One day, I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physical problem, while the student claimed a perfect score. I was elected as their arbiter（仲裁人）. I read the examination problem: “Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer（气压计）. ”The student had answered; "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of it is the height of the building.”

    The student had really answered the question completely, but the answer didn't confirm his competence in physics. I suggested the student try again. I gave him six minutes to answer the question, warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. Five minutes later, he said he had many answers and dashed off one, which read：“Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, use the physical formula（公式）to calculate the height of the building.”

    At this point, my colleague had to accept it, and then the student made almost full marks. I couldn't help asking the student what the other answers were. He listed many others, and then added, "Probably the best is to take the barometer to the administrator and said to him, ‘Sir, here is a fine barometer. If you tell me the height of the building, I will give it to you.”,

    Then, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

    The name of the student was Bohr who later was famous all over the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.

    Two thieves came to a house to steal something, they dug a hole in the wall of the house.

    There lived many mice in the house. The woman in the moonlight saw a mouse crawl (爬行) into the house. “Look! In comes one,” she said to the man in the house. He was so frightened that he hurriedly crawled out of the house and said to the one waiting outside, “She found me when I was just in.” But the thief outside didn't believe him, so he said, “Let us two try to crawl into the house together.” At that time two mice happened to crawl into the house, too. The woman saw the mice and shouted, “In come two, catch them!” The two thieves were terribly frightened. The man in the house said, “You saw them come in but where are they? I will catch them tonight.” The two thieves started running away at once.

    The two thieves wanted to make it clear whether they had been found or not the night before. The next day they acted as men selling sweet potatoes and came before the house. The man and the woman were ploughing in their fields. The rein (缰绳) broke and the woman came home for a rope. She saw two men selling sweet potatoes and wanted to buy some. She picked out two which looked like mice. At the time the man couldn't wait for her any longer in the fields and he ran back from the fields to hurry her up. The woman showed the sweet potatoes to the man and said, “How they look like the two of last night.” The man said, “I asked you to fetch a rope, why don't you hurry for it?” The two thieves ran away very quickly without their sweet potatoes.

    Jimmy is an automotive mechanic, but he lost his job a few months ago. He has good heart, but always feared applying for a new job.

    One day, he gathered up all his strength and decided to attend a job interview. His appointment was at 10 am and it was already 8:30. While waiting for a bus to the office where he was supposed to be interviewed, he saw an elderly man wildly kicking the tyre of his car. Obviously there was something wrong with the car. Jimmy immediately went up to lend him a hand. When Jimmy finished working on the car, the old man asked him how much he should pay for the service. Jimmy said there was no need to pay him: he just helped someone in need, and he had to rush for an interview. Then the old man said, “Well, I could take you to the office for your interview. It's the least I could do. Please. I insist.” Jimmy agreed.

    Upon arrival, Jimmy found a long line of applications waiting to be interviewed Jimmy still had some grease on him after the car repair, but he did not have much time to wash it off or have a change of shirt. One by one, the applicants left the interviewer's office with disappointed look on their face. Finally his name was called. The interviewer was sitting on a large chair facing the office window. Rocking the chair back and forth, he asked. “Do you really need to be interviewed?” Jimmy's heart sank. “With the way I look now, how could I possibly pass this interview?” he thought to himself.

    Then the interviewer turned the chair and to Jimmy's surprise, it was the old man he helped earlier in the morning. It turned out he was the General Manager of the company

    “Sorry I had to keep you waiting, but I was pretty sure I made the right decision to have you as part of our workforce before you even stepped into the office. I just know you'd be a trustworthy worker. “Congratulations!” Jimmy sat down and they shared a cup of well-deserved coffee as he landed himself a new job.

    It's pleased to receive gifts from your loved ones. I have received many Christmas gifts over the years. But the best gift I ever received was presented to me by a stranger. I never even knew his name and I only had contact with him for less than 60 seconds. His Christmas present to me changed the way I had thought about people and Christmas.

    It was several years ago when my wife asked me to meet her at the local department store on Black Friday morning. They had advertised a child's bike that she wanted to purchase for our son. We stood with a very large crowd, waiting for the manager to blow the whistle. After a while, the whistle blew. It was like throwing a bucket of fish into a tank of sharks. I told my wife that if we obtained a bike, fine, but if we did not, I was OK with that too.

    As the shelf of bikes began to gradually decrease in size, I saw my polite opportunity to wrap my hands around the corner of one of the boxes. I lifted it off the box and suddenly felt some mild resistance. I looked up to see one of the largest gentlemen I had ever seen in my life. Threat was not the word to describe his presence. He was decorated with numerous belts of metal pointed leather around both arms and even his neck. Tattoos (文身) were an obvious passion of his.

    I started to return anxiously the box but he gently pushed it back in my direction and back into my hands. He then directed it into my shopping cart. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Merry Christmas.” My wife and I went to the checkout, paid for the bike and went home. All the way home I was thinking that this moment was by far the best Christmas gift I had ever received. The kindness of a stranger that broke all previous views I may have had of stereotypes and prejudices. I will never forget the tenderness of a human heart in a simple act.

    After I was married and had lived in Japan for while, my Japanese gradually improved to the point where I could take part in simple conversations with my husband and his friends and family. And I began to notice that often, when I joined in, the others would look surprised, and the conversational topic would come to a stop. After this happened several times, it became clear to me that I was doing something wrong. But for a long time, I didn't know what it was.

    Finally, after listening carefully to many Japanese conversations, I discovered what my problem was. Even though I was speaking Japanese, I was handling the conversation in a Western way.

    A Western-style conversation between two people is like a game of tennis. If I introduce a topic, a conversational ball, I expect you to hit it back. If you agree with me, I don't expect you simply to agree and do nothing more. I expect you to add something-a reason for agreeing, another example, or a detailed explanation to carry the idea further. But I don't expect you always to agree. I am just as happy if you question me, or challenge me, or completely disagree with me. Whether you agree or disagree, your response will return the ball to me.

    A Japanese-style conversation, however, is not at all like tennis or volleyball. It's like bowling. You wait for your turn. And you always know your place in line. It depends on such things as whether you are older or younger, a close friend or a relative stranger to the previous speaker, in a senior or junior position, and so on.

    When your turn comes, you step up to the starting line with your bowling ball and carefully bowl it. Everyone else stands back and watches politely, murmuring encouragement. Everyone waits until the ball has reached the end of the alley（球场）and watches to see if it knocks down all the pins, or only some of them, or none of them. There is a pause, while everyone registers your score.

    Then, after everyone is sure that you have completely finished your turn, the next person in line steps up to the same starting line, with a different ball. He doesn't return your ball, and he does not begin from where your ball stopped. And there is always a suitable pause between turns. There is no rush, no scramble for the ball.

    If you have been trained all your life to play one game, it is no simple matter to switch to another, even if you know the rules. Knowing the rules is not at all the same thing as playing the game.