The Shichahai area was crowned as the most beautiful place in Beijing. It presented a marked difference with the imperial places such as the Forbidden City and the Summer palace . Taking the rickshaw.

什刹海历史文化风景区是老北京最美丽的地方，与故宫长城、颐和园的帝王生活形成了鲜明的对比。

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The locals admit that El Centro—and indeed all of Imperial County, of which it is the seat—is rather a boring place.

当地人说埃尔森特罗确实是个相当无趣的地方，实际上因皮里尔县情况皆如此。

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Many years later, after gained a Zhuangyuan title (the first place in the imperial examination), Madam White Snake's son offered sacrifice to his mother in front of the Leifeng Pagoda.

许多年后，白娘子的儿子许仕林中了状元(科举考试第一名)衣锦还乡，并在雷峰塔前叩拜她的生母。

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Two floors go on to depict the intellectual flowering of the Scottish enlightenment (epitomised by David Hume and Adam Smith), and the economic explosion fuelled by British imperial expansion that took place after the union with England, with exhibits ranging from Paisley-pattern textiles to silverware and steam engines.

ECONOMIST: Past and present in Scotland

Stephen Bourne's illustrated talk, "We Also Served", takes place on Sunday 6 October at the Imperial War Museum, London, repeated on 17 October at Peckham Central Library, London.

BBC: Hidden tales of the black home front

Works like Philip Kuhn's "Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China" (1970) place the story in the context of China's long history of struggles between dynasties and those seeking to topple them, while Jen Yu-wen's "The Taiping Revolutionary Movement" (1973) goes further, insisting that Hong's movement had more in common with the revolutions that followed it than rebellions of earlier times.

WSJ: Book Review: Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom