How to Make a Chinese Hot Pot

Eating a Chinese hot pot is a very common experience. People gather around the pot, dipping their food, waiting for it to cook, mixing their own seasonings (调味品) and enjoying each other's company.  (1)  

Firstly, prepare a large pot of soup. There is no right or wrong way to prepare a soup, so feel free to make your own. A simple soup can be made by boiling water with the addition of meat bones or fish heads and a mixture of herbs, seasonings and vegetables.

Then, cut a variety of meats and fish into thin slices.   (2)   Choose any food that you enjoy. Some common choices for Chinese hot pot include thin pieces of beef, pork, lamb and so on. You can make your hot pot using the more traditional method of using the meats and seafood that are local to you. Meanwhile, select, wash and prepare some vegetables.   (3)   Mushrooms of all kinds are also common to Chinese hot pot preparations.

  (4)   At home, a single hot pot would work well up t0 4-8 people depending on the size of the pot. Make sure everyone is sitting in a circle and has easy access to everything on the table. Prepare a separate small dish for each guest to mix their seasonings.   (5)  !

Selfie

Social media and the mobile web have given rise to a strange phenomenon called the selfie. It refers to a picture of yourself, usually shared on any social networking website.

  (1)   Some selfies are extreme close-ups, and others show part of an arm held straight outward. A few of them even feature the subject standing in front of a bathroom mirror.

Everyone takes selfies, but the younger crowd seems to be especially involved in the trend. Young people are relatively heavier digital users. They are interested in staying connected to their friends.   (2)  

There are also kinds of psychological factors driving people to take a selfie and upload it to a social networking site.   (3)   A quick and easy way to attract otherˈs attention is to get “likes” and comments from friends. Secondly, itˈs human nature to show off your own great achievements. When you feel good about yourself or look good, itˈs far too easy to take out your phone and document it all through one or several selfies.   (4)   Thatˈs right. Sometimes people are bored at work, bored at school, bored at home and even bored on the toilet. Last but not least, social media is about being social! If that means uploading as many selfies as possible, then so be it. Itˈs fun, and itˈs a cool way to sort of document your own life.

Finally, there are things to be mindful of when youˈre posting. Itˈs easy to think youˈre sharing a photo with a few people.   (5)   So donˈt post anything online, selfie especially.

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Before there was the written word, there was the language of dance. Dance expresses love and hate, joy and sorrow ,life and death, and everything else in between.

      (1)  We dance from Florida to Alaska, from north to south and sea to sea. We dance at weddings, birthdays , office parties and just to fill the time.

    “I adore dancing,” says Lester Bridges, the owner of a dance studio in Iowa. “I can't imagine doing anything else with my life." Bridges  runs dance classes for all ages. "Teaching dance is wonderful.   (2)  It's great to watch them. For many of them, it's a way of meeting people and having a social life."

      (3)  "I can tell you about one young couple," says Bridges. “They're learning to do traditional dances. They arrive at the class in low spirits and they leave with a smile.   (4)  ”

    So, do we dance in order to make ourselves feel better, calmer, healthier? Andrea Hillier says,“Dance, like the pattern of a beating heart, is life. Even after all these years, I want to get better and better.  (5)   I find it hard to stop! Dancing reminds me I'm alive."

Many people think of guys as being carefree when it comes to their appearance.But in fact, a lot of guys spend plenty of time in front of the mirror. They care just as much as girls do about their body image.

Body image is a personˈs opinions and feelings about his or her own body and physical appearance.__  (1)  __.You appreciate your body for its capabilities(能力) and accept its imperfections.

__  (2)  __Here are some ideas：

Recognize your strengths.Different body types are good for different things. What does your body do well? Maybe your speed, strength, or coordination (协调性) makes you better than others at a certain sport. That may be basketball, table tennis, mountain biking, dancing, or even running. Or perhaps you have non-sports skills, like drawing, painting, singing, playing a musical instrument, writing, or acting.__  (3)  __

Exercise regularly. Exercise can help you look good and feel good about yourself. Good physiques (体形) donˈt just happen.__  (4)  __.A healthy habit can be as simple as exercising 20 minutes to 1 hour three days a week. Working out can also lift your spirits.

Respect your body! Practicing good habits regular showering; taking care of your teeth, hair, and skin; wearing clean clothes, and so on—can help you build a positive body image.

__  (5)  __Your body is just one part of who you are. Your talent for comedy，a quickwit (智慧), and all the other things make you unique. So try not to let small imperfections take over.

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As awareness of the benefits of humour increases, most of us want to get all the laughs we can. It seems that almost every day there is another new discovery about the power of humour to help us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Every system of the body responds to laughter in some important or positive way .

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Many people mistakenly believe that we are born with a sense of humour. They think that when it comes to a sense of humour. “either you have got it or you don't . ” This is false! What is true, however, is that the ability to laugh and smile is actually something we are born with. For example, we laugh when we are tickled under the arm, even without thinking about how to react.

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The parts of the brain and central nervous system that control laughing and smiling are mature at birth in human infants, but that is not the same thing as having a sense of humour. (After all, when a baby laughs in his small bed we don’t rush over and say, “That kid has a great sense of humour!”) Your sense of humour is something you can develop over a lifetime. Don’t be nervous before others and try to laugh at yourself-then you will make them laugh too.

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Humour includes a lot more than laughing and joke telling. Many people worry needlessly that they do not have a good sense of humour because they are not good joke tellers. More than jokes, a sense of humour requires being willing and able to see the funny side of life’s situations as they happen. In fact, one of the best definitions（定义）of a sense of humour is “the ability to see the nonserious element in a situation. ”

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There may be a thousand different ways to express your sense of humour, but joke telling is only one of those ways. As more is discovered about how humour benefits our life, more people will be able to see and enjoy the humour when they are in a difficult situation. Life depends on air, food and water, but it is made easier to live with a good sense of humour.

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On Jan. 3, a netizen（网民）nicknamed “Programmer Humor” published a short story on his micro-blog. It said that there was an old lady who swept nearly every inch of his Internet company. When she passed by a programmer, she took a look at the codes on the programmer’s computer and kindly reminded him, “Be careful, the stack is overfilled!”

Certainly, it is a casual and fictitious（虚构的）story made up by the micro-blogger. However, no one would have guessed that the short blog would eventually cause the first great Internet meme（网络快速爆红现象）of 2011 in China. Suddenly, the mysterious “Sweeping Old Lady” is showing up nearly everywhere and reminding professionals of their mistakes. From 8 a. m. on Jan. 5, some netizens collected stories of the “Sweeping Old Lady” and found she had appeared to give advice in 150 kinds of careers. A netizen even said he had met with a similar situation in real life.

Actually, the “Sweeping Old Lady” is not new figure, but is based on the “sweeping monk （和尚）”in Louis Cha’s famous Kung fu novel of “Tian Long Ba Bu”. The “sweeping monk” is an old monk and does the lowest class of work in Shaolin Temple, but he is actually the No. 1 master in the novel both in Kung fu and in the study of Buddhism.

The “Sweeping Old Lady” is also a great modest master. Lots of netizens wish that they could have such a lady beside them to give them precious suggestions at a key time.

Although there may be 1,000 “Sweeping Old Ladies” in 1,000 people’s minds, it cannot prevent the “Sweeping Old Lady” from becoming the most popular figure on the Internet.

“Programmer Humor” said he is just a programmer in the real world and once he saw the story about the “Sweeping Old Lady,” he wrote it down in his micro-blog because it was funny. He never knew who the original writer of the story was and never thought the story could be so popular.