China’s Miao ethnic group reveres trees, believing that they symbolise the life of humans; they also worship vegetation at important stages of life. The Miao people, whose population numbers over 10 million, inhabit central and southern China’s Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi provinces, and have a traditional Flower-Jump Festival every year. At this time, people gather around a 10-metre-tall flower tree made by the revered elderly in the village with evergreen tree branches, and dance around it on...

An enterprising 19-year-old student in China heads a start-up tech company and is also a philanthropist who donated 100,000 yuan (US$15,000) to sanitation workers at his school. Wei Siyuan graduated from Baoan Middle School in Shenzhen, southern China’s Guangdong province, last year and was admitted to Hunan University. He also has another identity: the chief executive officer of a company that develops unmanned aerial vehicles and artificial intelligence (AI) powered equipment. As a result, he...