阅读理解

    The kindly “Chinese Fortune Grandpa” wearing Han Chinese clothing and holding a fortune bag debuted(亮相) at the Imperial Ancestral Shrine in Beijing on the day after Christmas. The final image of the Chinese gift-giver was selected through a global design competition that cost millions of yuan. Its debut seems to be a sign of competition against “Santa Claus”, according to a report by Guangming Daily.

    Many Chinese cities have been filled with Christmas neon lights, Christmas songs, Christmas trees, and the images of “Santa Claus” in recent days. As a matter of fact, foreign festivals are becoming more popular than certain traditional Chinese festivals among the Chinese people, particularly the youth. “Certain traditional festivals have died out because people have forgotten their spiritual meanings,” said noted writer Feng Jicai. More and more Chinese people are beginning to exchange gifts on Valentine's Day and Christmas. However, many of them know nothing about Chinese New Year pictures or sugarcoated figurines(小糖人), and have never heard suona music. Certain folk customs on the Dragon Boat Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day, and other traditional festivals have gradually disappeared. Under such circumstances, even the “Chinese Fortune Grandpa” is unlikely to defeat “Santa Claus”.

    However, it is not a bad thing to some extent. It constantly reminds people to restore the “true face” of traditional festivals. China has listed traditional Tomb Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival as legal holidays, which brings more paid leaves to the public, and helps to awaken the public awareness of traditional festivals.

    In modern society, festival is a carrier of culture and its meaning largely depends on their understandings and usages by people. Compared with foreign festivals, traditional Chinese festivals are not inferior(次于) in cultural meanings, but lack of fashion sought by modern people. If people do not appreciate the historical culture contained by traditional festivals, and only take pleasure-seeking as the most important, the significance of traditional festivals will fade away and the inheritance(继承) of fine traditional culture will be cut off.

    You may know the English letters A, B and C. But do you know there are people called ABC? You may like eating bananas. But did you know there is such thing as a “banana person”? How strange! Are these people from “another earth”? No. They are just Chinese people like you and me.

    ABC means American-born Chinese. An ABC is a Chinese, but was born in the United States. Sometimes, people call an ABC a “banana person”. A banana is yellow outside and white inside. So, when a person is a banana, he or she is white inside-thinking like a Westerner and yellow outside-looking like a Chinese.

    Do you know why? Usually, ABCs know little about China or the Chinese language. Some of them don't speak Chinese. Also, they are not interested in Chinese politics.

    But if ABCs cannot speak Chinese, can we still call them Chinese people? Yes, of course. They are Chinese. They are overseas (海外的) Chinese. These people may be citizens(公民) of another country like the US, Canada or Singapore. But they have Chinese blood. Their parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were from China. They all have black eyes and black hair. But they are not Chinese citizens. They are not people of the People's Republic of China. For example, we all know the famous scientist C. N. Yang (杨振宁). He got the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957. Chinese people love him. But he is an American citizen.

    My elder brother Steve, in the absence of my father who died when I was six, gave me important lessons in values that helped me grow into an adult.

    For instance, Steve taught me to face the results of my behavior. Once when I returned in tears from a Saturday baseball game, it was Steve who took the time to ask me what happened. When I explained that my baseball had soared through Mrs. Holt's basement window, breaking the glass with a crash, Steve encouraged me to apologize to her. After all, I should have been playing in the park down Fifth Street and not in the path between buildings. Although my knees knocked as I explained to Mrs. Holt, I offered to pay for the window from my pocket money if she would return my ball. I also learned from Steve that personal property(财产) is a sacred thing. After I found a shiny silver pen in my fifth-grade classroom, I wanted to keep it, but Steve explained that it might be important to someone else in spite of the fact that it had little value. He reminded me of how much I'd hate to lose to someone else the small dog my father carved from a piece of cheap wood. I returned the pen to my teacher, Mrs. Davids, and still remembered the smell of her perfume as she patted me on the shoulder. Yet of all the instructions Steve gave me, his respect for life is the most vivid in my mind.

    When I was twelve, I killed an old brown sparrow in the yard with a BB gun. Excited with my skill, I screamed to Steve to come from the house to take a look. I shall never forget the way he stood for a long moment and stared at the bird on the ground. Then in a dead, quiet voice, he asked, “Did it hurt you first, Mark?” I didn't know what to answer. He continued with his eyes firm, “The only time you should even think of hurting a living thing is when it hurts you first. And then you think a long, long time.” I really felt terrible then, but that moment stands out as the most important lesson my brother taught me.

China is a land of bicycles. At least it was back in 1992 when I traveled the country. Back then everyone seemed to be riding a bicycle. Millions of them，all black. Cars were rare. Yet since my arrival in Beijing last year，I've found the opposite is true. There are millions of cars. However，people still use their bicycles to get around. For many，it's the easiest and cheapest way to travel today. Bicycles also come in different colors—silver，green，red，blue，yellow，whatever you want.

    It's fun watching people biking. They rush quickly through crossroads，move skillfully through traffic，and ride even on sidewalks（人行道）.Bicycles allow people the freedom to move about that cars just can't provide.

    Eager to be part of this aspect of Chinese culture，I decided to buy a bicycle. Great weather accompanied my great buy. I immediately jumped up on my bicycle seat and started home.

    My first ride home was orderly（守秩序的）．To be safe，I stayed with a “pack”of bikers while cars on the streets came running swiftly out of nowhere at times.I didn't want to get hit. So I took the ride carefully.

    Crossing the streets was the biggest problem. It was a lot like crossing a major highway back in the United States. The streets here were wide，so crossing took time，skill and a little bit of luck.

    I finally made it home. The feeling on the bicycle was amazing. The air hitting my face and going through my hair was wonderful. I was sitting on top of the world as I passed by places and people. Biking made me feel alive.

    Trees are useful to man in three important ways: they give him wood and other useful things, they give him cool places, and they help to stop drought and flood.

    Unluckily, in many parts of the world, man has not found that the third of these points is the most important. Man wants to make money from trees, so he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had. And also, he is usually too careless to plant and look after new trees. So the forests slowly disappear.

    This does not only mean that man will have fewer trees. The results are even worse: for where there are trees, their roots break up soil-make the rain in-and also bind the soil, thus stopping it from being washed away easily; but where there are no trees, the rain falls on hard ground and flows away, causing floods and carrying away the rich top-soil. When all the top-soil is gone, nothing is left but useless desert.

    An 80-year-old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45-year-old son. Suddenly a crow (乌鸦) landed on their window.

    The father asked his son, "What is that?"

    The son replied, "That is a crow."

    After a few minutes, the father asked his son for the second time, "What is this?"

    The son said, "Father, I told you just now. It's a crow."

    After a little while, the father asked his son the same question for the third time, "What is this?"

    This time, the son said to his father in a low and cold tone, "It's a crow, a crow."

    After a moment, the father yet again asked his son for the fourth time, "What is this?"

    This time his son shouted at his father, "Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again? I have told you already, ‘IT IS A CROW'. Are you not able to understand this?"

    A minute later the father went to his room and came back with a diary, which he had kept since his son was born. On opening a page, he asked his son to read that page.

    Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa when a crow suddenly landed on the window edge. My son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied him 23 times that it was a crow. I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question. I didn't at all feel angry, but instead felt affection for my son.

    If your parents reach old age, do not look at them as a burden, but speak to them gently, and be kind to them. From today say this aloud, "I want to see my parents happy forever. They have cared for me ever since I was a little child. They have always showered me with love. I will take care of my old parents in the best way no matter how they behave."