career21ST CENTURY 921ST CENTURY 4 foc JULY 2, 2014 JULY 2, 2014

GLOSSARYn四级词汇fare [] 车费

interpretation [] 翻译

outlook [] 前景

sophisticated [] 高度发展的

n六级词汇beforehand [] 预先

counterpart []非常相似的人(或物)

reside [] 存在于

n托福词汇algebra [] 代数

placement []介绍工作 publicize [] 宣传

obsolete [] 废弃的

tangible [] 确实的

tricky [] 棘手的

Volunteers reap life rewards

Qian Yimeng (fourth from right), 23, from Peking University, with the children she helped during a volunteering program in Africa. 21S T

WANG XIAOYING21ST CENTURY STAFF

Shang Yi used to spend most of his vacations traveling and do-ing internships, but this summer, the 22-year-old automobile stu-dent at Tsinghua University will volunteer abroad.

As more opportunities and programs become available to Chinese college students, many of them are participating in vol-unteer abroad programs to gain overseas experience, develop themselves, and give back to the wider community.

In 2012, there were 2,381 Chi-nese people who took part in vol-unteer abroad programs, and the number increased by 45 percent in 2013, according to AIESEC, a non-profit international organiza-tion that offers global internship and volunteering opportunities to students. Most of these partic-ipants are college students.

Di�cult choiceStudents can participate in

programs of different kinds. The most challenging ones are those organized by participants themselves, since they need to raise funds and make detailed plans. Shang chose a program of this kind.

He and another six peers de-cided to help protect Africa’s wild life, so they started preparing in April. Their first and biggest task was to gain financial support to cover their airline *fare and liv-ing costs in Africa.

“In order to get more invest-ment, we *publicized our proj-ect in every possible way. During this process, I learned to work with the media and impress in-vestors,” Shang says.

Tough competitionDifferent from Shang, who is

making his own volunteering plans, Zhang Shengnan, 20, a translation and *interpreta-tion major at Beijing Interna-tional Studies University, par-ticipated in a program offered by AIESEC.

“This way I didn’t have to worry much about the overseas *place-ment,” she said. But she did have to compete with thousands of in-ternational students for the limited opportunities. In order to stand out, she delivered a self-promo-tion speech in her first interview and answered several *tricky questions in the second one.

“Before I was finally offered a volunteering opportunity in Mo-

rocco to promote local tourism, I was rejected by two other pro-grams,” she says.

Rewarding experienceLu Yang, 19, an English major

at Chongqing Normal University, also went through two rounds of

interviews to participate in a pro-gram with AIESEC.

He went to Nairobi, capital of Kenya in January, where he stayed in a slum for six weeks teaching Kenyan students Eng-lish. His volunteer program cost more than 10,000 yuan, includ-ing a 2,500 yuan registration fee with AIESEC. The rest was for living costs and the airline fare, but Lu says the experience was worth it. Working with 20 stu-dents from different countries taught him to communicate in a multi-cultural environment.

“European students value action, while I prefer making plans *beforehand. We had to constantly communicate with

each other to make full use of everyone’s strengths,” he said.

Apart from developing them-selves, some participants in vol-unteer abroad programs gain *tangible benefits. Qian Yimeng, 23, an English major at Peking University, received offers from three departments of Columbia University in the US due to her previous volunteering experi-ence in Kenya and Thailand. “The admission officers later told me that these experiences showed my volunteering spirit and international *outlook,” she said. After volunteering again in Africa this summer, she will be-gin her studies in education at Columbia University.

Technology impacts students’ education in ChinaChina is one of the most techno-

logically *sophisticated societies. But when it comes to technology in edu-cation, how does China fare against Western countries such as the US, the UK and Australia?

Leap-frogging technologies While China has been playing

catch-up to many developed econo-mies for the past 200 years, it has had the luxury of being able to “leap-frog” legacy classroom technologies that schools in other parts of the world are still using.

This has given students in many of China’s larger cities access to the latest classroom technologies, such as interactive whiteboards and tablet

computers loaded with eLearning apps, while their Western *counter-parts often find themselves learning with *obsolete technologies, accord-ing to Rob Brown, Head of Digital Marketing at global education group Navitas.

Big data, big opportunityOne area where developed coun-

tries such as the US, the UK and Aus-tralia appear to have their noses in front of China is in the use of predic-tive analytics and big data to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses.

Australia has Mathletics, with mil-lions of students around the world using a competitive “leaderboard” approach to improve their math. The

US has Khan Academy, which takes a more data-driven approach to teaching *algebra.

Wearables and sensorsSo which technology is most likely

to improve education in Chinese and Western classrooms?

“It’s wearables. This whole category of wearable computers is about to transform the way we moni-tor personal performance,” Brown said.

For students living in both China and the West, technology is about to truly transform learning. And the data-driven key that will unlock those advances almost certainly *resides in the mobile device that you are

currently holding in your hand, or the watch that you will soon be wearing around your wrist.

About Navitas Navitas is an Australian global edu-

cation leader providing pre-university and university programs and Eng-lish language courses to more than 80,000 students in 23 countries. Further information about Navitas is available at www.navitas.com.

“The admission

o�cers later told

me that these

experiences showed

my volunteering spirit

and international

outlook.”

n四级词汇exquisite [] 精美的

merit [] 应受

spectacular [] 壮观的

n六级词汇chant [] 喊叫声

commodity [] 商品

connotation [] 涵义

profound [] 极深的

n托福词汇bustle [] 喧闹

conduit [] 管道

Journey back in time beyond borderLI DISPECIAL TO 21ST CENTURY

Traveling the Silk Road has been a fan-tasy ever since my childhood. I always imagined the desert stretching into the distance, with merchants slowly making their way through the rolling dunes on camels under the *scorching sun, and, of course, haggling in busy bazaars.

Some 2,000 years after Zhang Qian explored China’s neighborhood to the West, I am embarking on my own jour-ney on the Silk Road.

Many things change. Snaking their way through the desert, highways have

replaced the ancient walking trails; camels have become more of a tourist attraction with their function of carrying cargo now transferred to trucks. Villages on Zhang Qian’s maps are now cities and even metropolises. The traditional loose garments of Iran have given way to jeans and T-shirts, while Istanbul looks just like any other skyscraper-city.

But some things never change. In Xinjiang’s Tashkur-gan Tajik autonomous county of Kashgar, a wedding still offered us the experience of a traditional ceremony, with people *chanting and dancing in bright-colored garments. When I was pulled into the excited crowd, I felt a sense of complete freedom I had been seeking all my life.

But it is the bazaars along the road that offer a true glimpse into the past, with people *bustling around the marketplace shopping for carpets, silverware and local food, just like they did 2,000 years ago.

To me, the Silk Road has been and always will be a con-trast of *desolation and *vibrancy that will live on for thousands of years.

LI DI (李笛), 24, WHO GRADUATED FROM GUANGDONG UNI-VERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES, NOW WORKS AS A HANDCRAFTSMAN. SHE AND HER FRIENDS ARE CURRENTLY ON A ROAD TRIP AROUND

EUROPE AND ASIA.

Silk Road: route of adventure

For many tourists, traveling along the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road is a

It is in the nature of hu-mans to move around. Throughout history, the vast expanse of Eurasia was criss-crossed with trade routes, which gradually linked up to form what we know today as the Silk Roads. But this vast network carried more than just merchandise and pre-cious *commodities. The con-stant movement and mixing of populations also brought about the transmission of knowledge, cultures and beliefs, which had a profound impact on the history and civilization of Eurasia.

Knowledge about science, arts and literature, as well as crafts and technologies was shared across the Silk Roads, and in this way, languages, re-ligions and cultures developed and influenced each other.

The initial section of the Silk Roads, the Routes Net-work of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor (see routes in im-age), was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list on June 22.

“The recognition of the Silk Road by the UNESCO reflects just how important a com-munication and economic *conduit it once was,” Nick Rowan, co-founder of the UK-based Silk Road Society, says.

“The nomination is *testa-

ment to the resurging impor-tance and potential influence it has in continuing to shape the world we live in today, both culturally and economi-cally.”

In this package, college stu-dents and young profession-als share their stories of being on the Silk Road to follow the footprints of ancient legends.

Silk is first pro-duced in China.

The Dunhuang grottoes start to appear, later becoming the world’s largest site of Buddha caves.

3,000 BC 139 BC AD 73 AD 366

Han emperor Wudi sends Zhang Qian on an expedition to the Western Regions (Xiyu), the areas neighbor-ing the territory of the Han Dynasty. The route west is first explored.

The route is cut o� for decades due to Xiongnu’s harassment at the end of the Western Han Dynasty. General Ban Chao of the Eastern Han Dynasty defeats Xiongnu and secures the route before extending it to Europe for the first time.

Li Di (李笛)

CYCLINGLUOYANGTO

Arriving at the destination of a long journey can be a most fulfill-ing moment. This is what Zhang Zhen, 23, a chemistry major at Shandong University, felt when he and his friends finally finished their cycling trip along the Silk Road from Luoyang in Henan province to Dunhuang in Gansu in 2012.

“Over the course of one month, we had a fixed daily routine: rid-ing, sweating, resting, washing clothes, sleeping, and then riding again,” he says.

The Longmen Grottoes, the Ter-racotta Warriors, the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, and the Great Wall at Jiayuguan Pass all made them feel the *profound cultural *con-notations of the Silk Road.

“Particularly the *exquisite *frescos at the Mogao Grottoes

Already two months have passed, but when Shi Shaopeng remembers the night he slept in the desert under the sky with shining stars, the 25-year-old postgraduate majoring in finance at Lanzhou University can’t hide his excitement.

“It was definitely the most beautiful starry sky I had ever seen,” he says.

Shi is referring to Shapotou, a tourist attraction located in Zhongwei, Ningxia Hui autono-mous region, which was once voted one of the most beautiful places in China by Chinese Na-tional Geography magazine. He and his friends went camping there during this year’s May Day holiday.

“Our intention was to escape from the busy city life and relax

COACHRIDETOZHONGWEI

in the grand desert,” he says. The group traveled by coach, a

flexible and cheap choice. As Shi expected, the clear blue

sky, the glorious sunrise and amazing combination of river, oa-sis and desert brought him closer to the beauty of China’s western regions.

The escape allowed him to relax and forget about the *trivialities of life. It was so quiet that he could hear the wind clearly.

Due to the big temperature gap between day and night, it became so cold that Shi had to put on his down coat to fall asleep.

Just like ancient travelers be-fore, Shi was impressed by the raw beauty of nature on the Silk Road. At about 6 am every day, Shi got up to wait for the sunrise.

At first, the rosy clouds of dawn

hung in the eastern part of the sky. Then the sun slowly a p p e a r e d above the ho-rizon. Finally, the sun rose completely and bathed the des-ert in sunshine.

“It only lasted a few minutes, but the *spectacular scene will live on in my memory forever,” Shi says.

Apart from the sunrise, Shi also watched the sunset, rode a camel, drove a jeep and slid down a sand dune.

“It’s like a carnival in the desert. You can try things you have never done before. Even with the sand in my clothes, I still felt happy,” he says.

Shi Shaopeng

GLOSSARY