Silence is unnatural to man.He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness.In between he does all he can to make a noise in the world,and he fears silence more than anything else.Even his conversation is an attempt to prevent a fearful silence.If he is introduced to another person,and a number of pauses occur in the conversation,he regards himself as a failure,a worthless person,and is full of envy of the emptiest-headed chatterbox（喋喋不休的人）. He knows that ninety nine percent of human conversation means no more than the buzzing of a fly,but he is anxious to join in the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure（蜡塑人像）.

    The aim of conversation is not,for the most part,to communicate ideas;it is to keep up the buzzing sound.There are,it must be admitted,different qualities of buzz;there is even a buzz that is as annoying as the continuous noise made by a mosquito.But at a dinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a quiet person.Most buzzing, fortunately,is pleasant to the ear,and some of it is pleasant even to the mind.He would be a foolish man if he waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing with his neighbors.

    Those who hate to pick up the weather as a conversational opening seem to me not to know the reason why human beings wish to talk.Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new.Some of them are content if they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people's ears,though they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new plays or that they had food in a Swiss hotel.At the end of an evening,during which they have said nothing meaningful for a long time.They just prove themselves to be successful conservationists.

    This March is a busy month in Shanghai．There's a lot to do．Here are the highlights.

Live Music — Late Night Jazz

    Enjoy real American jazz from Herbie Davis, the famous trumpet player．He's coming with his new 7-piece band, Herbie's Heroes ． Herbie is known to play well into the early hours, so don't expect to get much sleep．This is Herbie's third visit to Shanghai．The first two were sold out, so get your tickets quickly.

PLACE: The Jazz Club DATES: 15—23 March

PRICE: ￥80,120        TIME: 10:00p.m．till late!

TEL: 6466—8736

Scottish dancing

    Take your partners and get ready to dance till you drop． Scottish dancing is fun and easy to learn．Instructors will demonstrate the dances．The live band, Gordon Stroppie and the Weefrees, are also excellent.

PLACE: Jack Stein's            DATES: every Monday

PRICE: Y60 including one drink TIME: 7:00 —0:00 p.m.

TEL: 6402-1877

Exhibitions — Shanghai Museum

    There are 120,000 pieces on show here．You can see the whole of Chinese history under one roof．It's always interesting to visit, but doubly(加倍地) so at the moment with the Egyptian Tombs exhibition．There are lots of mummies and more gold than you've ever seen before．Let us know if you see a mummy move!

PLACE: Shanghai Museum    PRICE: ￥30 (￥15 for students)

TEL: 6888-6888             DATES: daily

TIME: Monday — Friday 9:00a.m．— 5:00p.m., Weekends 9:00a.m. — 9:00p.m.

Dining — Sushi chef in town

    Sushi(寿司) is getting really big in Shanghai．In Japan, it's become an art form．The most famous Sushi "artist" is Yuki Kamura．She's also one of the few female chefs in Japan．She'll be at Sushi Scene all of this month.

PLACE: Sushi Scene in the Shanghai Hotel      DATES: all month

PRICE: ￥200         TIME: lunch time

TEL: 6690-3211

For a full listing of events, see our website.

    Some years ago, writing in my diary used to be a usual activity. I would return from school and spend the expected half hour recording the day's events, feelings, and impressions in my little blue diary. I did not really need to express my emotions by way of words, but I gained a certain satisfaction from seeing my experiences forever recorded on paper. After all, isn't accumulating memories a way of preserving the past?

    When I was thirteen years old, I went on a long journey on foot in a great valley, well-equipped with pens, a diary, and a camera. During the trip, I was busy recording every incident, name and place I came across. I felt proud to be spending my time productively, dutifully preserving for future generations a detailed description of my travels. On my last night there, I wandered out of my tent, diary in hand. The sky was clear and lit by the glare of the moon, and the walls of the valley looked threatening behind their screen of shadows. I automatically took out my pen…

    At that point, I understood that nothing I wrote could ever match or replace the few seconds I allowed myself to experience the dramatic beauty of the valley. All I remembered of the previous few days were the dull characterizations I had set down in my diary.

    Now, I only write in my diary when I need to write down a special thought or feeling. I still love to record ideas and quotations that strike me in books, or observations that are particularly meaningful. I take pictures, but not very often—only of objects I find really beautiful. I'm no longer blindly satisfied with having something to remember when I grow old. I realize that life will simply pass me by if I stay behind the camera, busy preserving the present so as to live it in the future.

    I don't want to wake up one day and have nothing but a pile of pictures and notes. Maybe I won't have as many exact representations of people and places； maybe I'll forget certain facts, but at least the experiences will always remain inside me. I don't live to make memories—I just live, and the memories form themselves.

    It took place at the Biltmore Hotel. My grandmother, my mother, and I were having lunch after a morning spent shopping. I gladly ordered a Salisbury steak. When brought to the table, it was accompanied by a plate of peas. I do not like peas now. I did not like peas then. I have always hated peas.

    “Eat your peas,” my grandmother said.

    “Mother,” said my mother in her warning voice. “He doesn't like peas. Leave him alone.”

    My grandmother did not reply, but leaned in my direction, looked me in the eye, and spoke out the fateful words that changed my life, “I'll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas.”

    I only knew that five dollars was a huge, nearly unimaginable amount of money, and awful as peas were, only one plate of them stood between me and the possession of that five dollars. I began to force them down my throat.

    My mother looked livid (铁青色的). My grandmother had a self-satisfied look and said, “I can do what I want, Ellen, and you can't stop me.” My mother glared at her mother. She glared at me. No one can glare like my mother. If there were a glaring Olympics, she would undoubtedly win the gold medal.

    I, of course, kept shoving peas down my throat, and every single pea made me want to throw up, but the magical image of the five dollars floated before me, and I finally swallowed every last one of them. My grandmother handed me the five dollars with satisfaction. My mother continued to glare in silence.

    That night, at dinner, my mother served two of my all-time favorite foods, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Along with them came a big, steaming bowl of peas. She offered me some peas, and of course I declined. My mother fixed me with a cold eye as she heaped（堆积) a huge pile of peas onto my plate. Then came the words that were to haunt (萦绕) me for years. “You ate them for money,” she said, “You can eat them for love.”

    People in the United States honor their parents with two special days： Mother's Day, on the second Sunday in May, and Father's Day, on the third Sunday in June. These days are set aside to show love and respect for parents. They raise their children and educate them to be responsible citizens. They give love and care. These two days make us think about the changing roles of mothers and fathers. More mothers now work outside the home. More fathers must help with child care.

    These two special days are celebrated in many different ways. On Mother's Day people wear carnations(康乃馨). A red one symbolizes a living mother. A white one shows that the mother is dead. Many people attend religious services to honor parents. It is also a day when people whose parents are dead visit the cemetery(墓地).On these days, families get together at home, as well as in restaurants. They often have outdoor barbecues for Father's Day. These are days of fun and good feelings and memories.

    Another tradition is to give cards and gifts. Children make them in school. Many people make their own presents. These are valued more than the ones bought in stores. It is not the value of the gift that is important, but it is “the thought that counts”. Greeting card stores, florists, candy makers, bakeries(烘焙店), telephone companies, and other stores do a lot of business during these holidays.

    You have probably heard of the Mozart effect. It's the idea that if children or even babies listen to music composed by Mozart, they will become more intelligent. A quick Internet search reveals plenty of products to assist you in the task. Whatever your age is there are CDs and books to help you taste the power of Mozart's music, but when it comes to scientific evidence that it can make you more clever, the picture is more mixed.

    The phrase "the Mozart effect" was made up in 1991, but it was a study described two years later in the journal Nature that sparked real media and public interest about the idea that listening to classical music somehow improves the brain. It is one of those ideas that sound reasonable. Mozart was undoubtedly a genius himself; his music is complex and there is a hope that if we listen to enough of it, we'll become more intelligent.

    The idea took off, with thousands of parents playing Mozart to their children, and in 1998 Zell Miller, the Governor of the state of Georgia in the US, even asked for money to be set aside in the state budget so that every newborn baby could be sent a CD of classical music. It was not just babies and children who were exposed to Mozart's music on purpose, even an Italian farmer proudly explained that the cows were played Mozart three times a day to help them produce better milk.

    I'll leave the debate on the impact on milk yield to farmers, but what about the evidence that listening to Mozart makes people more intelligent? More research was carried out but an analysis of sixteen different studies confirmed that listening to music does lead to a temporary improvement in the ability to handle shapes mentally, but the benefits are short-lived and it doesn't make us more intelligent.