C

    A young man once went into town and bought himself a pair of trousers. When he got home, he went to his bedroom and put them on. He found that they were about two inches too long. He went to the kitchen. His mother and sisters were washing up the tea things there. "The new trousers are too long," he said. "They need shortening by about two inches. Could one of you do it for me, please?" His mother and sisters were busy and none of them said anything.
    After his mother finished washing up, she went to her son's bedroom and shortened the trousers by two inches.

    Later on, after supper, the elder sister remembered her brother's trousers. She was a kind-hearted girl, so she went quickly to his brother's bedroom without saying anything to anyone, and shortened the trousers by two inches. The younger sister went to the cinema, but when she came home, she also remembered her brother's trousers. "I nearly forgot that." She thought. Then she shortened them by two inches.
    The younger sister went to the cinema，but when she came back，she，too，remembered what her brother had said．So she ran upstairs and took two inches off the legs of the new trousers．

    Peter Owen has been making wigs (假发) since the 1980s. He has made wigs for the stars of more than seventy movies, including Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow, and Nicole Kidman in The Others. One of his biggest jobs so far has been designing the hair and make-up(化妆) for the three Lord of the Rings movies. He had just six weeks to design and make more than a hundred wigs, each one a different style, colour, shape and length.

    The hair and make-up in a movie are just as important as the costumes(戏装) or the sets. Over the years, Peter has made actors look older, younger, healthy and sick. For one movie he even made a female actor look like a man!“What people don't realize about wigs is that we are not always making people more beautiful,” he says. “Often we are covering up beauty and making them look ordinary.”

    All Peter's wigs are hand-made using human hair, so they look as real as possible. This also makes them very expensive―between US$4,500 and US$12,500 each! He knows he's done a good job when people don't realize the star of the movie is wearing a wig. So he was pleased when one newspaper said that Nicole Kidman had dyed（染色） her hair dark brown for a movie. “It was a wig and no one knew that,” he says.

C

    Today is Children's Day. There is a show in the zoo. Many children are in the zoo. Look at the animals. They are so cute. The birds are flying and singing in the sky. The tigers are running. The pandas are climbing trees. They are good climbers. The kangaroos are jumping. Look at the mother elephant and the baby elephant. The mother elephant is eating bananas and the baby elephant is drinking water with its trunk. Look，what are those? They are two lions. They are playing with a ball. And the monkeys are swinging.

    It's the Chinese New Year today. Sam gets a red packet from his grandma. That's his favourite part of the festival. He gets four dollars and goes shopping in Chinatown.

    There are a lot of interesting things on the streets — fireworks, lion dances and delicious foods. Then Sam sees an old man. The man sleeps in the street. He doesn't wear shoes. “He doesn't have a home. What a poor man!” Sam thinks.

    At a toy shop, Sam wants to buy a toy Monkey King. But it's six dollars. Sam wants to go back home and get more money. On the way, he sees the old man again. “Why not give the four dollars to him? He can use the lucky money to buy some hot food and drinks,” Sam thinks.

    He gives the money to the old man and goes back home. His grandma knows his story and gives him a big hug (拥抱). What a good boy!

    Life may be boring in Melbourne for people who enjoy exciting nightlife. Shops here often close at 6 p.m. and there are no places to go at night. But things were different this summer, as the Victoria Night Market recently opened!

    I went to the market at 7 p.m.. The smoky smell of kebabs(烤肉串) created a nice summer atmosphere(氛围). DJs on the stage played songs and the streets were packed with people. At that time, I thought I returned to China.

    I went to a stall(摊位) with bright red and orange decorations. A sign with the words "typical(典型的) Spanish" hung at the front of the stall. The dishes in front of me were confusing(困惑的), because I had never tried Spanish food before. A woman at the stall smiled, pointed at some food and said: "You can try this seafood rice. It's a very typical Spanish dish. Unlike Chinese fried rice, the rice was as orange as the stall's decorations. I tried it. I found that it was quite delicious as soon as I put it into my mouth.

    I spent 50 Australian dollars in total, but I got to taste Greek meatballs, Thai noodles and a Brazilian burger. I'm glad that the Victoria Market offers so many great foods from every corner of the world!

    My great-grandmother, Ethel, came from England to the United States in 1921. She brought almost nothing with her-just a few clothes and trinkets(小饰物). But she did bring some customs from "the old country" that she had learned as she grew up.

    One custom was that if you dropped a glass or a cup and it broke, you would throw a little salt over your left shoulder. It was funny that she did that-she wasn't superstitious(迷信的) in other ways. I think that she grew up doing that, so she continued to do it as a connection to her childhood.

    Ethel also taught us a New Year's Day custom that our family continues to follow today. To celebrate the new year, we would travel to a friend's house for a quick visit. My great-grandmother always took a pound of butter with her on our visits. We would enter the friend's house through the back door. The butter we brought was to give our friend a "gift of gold" to symbolize hope for prosperity in the new year.

    After my great-grandmother died, we still visited people on the first day of January, but eventually we stopped bringing the butter. We never did throw salt over our shoulders after breaking a glass or a cup. Some customs are continued when they cross from one country to another, but some customs fade away.