As the sun set we docked at Fengdu. We could see thesun setting behind the white pagoda. It was beautiful.gorge The the Qutang Gorge. which through We slept the first gorge, is calledOh, mountains. the rushes the feet to narrows 350 as river through two-mile-highwell, my friend said, at least we have two more left.-----------At Wushan we made a detour up the Daning River to see some of the smallergorges. The next day we went through the big gorges on the Yangtze River. It was alovely morning as we went through the Wu Gorge. We passed the Xiang River, homeof Qu Yuan, the 3rd century BC poet. There was so much history along the YangtzeRiver. Every rock looked like a person or animal, every stream that joined the greatriver carried its legends, every hill was heavy with the past.As we came out of the third gorge, the Xiling Gorge, we sailed intotheconstruction site of the dam. All the passengers came on deck. We took pictures andpointed at the site, but we weren't allowed to get off the boat. The Chinese flag wasblowing in the wind. On a distant mountain was a sign in 20-foot characters. Buildthe Three Gorges Dam, Exploit the Yangtze River, it said.Cultural CornerPostcards to MyselfIn 50 years of travelling Colin McCorquodale has visited every country in the world, except three. And everywhere he goes, he sends himself a postcard. He always chooses a postcard with a beautiful view, and sticks on an interesting stamp. Usually he writes just a short message to himself. His latest one, from the Malvinas islands, reads Good fishing.On a wall in his home in London there is a large map ofthe world. There are hundreds of little red pins stuck in it. It's good to get a pin in themap, says Mr McCorquodale, ut I follow the rules. I'm allowed to stick one in onlyif I've been in a place for more than 24 hours. Naturally, Mr McCorquodale has hisfavourite places. New Zealand he describes as wonderful. In Europe, Italy is afavourite place. There's a saying in the travel trade that all tourists are ripped off.-----------Well, at least the Italians rip you off with a smile. Of China he says,This is onecountry in the world which is completely different. There's no European influence. It'sbeen around for 6,000 years, yet it's a country of the future.Wherever he goes, Mr McCorquodale takes with him aphoto of his wife, a candle, a torch, a shirt with a secretpocket, and a pen for writing his postcards.So why does he do it? For the postcards or the travel? Mr McCorquodale laughs. I do it for the journey, he says. Iget a kick out of travelling. And all the planning.Module 6 ReadingThe Monster of Lake TianchiThe Monster of Lake Tianchi in the Changbai Mountains in Jilin province,northeast China, is back in the news after several recent sightings. The director of alocal tourist office, Meng Fanying, said the monster, which seemed to be black incolour, was ten metres from the edge of the lake during the most recent sighting. Itjumped out of the water like a seal—about 200 people on Changbai's western peaksaw it, he said. Although no one really got a clear look at the mysterious creature,Xue Junlin, a local photographer, claimed that its head looked like ahorse.they claimsighting, a group of soldiers In another recentThe the water. the surface of moving saw an animal onlake, of side the walking soldiers, who were along theIt minutes. two for the watched creature swimming aboutwas greenish-black and had a round head with 10-centimetre horns, one of the soldiers said.-----------A third report came from Li Xiaohe, who was visiting the lake with his family. Heclaims to have seen a round black creature moving quickly through the water. Afterthree or four hundred metres it dived into the water. Ten minutes later the monsterappeared again and repeated the action. Mr Li Xiaohe said that he and his family wereable to see the monster clearly because the weather was fine and the lake was calm.There have been reports of monsters in Lake Tianchi since the beginning of the lastcentury, although no one has seen one close up. Some photos have been taken but theyare not clear because it was too far away. Many people think the monster may be adistant cousin of the Loch Ness monster in Scotland. They also think that there mightbe similar creatures in other lakes around the world. Scientists, however, are sceptical.They say that the low-temperature lake is unlikely to be able to support such largeliving creatures.Lake Tianchi is the highest volcanic lake in the world. It is 2,189 metres high andcovers an area of about ten square kilometres. In places it is more than 370 metresdeep.Cultural CornerThe Universal DragonDragons can be friendly or fierce, they can bring goodluck or cause death and destruction, but one thing is sure—people talk about them almost everywhere in the world. For acreature that doesn't actually exist, that's quite something.In Chinese culture, dragons are generous and wise, although they can beunpredictable. The dragon was closely connected to the royal family: the emperor'srobes have a symbol of a gold dragon with five claws. Other members of the royalfamily were allowed to wear dragon symbols, too, but with fewer claws and of a-----------different colour. According to popular belief, if you were born in the year of thedragon, you are intelligent, brave, and a natural leader.But in the west, dragons had a different reputation. The very first text in English,the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, tells the story of a Scandinavianhero, Beowulf, whofights and kills a dangerous dragon but is himself killed in the fight. However, acrossthe border in Wales, the red dragon which appears on the Welsh flag is a positivesymbol, indicating strength and a sense of national identity.Why should the dragon have a different character indifferent parts of the world? Some experts believe it is due tothe animals the myths grew out of. In the west, the idea of the dragon probably came from the snake—an animal whichpeople hated and were afraid of.But in China, the idea of the dragon may have come from the alligator—a shyanimal which lives in rivers, but which is usually only seen when there is plenty ofwater—a good sign for agriculture. So the Chinese dragon was a bringer of goodfortune.------。
