A food delivery (投递) driver from Hangzhou has been a champion of the third season of CCTV’s Chinese Poetry Competition (中国诗词大会) show.

Lei Haiwei won in the TV contest’s final on 4th, April 2018, remaining calm as he answered a lot of difficult questions on ancient Chinese poetry.

More than ten years ago, he didn’t have enough money to buy books. In order to read poetry, he would go to the bookstore and memorize poems, then return home and write them down from memory. In this way, he learned over 800 poems.

These days, as a busy worker, he reads ancient poetry when waiting for food to be prepared or when he has a moment to rest. Like most delivery drivers, Lei Haiwei’s work is hard and he often has to deliver more than 50 meals in one day. While delivering food to others, he’s often hungry himself, but he hardly spends more than half an hour a day in eating and won’t spend over 25 RMB.

Lei was born in1981, in Hunan, but moved to Hanzhou ten years ago to find work. He lives in an 80-square-metre apartment with several other delivery drivers and usually works 10-hour days.

Bananas might go away

It’s hard to turn down a tasty banana. They taste good and you don’t have to wash them before eating them. However, British scientists say that the fruit may disappear by 2050.

One reason for this is climate change. Scientists at the University of Exeter collected data from 27 countries and regions that produce 86 percent of the world’s bananas. They found that climate change has improved growing conditions in 21 of these countries. In the past 60 years, the average yield has reached 1.37 tons of bananas per hectare.

However, if temperatures keep rising, this advantage will disappear. Ten of the countries, including India, the world’s biggest producer of bananas, will produce fewer bananas. By 2050, the fruit may die out.

Shouldn’t bananas grow more easily if it’s hotter outside? In fact, the perfect temperature range for growing bananas is between 24 and 32 C. If temperatures get too high, they will stop growing.

Diseases are another danger to bananas. Unlike other crops, the bananas we grow come from shoot cuttings rather than seeds. This means that all banana plants have the same genotype. In other words, if a disease is able to kill one plant, it could kill them all.

One serious disease is called Panama. Caused by fungus in the soil, it spreads easily. It has spread across South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. If one banana plantation suffers from the disease, it will take 30 years until it is able to grow bananas again. Scientists have yet to find a cure for this disease.