With 11 foreign languages under her belt, 68-year-old villager-turned tour guide Xu Xiuzhen has become a celebrity in the town of Yangshuo.

Xu was born in a poor family at the base of Moon Hill. In the late 1970s, Yangshuo became one of the country's first tourist destinations to welcome foreign visitors after China's reform and opening up in 1978. "I began to see more foreign faces near Mt. Moon, and locals who spoke some English sold more bottled water than me," said Xu. "No English, no money." With the influx of foreign guests in Yangshuo, a large number of villagers sought opportunities to learn English given the booming tourism market. Xu eagerly joined the craze. At that time, she made a living on farming and occasionally sold bottled water to tourists near Mt. Moon.

Over the past 16 years, Xu never stops learning and has taught herself 11 foreign languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. But the polyglot farmer's success has been hard-won. She started learning simple English phrases 16 years ago. "I used Pinyin to memorize the pronunciation of English words, but my strong southern accent made it quite difficult to understand," said Xu. So, "I turned to foreign visitors for help, and I always appreciate their feedback because they have helped me correct my word choices and pronunciation."

Not content to simply serve as a tour guide, she now owns a popular restaurant and operates a reputable hotel. Huang Yongzhong, director of Yangshuo's tourism bureau, said Xu's success has encouraged many farmers to follow suit. He added that the government supports local tour guides by providing frequent training on the laws and regulations of the tourism industry. Farmers in Yangshuo are passionate, sincere and hard-working, and this spirit will lead to more success stories like that of her, he said.

Many of the psychological benefits of outdoor play are already well established. Our brains evolved in natural landscapes, and our perceptual(感知的)systems are particularly well suited to wild outdoor spaces. 

This means that natural scenes provide the perfect level of stimulation, which is thought to help recharge the brain when it is tired and easily distractible. Supporting this theory, one study found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were better able to concentrate following a 20-minute walk in the park, compared to a 20-minute walk on the streets of a well-kept urban area. Being exposed to grass and trees seemed to have had a beneficial effect on their minds. The authors recommended using such "doses(剂量)of nature" as a safe and accessible way of supporting children with ADHD, alongside other tools.

Besides these restorative effects, outdoor play can offer valuable learning experiences. For example, playing with mud or sand can help children develop the way their senses and movement interact, which allows the child to gradually understand his or her body signals. 

Such activities — away from the house or classroom — may also help children to find ways to cope with emotions that maybe hard to explore in other environments. So-called "sand tray therapy", which involves using sand and clay to express one's thoughts and feelings, is an accepted form of counselling for children who are struggling to verbalise their emotional state.

When it comes to the child's physical health, the most obvious advantage of outdoor play maybe the exercise A child may find it easier to buildup strength and endurance in a large open space resulting in a reduced risk of overweight, according to one study led by Elizabeth Gershoff, professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, US.

The latest findings, however, suggest there could be a host of other advantages to playing in natural environments — and the secret maybe alive in the mud itself. 

Sherry Gao is pouring coffee made from single-origin beans, hoping that her Mandarin Coffee Stand in the city of Pasadenawill, California introduces you to your new favorite coffee and turns your preconceptions about Chinese coffee beans upside down.

Much of the Western world imports its coffee from Africa and South America. But Gao hopes that throwing light on Yunnan-sourced coffee could expose customers to the coffee-producing region and help to break down prejudice against the beans, which for decades, until only a few years ago, were primarily used for instant products.

"We wanted to highlight Chinese coffee because a lot of people never had Chinese coffee before," Gao said. "Some have the mindset that it's bad or it's cheap, but that's not the case anymore. It's been changing so much over the last decade."

Recent experimentation with processing, such as the addition of fruit or sugarcane molasses during the production, is leading Yunnan's coffee to more flavorful results. "Every time a new product comes in, it tastes better than the last one," Gao said.

Farmers in China have grown tea for more than 3,000 years, but coffee has been grown there for only about a century in small quantities, with an uptick in the 1980s with government involvement. And the turn of the century and the 2010s saw a sharp growth with international corporations investing in the region's crops, initially for use in instant coffee.

But in the last 10 to 15 years, tastes and demand for specialty and high-grade coffees emerged, especially from local growers and shops. The domestic demand for China-grown coffee has risen so dramatically that Gao says it's now much more expensive.

To further connect with the community, Gao hopes to one day host classes for interactive how-to events. After all, she says, the Yunnan coffee tastes excellent when made in one's own kitchen with a pour-over system and she hopes it's only a matter of time before home specialty coffee enthusiasts catch on too.