Every morning, a woman baked bread for her and her family and an extra piece for a hungry passer-by. She would always put the extra piece of bread on the window sill.

    She noticed that a hunchback(驼背)came every day and took the extra piece. Instead of saying thanks to her, he would say, “The bad you do remains with you. The good you do comes back to you!"

    This went on, day after day. Finally, the woman got very angry. ”He is so impolite!” she said to herself.

    One day, she added some poison to the piece of bread she prepared for him! When she was about to put the piece of bread on the window sill, she stopped. “What am I doing?” she said. Immediately, she threw the bread into the fire, prepared another one and put it on the window sill.

As usual, the hunchback came, picked up the bread and said those words to her.

    That evening, there was a knock on the door. It was the woman's son, hungry and weak.

    Looking at his mother he said, “Mom, I was too hungry to walk any further a mile away. But just then, an old hunchback was kind enough to give me a piece of bread.”

    Then the woman realized the meaning of the words, “The bad you do remains with you. The good you do comes back to you!”

    I was 8 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1993, but I can remember my mother's words as if it were yesterday. “Jessica, I don't want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”

    AIDS wasn't something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 11, his condition worsened. My father's other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.

    We couldn't afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work. I had no money for school supplies and often couldn't even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher's words muffled as I was thinking how I was going to manage.

    I didn't share my burden (负担) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cruel. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside even though he was too weak to feed himself.

    I had known that he was going to die. But after so many years of keeping his condition a secret, I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit (非营利的) National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who cared. She saved my life.

    I was 14 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn't want to call attention to AIDS. I do.

    There were two fishermen named Tom and Jack. They were close pals. One day they went out to catch fish together and have a fish meal in the field. They sat at a distance and started hunting for fish. Tom got a big and beautiful fish in a few minutes. He was so happy and placed the fish in the ice box. He decided to cook the fish in the noon. He spent some more time and caught a few more fish. He decided to make a grand meal with the fish. Also, he froze a few fish to take them back home.

    After an hour or so, Tom went to Jack to see if he needed any help. Jack said no. In a few minutes, Jack caught a large fish. However, he put it back into the lake. Tom was surprised at his act, but he remained silent. Jack caught more big fish, and put them all back into the lake. Very frustrated, Tom angrily asked him, "Are you mad? Why do you put your fish back into the water? They are beautiful and big!" Jack replied, I know they are big, but I don't have the big pan(锅) to cook the big fish! So I'm looking for a smaller fish that fits my cooking pan! God is troubling me today."

    Hello, I am Linda. I am from Class 1, Grade 7. My Chinese teacher is Miss Zhou. She comes from Shanghai. She is very thin. She likes reading. My math teacher is Mr. Chen. He is strong. He is good at swimming and running. My English teacher is Miss Li. She has long hair. She is friendly. She likes playing the piano. Mr. Wang teaches us PE. He is very tall. He likes playing basketball and volleyball very much. He often plays volleyball with us on the playground.

    They say that "travel is the best teacher" and there is no better example of this idea than the Ming dynasty travel writer and geographer Xu Xiake (1587-1641). His book The Travel Notes of Xu Xiake, not only encouraged a love of travelling among Chinese people but provided important scientific information about the country's land and geography.

    Born into a wealthy Jiangyin family, Xu became interested in books about different places at anearly age and wanted to travel. When he was 18, however. Xu's father died and so, it seemed, did his travelling dreams. He now was responsible for the family farm and taking care of his 60-year-old mother as tradition required.

    But his mother had different ideas. Understanding her son, slove of travel and valuing the knowledge he could get from such experiences, this modern-thinking woman refused to keep her son at home. She agreed that Xu could travel for three months every year, when there was less farm work.

    So at the age of twenty and with his mother's support, Xu set off for the first time, leaving behind not only his mother but his new wife as well. He would repeat this goodbye each year for most of the next 30 years. During this time, he travelled throughout the Ming kingdom, carefully studying the lands he passed through and recording his experiences and many discoveries in a diary. This diary, which once had over 500,000 words, would eventually become The Travel Notes of Xu Xiake.

    Although rich, Xu avoided comfortable travel, preferring to go almost everywhere on foot. This way he could research the environment in detail and get a true picture of the natural world. Many of his trips were to hard-to-reach mountain areas, and through wild forests where few people lived. His willingness to face hardships came at a cost however. Progress was slow and tiring and he was frequently sick, robbed and beaten during his journeys

    Sadly Xu became seriously ill during his last and longest journey, a 4-year trip through the Southwest of China. He died in 1641, soon after returning to his hometown for the last time. When his diary was finally printed years after his death, much of it had been destroyed or lost. Although incomplete, it still made Xu a travelling legend around the world.