Boom! A clap of thunder (一声霹雳) made the old house shake. Ramon stayed under his bed. A flash of lightning (一道闪电) lit up the room."I hate this house,"Ramon thought. It was his first night in his new home.

    The house had belonged to his grandma. It was very, very old. It looked really scary at night. The trees outside his windows looked like monsters (怪物) in the dark. Their branches (树枝) looked like long arms. They waved when the wind blew. The storm made everything even scarier. Ramon hated storms, and it seemed worse in the old house.

    Later the thunder became quieter. Ramon climbed into bed and fell asleep. When he woke up, the sun was shining through his windows. Ramon climbed out of bed.

    The trees outside didn't look like monsters anymore. The branches had nice green leaves growing on them. Ramon could see a bird sitting on one of the branches. It was singing a happy song. The yard looked pretty nice in the daylight. A stream (溪) ran across the yard. A swing hung from one of the trees. Many flowers grew next to the  tree.  Butterflies  flew  around  the flowers.

    "Maybe living here won't be so bad after all," Ramon thought.

    Once an old man who had four lazy sons fell sick and was counting his last days in bed. He was very worried about his sons' future because they always believed in luck {#blank#}1{#/blank#}of hard work.

    The old man decided to play a trick{#blank#}2{#/blank#} he died to make his sons realize the importance of work. He told them that he would leave them a treasure box {#blank#}3{#/blank#} gold coins and wanted them to share the treasure.

    The young men asked where his father had placed the treasure. The old man replied," I can't exactly remember{#blank#}4{#/blank#}place. However, the treasure is buried in our land."

    After a few days, the old man died. The sons decided to{#blank#}5{#/blank#}the land to find the treasure box. They worked very hard, but they couldn't find the box. They dug even{#blank#}6{#/blank#}, but they still got nothing.

    Later, one of their neighbors {#blank#}7{#/blank#} by and saw the loose (松的) soil. He suggested that the sons should turn it into a farm. Soon, good fruit and vegetables grew out of the land. The four sons sold them at a good{#blank#}8{#/blank#} and made lots of money.

    Then they realized that the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} box their father mentioned was hard work in fact. The father successfully played a trick to {#blank#}10{#/blank#} his sons how important it was to work hard. What a clever father!

As you walk down the street, an object falls from a tall building and {#blank#}1{#/blank#}you. Who should be responsible for this? Or maybe you try to help someone in danger, but you accidentally hurt the person. Will you get in trouble for this? China's Civil Code(《民法典》) will give you the  {#blank#}2{#/blank#}.

On May 28, the National People's Congress (全国人民代表大会) agreed China's first-ever Civil Code. With 1,260 articles, it is a collection of laws that is about personal issues, {#blank#}3{#/blank#}property (物权), marriage, family, personality rights, and inheritances (继承). It's like an encyclopedia (百科全书) for social life.

China does have laws that cover these issues. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} , all kinds of these laws are not unified. The Civil Code gathers them into one unified document and makes improvements. With the Civil Code, China hopes to set up a country under the rule of law with {#blank#}5{#/blank#} protection for civil rights.

One special thing about the code is the part about individual (个人的) rights. It's a major innovation (创新) to form the individual rights into one part alone. This part includes laws{#blank#}6{#/blank#} relate to one's body, health, name, image (肖像), and fame.

Some of the laws in this part deal with how new technology is{#blank#}7{#/blank#}.For example, people who use AI face swap (调换) tools to make videos may go against {#blank#}8{#/blank#} image rights. The laws also provide data protection rights relating to possible data leaks by tech companies.

As we know, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were several attempts to draft (起草) a civil code in 1954, 1962, 1979 and 2001. But the conditions {#blank#}9{#/blank#} not good enough. In 2015, China started to work on the present code and{#blank#}10{#/blank#} it after 5 years. This year, the code took effect on Jan. 1.

A TV programme has become popular in China recently. It has made people all over China become interested in writing Chinese characters （汉字）.

The increasing use of computers and smartphones has left most young people hardly able to write by hand. Many of them are even unable to remember the 1，000 characters used in daily life without the help of electronic equipment.

CCTV started Dictation Assembly of Chinese Characters to improve the population's handwriting skills. Contestants （参与者） on the show were school pupils， but it was found that 70% of the adults in the audience were unable to remember how to write the word "chanchu".

Because computers allow people to type characters simply by entering pinyin ，  they don't need to remember how to write them. "The keyboard age has had a big influence on the handwriting of Chinese characters，" Guan Zhengwen， who designed and directed the show， said. He added that he hoped to encourage people to keep it alive as an art form.

Hao Mingjian， an editor of a magazine， putting his heart into Chinese characters， said： "Learning Chinese characters goes on throughout your life. If you stop using them for a long time， it is very likely that you will forget them."

It was a cold winter morning. My 12-year-old granddaughter, Jayne, sent me messages on the phone every hour during her six-hour drive to our house.

"Grandma, can you put some snow in the fridge (冰箱)? That way, I can feel snow when I get there," she wrote. Jayne lives in the south of Georgia, the US with her parents, so she never saw snow before.

"Yes, I will," I wrote. "There is still some snow on the ground in the yard." And I sent her a few photos of it. However, the weather report brought me bad news. It said the weather would be sunny at noon. This made me feel concerned.

In the afternoon, they finally arrived. Jayne got out of the car first. She ran into the yard and put her hands in the snow. She looked so excited. It was great that the sun didn't come out that day.

"Grandma, the weather is so cold, but I enjoy playing with snow," Jayne said. Then she started to build a snowman. She made two large snowballs first. They were the head and the body. It looked nice. Jayne kept playing outside until her hands got wet and cold. Watching Jayne playing in the snow made me feel warm and thankful.

I still remember the lovely cold day. Small things in our lives can also make us happy.