When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings (缺点). Wee k by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasn't a good student, I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to hear all this as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.

    He listened to me quietly, then he asked. “Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn't you ever wonder what you're really like ? Well, you now have that girl's opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”

    I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn't change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I went to a fairly clear picture of myself.

    I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it. “That's just for you,” he said. “You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When something said about you is true, you'll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Don't shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”

    Daddy's advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I've never had a better piece of advice.

    I was born in Thailand, where I feel at home. I am used to jumping on to a song taow (red taxi), and squeezing (挤过) in between two strangers. I am used to bargaining at the market to get a shirt that I like. I love telling bilingual (双语的) jokes and I am used to the surprised looks I get from the Thais when I can speak their language fluently.

    Every two years my family goes to America for the summer, and every two years my world is turned upside down. The prices of everything are three times what they were in Thailand, but there is the sweet drink Dr. Pepper! And Bluebell Ice-cream! And everything you could imagine! I am amazed at it all, but the biggest change for me is the people. There are white people everywhere. I am not tall but average (中等的), my yellow hair is no longer out of place, and speaking English no longer draws looks. I should feel comfortable. I'm not out of place anymore, and nobody is looking at me, but I feel like they are. Now I feel out of place and different. I'm not used to giving people handshakes and hugs when I meet them for the first time. I get looks when I have trouble figuring out how much money to pay. I know different music, different places, and different fashion. I can't understand these people who have never left their town or city.

    Still, there are quite a few perks about living overseas. I get to meet people from all over the world, and I know how to adjust to (适应) different cultures and places. I have been to places most people see only in geography books. Still, being so different makes it hard to know who you are. I'm not Thai, but I am not American either. I am a mix of both cultures, a third culture kid.

    When we talk about famous UK writer Agatha Christie, it seems that her famous detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are must-reads. So, of course, are her best-selling novels Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Death on the Nile (1937).

But when the readers around the world were asked to name their favorite Christie novel to mark her 125th birthday on Sept 15, And Then There Were None (1939) topped the list, reported The Guardian.

    It may surprise you to learn that it is a crime novel without a detective. What it does have is suspense (n.悬念) and a very sinister (adj.邪恶的) atmosphere. It is “on a knife edge”, as Mathew Prichard, Christie's grandson, told the newspaper.

    Ten people get an invitation to come to a house on a small island near Devon in South West England. Nobody refuses these invitations since each one promises something the person wants: a job, a holiday, a chance to meet up again with an old friend.

    These people are all responsible for deaths. Some are directly responsible, others are responsible because of what they did not do. Anthony James Marston, for instance, killed two children while driving dangerously. He did not feel guilty and actually complained when he was banned from driving. Another, Emily Caroline Brent, is a harsh person who threw out a young servant for becoming pregnant while unmarried. The servant later killed herself.

    When they arrive at the house they are played a recording. The voice gives details of the wrongdoing of each of the guests. Starting with Marston, each is killed in a way that fits their crime. The series of deaths is completed with a hanging, “and then there were none”, as the title suggests.

    Christie can be quite a predictable writer. Some of her stories are a little unoriginal. But this book is full of clever writing. Look it up to find out what this hugely successful mystery writer, the “Queen of Crime” as she was called, could do at her best.

    Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach report in Psychological Science that a meal taken "family-style" from a central plate can greatly improve the outcome of later negotiations.

    Having conducted previous research in 2017 revealing that eating similar foods led to people feeling emotionally closer to one another, Dr Woolley and Dr Fishbach wondered whether the way in which food was served also had a psychological effect. They theorized that, on the one hand, sharing food with other people might indicate food scarcity（短缺）and increase a feeling of competition. However, they also reasoned that it could instead lead people to become more aware of others' needs and drive cooperative behavior as a result. Curious to find out, they did a series of experiments.

    For the first test they recruited 100 pairs of participants from a local cafe, none of whom knew each other. The participants were seated at a table and fed tortilla chips with salsa. Half the pairs were given their own basket of 20 grams of chips and a bowl of 25 grams of salsa, and half were given 40 grams of chips and 50 grams of salsa to share. As a cover for the experiment, all participants were told this snack was to be consumed before the game began.

    The game asked the participants to negotiate an hourly wage rate during a fictional strike. Each person was randomly assigned to represent the union or management and follow a set of rules.

    The researchers measured cooperation by noting the number of rounds it took to reach an agreement, and found that those who shared food resolved the strike significantly faster（in 8. 7rounds）than those who did not（13.2 rounds）. A similar experiment was conducted with 104

participants and Goldfish crackers（饼干）, this time negotiating an airline's route prices. The results were much the same, with the food-sharers negotiating successfully 63. 3%of the time and those who did not share doing so 42. 9%of the time.

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