Swap, Don’t shop!

You keep hearing about recycling, right? But it doesn’t end with bottles, cans, and paper. Clothing takes a huge amount of natural resources to make, and buying loads of new clothing (or throwing out old clothing) is not healthy for the environment. So what to do with all those perfectly-good-but-you’re-maybe-a-little-sick-of-them clothes piled on your bedroom floor? 【小题1】. It’s the best way to get rid of your used clothes, score clothes from your friends, and have a party all at the same time.

A successful swap depends on the selection of clothes, the organization of the event, and, obviously, how much fun it has. It’s really easy to do! Here are a few pointers.

●Invite 5—10 people so you have a nice selection. 【小题2】, and there may not be enough things to choose from; more than that, and it becomes uncontrollable.

●Tell everyone to bring clean clothes in good condition. 【小题3】.

●Put different types of clothing on different surfaces in the room. Have everyone put their clothes in the right spots. 【小题4】, so people can see how things look when they try them on. One of the ground rules of the swap should be that everyone must try on the clothes before they take them—things always look different when you put them on.

●Set a starting time. Maybe you say “go”, or turn on a certain song, or whatever. 【小题5】. And don’t forget to put out some cookies and fruits. Remember, it’s a party!

During the outbreak of COVID-19 (新冠肺炎), almost everyone in China wears a mask to protect themselves against the virus.【小题1】

According to the Global Times, different attitudes toward wearing masks largely lie in the cultures. In the West, people generally believe that, unless one is already ill, wearing a mask is simply unnecessary. Siva Kumar from the US is one of them. “Masks can only protect you from particulate matter (颗粒物质) in the air you breathe, but they can’t hold up microbes (微生物),” Kumar told China Daily. “【小题2】”

US infection prevention specialist Eli Perencevich told Forbes, “The average healthy person shouldn’t be wearing masks.” She added, “If they wear them incorrectly, it can increase the risk of infection because they’re touching their faces more often.”

However, for people in Asian countries like China, wearing a mask is deep-rooted in their culture. 【小题3】 In such uncertain and potentially dangerous time, many people have taken theresponsibility to wear masks to ensure the safety of their communities.

Chen Xinjie, a media worker in Beijing, said, “Wearing the mask for a long time is hot, stuffy (闷热的) and uncomfortable. 【小题4】”

Influenced by social cultures, the attitudes toward wearing a mask can be different in the East and West. But as US essayist Ralph Emerson once said, “【小题5】”

No more wet towels on the bathroom floor, and no more empty juice plastic boxes. No more doors closing at 3 a. m. , and no more coming home to a noisy crowd of strangers around the kitchen table. There’s nothing so quiet, says a friend whose youngest has just moved out.

But if adjusting to an empty nest can be tough (difficult), it seems there is one thing tougher: a formerly empty nest that suddenly fills back up again. According to a research from the London School of Economics (LSE), parents whose grown up children don’t actually manage to leave —who move out, only to bounce right back again —are actually less happy than those whose fledglings (幼鸟) heartlessly fly off without a backward glance. The quality of life for parents of boomerang (coming back) kids fell on average by about 0.8 points on the LSE researchers’ scale.

A quarter of young British adults now live with their parents, more than at any time since records began in1966. But more shockingly, this is no longer just about the young. Around a quarter of a million people aged between 35 and 44 still live at home with their parents and the idea that that can all be blamed on helicopter parents making it too easy for their little darlings not to grow up isn’t logical. Midlife divorce, insecure gig economy work and straightforward poverty all play their part in driving what were once perfectly functioning grown-ups back to their teenage bedrooms.

These kids are admittedly luckier than those for whom going back home is sadly not an option. But when choosing to live with your mum is the only way of coping with an insecure job, or with the costs of renting in the city, then that’s not much of a choice. Home is still the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. But a healthy and successful society shouldn’t be sending quite many overgrown children hurrying back for shelter, and nor should it leave quite many parents feeling bad about it.