I walked quickly out of my church. It was late. My dad was waiting. I stared at the parking lot. Then I saw my dad's little red Honda. “Get in! Get in! Why are you so late all the time?”

      The ride home was not much more than five minutes but each minute moved slowly. We were stuck behind an old man. He wasn't going more than 15 kilometers an hour. My dad started to shout, “Learn how to drive, Grandpa!” He hit the steering wheel(方向盘) with his hands. He was really angry.

      “Dad, stop it. Why do you always…?” He cut me off, “I'd not get stuck at the light without this fellow!” The old man got to the light just as it was changing. “You're free! Drive away quickly,” I thought. I looked over my dad. “Can you believe that, Steph? I get stuck at every light. There are so many stupid drivers out there, he said angrily.

      Who gives him the right to shout at someone? Anger built inside me. “What if I shouted at my friends when they asked me for help?” I said. I looked out of the window, trying to catch my breath.

      “You know, Steph, I think you are going to be a psychologist(心理学家),” he said. I remembered the last time I tried to say something, he had fumed, “Don't tell me how to drive! If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it! Think about what you say before you talk.”

      Usually, he'd be angry that I would doubt his authority (权威), but this time, he accept what I had said. A sense of pride rose up in me. It had been a short drive, but it had been the best car ride of my life.

    There are three people in Yang Yang's family. They like different kinds of food. Yang Yang likes rice a lot. But she doesn't like chicken at all. Her father is from Shanxi. He doesn't like rice at all. He likes chicken and bread very much. Her mother is from Dalian. She doesn't like rice or bread at all. But she likes fish and vegetables a lot. They love each other and help each other.

    My name is Jack. When my family moved to America in 2014 from a small village in Guangdong, China, we brought not only our luggage, but also our village rules, customs as well as culture. One of the rules is that young people always respect elders. This rule, unfortunately, led to my very first embarrassment in America.

    I had a part-time job as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. One time, when I was serving food to a middle-aged couple, the wife asked me how the food could be served so quickly. I told her that I had made sure they got their food quickly because I always respect the elderly. As soon as I said that, her face showed great displeasure. My manager, who happened to hear what I said, took me aside and gave me a long lecture about how sensitive Americans are and how they dislike the description "old". I then walked back to the table and apologized to the wife. After the couple heard my reason, they understood that the problem was caused by cultural differences, so they laughed and were no longer angry.

    In my village, however, people are proud of being old. Not so many people live to be seventy or eighty, and people who reach such an age have the most knowledge and experience. Young people always respect older people because they know they can learn from their rich experience.

    However, in the United States, people think "growing old" is a problem since "old" shows that a person is going to retire or that the body is not working well. Here many people try to keep themselves away from growing old by doing exercises or jogging, and women put on makeup, hoping to look young. When I told the couple in the restaurant that I respect the elderly, they got angry because this caused them to feel they had failed to stay young. I had told them something they didn't want to hear.

    After that, I changed the way I had been with senior citizens. It is not that I don't respect them anymore; I still respect them, but now I don't show my feelings through words.