A guiding principle for master cellist Yo-Yo Ma is that “the intersection(交汇) of cultures is where new things appear.” Certainly his biography is an intersection of cultures. He was born to Chinese parents in Paris, France; both his parents were musicians. When he was seven, his family moved to the United States. Gifted for his age, Ma attended Juilliard, the world famous music institute. He then chose to earn a liberal arts degree at Harvard rather than focusing only on music.

    Even in his earliest performing years, Yo-Yo Ma had a strong belief that it was important to share music with all kinds of people. Stories are told about how he once performed in the hallway of a large building for people who were unable to get tickets to his concert. He remained interested in making music accessible to diverse audiences and furthered his interest in different cultures when he visited the Bushmen of the Kalahari. He developed a vehicle to further these ideals when he founded the Silk Road Project.

    As he has said, the Silk Road is a metaphor(隐喻) for a number of things: as the Internet of ancient times, the routes were used for trade, by religious people, adventurers, scientists, storytellers. Everything from algebra to Islam moved along the Silk Road. It's the local-global thing. In the cultural world, you want to make sure that voices don't get lost, that rich traditions continue to live, without becoming common.

    This lesson explores the philosophy behind Yo-Yo Ma's founding of the Silk Road Ensemble(乐团), his belief that the arts, and particularly music, can make the world better, and that through cooperation, one can both preserve tradition and shape cultural evolution. Students also explore their own attitudes toward the arts, writing reflective essays on how the arts have played a role in their own lives.

    I arrived at my mother's home for our Monday family dinner. The smells of food flew over from the kitchen. Mother was pulling out quilt (被子) after quilt from the boxes, proudly showing me their beauties. She was preparing for a quilt show at the Elmhurst Church. When we began to fold and put them back into the boxes, I noticed something at the bottom of one box. I pulled it out. “What is this?” I asked.

    “Oh?” Mom said, “That's Mama's quilt.”

    I spread the quilt. It looked as if a group of school children had pieced it together; irregular designs, childish pictures, a crooked line on the right.

    “Grandmother made this?” I said, surprised. My grandmother was a master at making quilts. This certainly didn't look like any of the quilts she had made.

    “Yes, right before she died. I brought it home with me last year and made some changes, she said. “I'm still working on it. See, this is what I've done so far.”

    I looked at it more closely. She had made straight a crooked line. At the center of the quilt, she had stitched (缝) a piece of cloth with these words: “My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished. Her last quilt.”

    “Oh, this is so nice, Mom,” I said. It occurred to me that by completing my grandmother's quilt, my mother was honoring her own mother. I realized, too, that I held in my hands a family treasure. It started with the loving hands of one woman, and continued with the loving hands of another.

    Residents in the poorest counties in the U.S. face a life expectancy up to decade shorter than their counterparts in the wealthiest areas, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

    Researchers from East Tennessee State University wanted to better understand how socioeconomic status was associated with heath outcomes. To find out they divided the country's 3,141 counties into 50 new 'states' (with 2 percent of the counties in each) based on household income as opposed to geographic proximity (接近).

    The researchers broke down the data by county since they found state-level data may hide some 'impact of socioeconomic differences on both the best-off and worst-off counties.' They then examined health data from the wealthiest and poorest 'states' (top and bottom 2 percent) to see how residents differed on factors like smoking, clinical care and excessive drinking. Researchers found that there was nearly a 10-year gap in the life expectancy of men with an average of 79.3 years in the wealthy counties compared to 69.8 years in the poorest. For women, the difference was slightly less - 83 years in the wealthiest counties and 76 years in the poorest.

    The study authors caution that while they found a connection between socioeconomic status and health outcomes, they did not analyze cause and effect. But they suggest that the data shows how policy makers should not just focus on state-wide initiatives (主动性) but more targeted efforts to help those most at risk. “With limited resources, methods of pinpointing the poorest counties can assist in the allocation of resources and programs to those communities that are in the greatest need,'' the study authors wrote.

    Everyone needs friends. We all like to feel close to someone. It is nice to have a friend to talk, laugh and do things with. Surely, there are times when we need to be alone. We don't always want people around. But we would feel lonely if we never had a friend.

    No two people are the same. Sometimes friends don't get along well, which doesn't mean that they no longer like each other. Most of the time they will go on being friends. Sometimes friends move away, then we feel very sad. We miss them much, but we can call them and write to them. Maybe we would never see them again, and we can make new friends. It is surprising to find out how much we like new people when we get to know them. Families sometimes name their children after a close friend. Many places are named after men and women, if they are friendly to people in a town. Some libraries are named this way. So are some schools. We think of these people when we go to these places.

    There's more good news for people, if they have friends. These people live longer than those people if those don't have friends. Why? It could be that they are happier. Being happy helps you stay well. Or it could be just knowing that someone cares, if someone cares about you, you take better care of yourself.

    John, a very thin boy, loved football with all his heart when he was very young. Practice after practice, he eagerly gave everything he had. But being half the size of the other boys, he could only sit on the bench and hardly ever played in games. Even though the son was always on the bench, his father was always standing with cheers and encouraging him.

    When John went to college, he decided to try out for the football team as a “walk-on”. Everyone was sure he could never make the cut, but he did. The coach thought he could provide the other members with the spirit they needed.

    The news that he had survived the cut excited him so much that he rushed to the nearest phone and called his father. His father shared his excitement and was sent season tickets for all the college games.

    It was the end of this last football season. One day John received a telegram and asked one week off. Nobody knew what happened except the coach. The coach said, “Don't plan to come back to the game on Saturday.”

    Saturday arrived, and the game was not going well：When the team was ten points behind, John came back. “Coach, please let me play. I've just got to play today,” said John. The coach pretended not to hear him. But John persisted, and finally feeling sorry for the kid, the coach gave in.

    Before long everyone could not believe their eyes. John was doing everything to fight. The opposing team could not stop him. He ran, he passed and blocked like a star. And at last his team won the game.

    After the game, John looked at the coach, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Well, you knew my dad died, but did you know that my dad was blind?'' John swallowed hard and forced a smile, “Dad came to all my games, but today was the first time he could see me play, and I wanted to show him that I could do it.”

    Over the past couple of days, on our local Freecycle page there have been a lot of wanted posts, all from the same person, basically asking for everything you'd need to set up a house from scratch.

    One of the things they asked for was a queen-sized bed. At that time we just happened to have an extra one, so I messaged them. They immediately came in the afternoon. The people who came, two ladies and a man, are actually friends of another woman named Jenny who owned a young boy. This woman has escaped from a dangerous, violent relationship and these friends of hers are helping her and her son start over again, with everything from furniture to toothbrushes on their list of needs.

    While they were here, I also gave them one of our spare bookcase and some coffee cups. I even asked them to keep in touch in case they needed anything else—I have a way of connecting people with things. I offered the woman a cupboard we had as well; her friends just needed to see if there was a place and/or a need for it in their friend's new home.

    I was so excited to meet those loving people, who were obviously willing to help their friend. It was clear how protective they felt of this woman and her boy, how much they love her and wanted her to have a happy and safe life, and to spend even a few minutes with people like that is an experience I'll remember for a long, long time.

    A quick thank-you to all who have sent more donations over the last couple of days, as well as lovely messages of thanks and blessings. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with it all, but it's a problem I'm happy to have.