the 1920s, he an explorer, searching for the tombs of the Egyptian kings.

If we were asked exactly what we were doing a year ago, we should probably have to say that we could not remember. But if we had kept a book and had written in it an account of what we did each day, we should be able to give an answer to the question.

It is the same in history. Many things have been forgotten because we do not have any written account of them. Sometimes men did keep a record of the most important happenings in their country, but often it was destroyed by fire or in a war. Sometimes there was never any written record at all because the people of that time and place did not know how to write. For example, we know a good deal about the people who lived in China 4,000 years ago, because they could write and leave written records for those who lived after them. But we know almost nothing about the people who lived even 200 years ago in central Africa because they had not learned to write.

Sometimes, of course, even if the people cannot write, they may know something of the past. They have heard about it from older people, and often songs and dances and stories have been made about the most important happenings, and these have been sung and acted and told for many generations, for most people are proud to tell what their fathers did in the past. This we may call "remembered history". Some of it has now been written down. It is not so exact or so valuable to us as written history is because words are much more easily changed when used again and again in speech than when copied in writing. But where there are no written records, such spoken stories are often very helpful.

Wealthy countries are exporting millions of tons of plastic waste to Southeast Asia, where local recycling systems cannot process all of it. Greenpeace and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, or GAIA, studied the issue. Their findings showed that the export of plastic waste is causing widespread pollution problems.

In early 2018, China banned the import of plastic waste for recycling, which threw the international trade in recycled materials into disorder. Greenpeace and GAIA workers gathered information from the top 21 importers and exporters of plastic waste. They looked at the recycling trade before and after the Chinese ban. Over half of the plastics — more than 3 million tons a year — used to go to China. It is now being sent to Southeast Asia. Huge mountains of plastics are growing in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, among other countries.

The Malaysian village of Jenjarom is about 50 kilometers away from Kuala Lumpur. Greenpeace workers found huge piles of plastic waste on the ground in the middle of a palm oil farm. Nobody was working to reduce the size of the piles. The writing on the bottles, boxes and plastic bags showed where they came from. Much of the waste traveled thousands of kilometers from Europe and North America.

People are suffering from the waste, said local environmentalist Pua Lay Peng. "They just throw the non-recyclable plastics or the rejected products, and then they burn them in the backyard of these factories. The poisonous smoke has already caused a lot of health problems for our residents."

Kate Lin, a project leader at Greenpeace, said wealthy countries are simply exporting their waste. They do not follow up what happens after it crosses the border. Many Southeast Asian countries are beginning to restrict the import of plastic waste, which forces the rubbish to go to markets with less control, such as Indonesia and India.

Greenpeace said improving recycling is not the final solution. Instead, the world must severely reduce plastic production and consumption.

    At first, Michael Surrell didn't see the black smoke or flames shooting from the windows of his neighbors' home. Then they got a call from one of his daughters: "The house next door is on fire!" He went over and saw three women crying madly on their porch (门廊).

    "The baby's in the second floor!" one of the women cried. Though the fire department had been called, Surrell, then 64, bravely ran inside. "The baby" was Tiara Roberts, the woman's granddaughter and a playmate of Surrell's three youngest kids.

Entering the burning house was like "running into a bucket of black paint," Surrell says. The thick smoke caused him to stumble blindly around, burned his eyes, and made it impossible to breathe. The conditions would have been dangerous for anyone, but for Surrell, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(慢性阻塞性肺病), they were life-threatening.

    Taking a deep breath, he moved around in the overwhelming darkness. Because the house had a similar layout to his, he found the stairs and made it to the second floor. Then he heard a soft but clear moan. Still unable to see, Surrell fell to his knees on the hot wood floor. He crawled toward the sound, feeling around for any sign of the girl. Finally, he touched something. A shoe, then an ankle. He pulled Tiara toward him, scooped her into his arms and stood. Turning, he fought through the smoke and ran blindly into the blackness…

    Surrell woke up in the hospital a couple of days later and spent over a week in the hospital. Tiara was released from the hospital after a few days. The fire worsened Surrell's pulmonary condition, and he feels the effects even two years later. As a result, he takes extra medication that helps open his airways. "It's a small price to pay," he says. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I wouldn't give it a second thought."