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    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.

    The Leaning Tower of Pisa was straight like a pole when the construction began in 1173. It started to shift direction soon after construction because of poor foundation in addition to the loose layer of subsoil(底土). At the beginning, it leaned to the southeast before the shaky foundation started to shift leaning towards the southwest. After the period of structural strengthening at the beginning of the 21^st century, now the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees.

    In 1178, the shift in direction was observed for the first time when the construction had progressed further to the third floor. The tower was heavy for the three-meter foundation that was built on a weak area of land.

    For compensating(补偿) the leaning position, the builders started to construct the upper floors with one side higher than the other one. This caused the tower to lean in the other direction. This unusual structure led to the tower being actually curved. In spite of these efforts, the tower kept on leaning.

    The government of Italy started to plan prevention of the complete collapse of the tower in 1964. However, a request was put forward by the authorities to keep the leaning position because of the tourism industry of the region.

    After nearly two decades of careful planning by engineers, historians and mathematicians, the stabilization efforts for the Leaning Tower of Pisa started in 1990. The tower was closed for the general public and the people living nearby moved away. For reducing the total weight of the tower, its seven bells which represented the seven musical notes were removed. The tower was reopened for the general public on December 15, 2001.

    In May 2008, after removing another 70 metric tons of earth, the engineers announced that the tower had been finally stabilized and it would remain stable for at least 200 years.

    The Pacific island nation of Nauru used to be a beautiful place. Now it is an ecological disaster area. Nauru's heartbreaking story could have one good consequence — other countries might learn from its mistakes.

    For thousands of years, Polynesian people lived the remote island of Nauru, far from western civilization. The first European to arrive was John Fearn in 1798. He was the British captain of the Hunter, a whaling ship. He called the island Pleasant Island.

    However, because it was very remote, Nauru had little communication with Europeans at first. The whaling ships and other traders began to visit, bringing guns and alcohol. These elements destroyed the social balance of the twelve family groups on the island. A ten-year civil war started, which reduced the population from 1,400 to 900.

    Nauru's real troubles began in 1899 when a British mining company discovered phosphate (磷酸盐)on the island. In fact, it found that the island of Nauru was nearly all phosphate, which a very important fertilizer for farming. The company began mining the phosphate.

    A phosphate mine is not a hole in the ground; it is a strip mine. When a company strip-mines, it removes the top layer of soil. Then it takes away the material it wants. Strip mining totally destroys the land. Gradually, the lovely island of Nauru started to look like the moon.

    In 1968, Nauru became one of the richest countries in the world. Every year the government received millions and millions of dollars for its phosphate.

    Unfortunately, the leaders invested the money unwisely and lost millions of dollars. In addition, they used millions more dollars for personal expenses. Soon people realized that they had a terrible problem — their phosphate was running out. Ninety percent of their island was destroyed and they had nothing. By 2000, Nauru was financially ruined. Experts say that it would take approximately $433,600,000 and more than 20 years to repair the island. This will probably never happen.

    Here's an interesting fact: Every teenager American seems to have, at some point, appeared drunk or rude online. This generation didn't invent stupidity, of course; it's just the first to post the picture online the entire world to see. And that's the rub: Employers are getting clever at looking you up online. They look at what people post and wonder. Is that new salesperson, the one who made a strange face on collegehumor.com,likely to do the same at a conference?”

    Anything that you put online is public information. This should seem pretty obvious to the generation who grew up on these sites, right? But it's not. When it comes to the Net, young people tend to fell for two traps. One:“ Many of them believe it's truly private, and they'll determine who gets to sec what, and it will stop there.” Wrong! And two: “Their sense of what things will be like in the next stage of their life is not realistic.”

    So what do you do about that picture? Take it down! But what if it is now on other sites? After all, a friend can post your photo elsewhere, and from there, it can be posted on another site. This problem is so common that a new industry has appeared: identity management, which helps people remove embarrassing material.

    The new industry serves to remind us that we've got to be careful out there. Most of us have got drunk or done something we regret. But putting it online is another matter. And for some, it's even become an addiction, one with a nickname: Crackspace. Young or old, students and managers alike turn into exhibitions, putting every aspect of their lives on public display(展示).

    Yes, it can be great fun. But should those of us posting pictures of ourselves dancing in our underwear be given a good comment? In a forgiving, kindly environment, yes. But what about in a business environment? Well, you decide.

    Every year in America, high-school students who want to go to college take a national examination called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT in a shortened way. Their score is an important factor in determining which colleges will admit them or whether any will be admitted at all. The Scholastic Aptitude Test measures one's mathematical ability and use of the English language. Traditionally, the English portion (部分) involved grammatical questions and paragraphs that test reading comprehension.

    But the SAT folks have added a single question, to be answered in an essay, hand-written on the spot. That's an interesting way to test writing ability, put content aside, have you ever seen young people's handwriting lately? Or anyone's for that matter, in this age of computer keyboards? Students write numbers and sign their names on bank checks.

    They scribble class notes in what can generously be described as the written word. And they hand-write, or more often print, a word or two of identification on luggage and lunch bags. Otherwise penmanship (书法) - once taught so morally and easefully by second-grade teachers, has gone the way of the dodo bird which has died out.

    Yet today's kids are asked to write, thoughtfully and legibly (字迹清楚地),for several minutes on this SAT Test. Good luck to the text scorers who must work out difficultly the scrawl of young people who've been typing on computers since the age of three! Teachers insist that good handwriting can not only help one's score on the SAT, but also, later on in life, impress potential employers and earn bigger tax refunds (退税) because the tax inspectors can actually read the computations (计算结果). And don't forget, we all have to turn to handwriting from time to time, as computers go down when power goes out.

    Then how to improve the handwriting? Well, with a few simple steps you can improve your handwriting.

    PositiQn the pen. You should hold the pen between the forefinger and the thumb, then rest it near the first knuckle(指节)of the middle finger. The rest of your fingers should be curled(卷曲)under your hand and your hand should remain relaxed.

    Evaluate your writing. Make changes to your letters till you like how they look. Take your time. Speed is bound to make your writing messy-looking.

    Practice. Practice it a lot; it's not enough to do it once and hope for the best. It has to be something you work at to make great improvements.

This winter, the U. S. state of California received unusually large amounts of rain and snow. Now, people worry that some areas will flood as the snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains melts (融化).

Ron Caetano lives about half-way between the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. He is preparing to leave in case his community, called the Island District, floods.

More than 100 years ago, the Island District area was under a large lake named Tulare Lake. At one time, Tulare Lake was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. But reservoirs (水库) and watering systems for agriculture caused it to disappear. However, in very rainy years, farmland can still get covered with water.

Experts say reservoirs near the area will likely receive three times more water than they can hold this year. That means officials must increase the amount of water they release (释放) from the reservoirs. If too much water is released, the area might flood.

The Island District has organized a community network to help prepare for floods. People are placing sandbags close to elderly neighbors' houses to block possible flooding. And they are looking at reports from water officials, county officials, and from each other.

California has had very dry weather in recent years. Both cities and farm communities acclaimed this year's winter rains. If the weather gets warmer slowly, the snow will not melt quickly and there may be little or no flooding. But if the weather gets hot quickly, that will bring trouble from too much melting snow.

Officials announced plans to close parts of Yosemite National Park because of threats of flooding. The park is about 270 kilometers east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Nicholas Pinter is with the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He said the lake's size has always changed because of California's weather. He described the surrounding area this way. "It has been an engineering problem all along," he said. "This is a bathtub (浴缸) with no way out."