Each year, we celebrate many holidays here in America.

    On January 1, we welcome the coming of a new year like many people in other countries. And we have another, four holidays on the first day of a month: April Fool's Day, May Day, Friendship Day ( Aug.1 ) and Grandparents Day ( Sept.1).

    The most important holiday for the young people comes in February. It is Valentine's Day. Lots of boys give red roses to girls as a present.

    People celebrate some holidays for their family members. We say thanks to our mothers in May and celebrate Father's Day in the following month. In November many people return home for Thanksgiving Day, so the whole family can stay together.

    There are also some interesting holidays for children. For example, Halloween comes at the end of October. Children often play with pumpkin lanterns (南瓜灯) and put on all kinds of masks (面具).

    Of course, the most important festival is Christmas. After a year of work and study, people can enjoy a long holiday, eat big meals, and visit family and friends.

    Different countries have different eating habits.There is a saying “Eat good things for breakfast, eat a big meal for lunch, but eat less at dinner.” in China.Many Americans agree that one should start the day with a good breakfast, but their ideas about lunch and dinner are different.

    Most Americans only give themselves a short time for lunch because they have not so much long time to have a rest at noon. So they eat a small lunch. After work they will have more time to eat a big dinner. Also a quiet dinner at home with all the family talking about their day is a way to take a good rest after a long, hard day of work.

    Eating at restaurants is also different. In China, people like to talk and laugh while eating. Very often you can hear people talking and laughing loudly, and they just having a good time. In America it is not like this. They want a quiet place where they can eat a good meal far away from the noises of the outside world．If someone is talking too loudly, the manager of the restaurant will look at him or her angrily. If some people are talking too loudly, the manager of the restaurant may come out and ask them to be quiet.

    When you speak to foreigners, what will you do if you can't understand their languages? Will you use your body language to help you, or just say sorry to them and then go away? Learning spoken language is very important, but learning local gestures（手势） is also very necessary.

    I often use gestures to communicate with someone whose language I don't know. We use our hands to talk with each other. Although we don't understand the others' words, our hand movements make our conversation more necessary.

However, gestures aren't always clear. Different gestures may have different meanings in different countries and cultures.

    In many countries, people move their hands at someone to call him to come near. In the United States, people usually move hands at somebody with their palms（手掌） up and sometimes move just one finger. But in many countries in Asia, hand movements like that would be impolite. In Asia, many people move hands at someone with their palms down using all fingers.

    Do you use your thumb, your thick short finger to make gestures? In western countries, "thumbs-up" means agreement. But it is very rude in parts of Africa.

    If you want to say "OK" in America, you can make a circle with the thumb and the second finger. But in France, it means "zero", and it is very rude in many other countries.

    You can use your second finger to point at something but not at somebody in the United States. However, in some parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, pointing at anything with one's second finger is not polite.

    "V" form is often used when people take photos. But using two fingers to make up the "V" shape means "peace" in the West.

    The last example is that people in parts of Asia point to their noses to mean themselves, but people in western countries usually point to their chests.

    Gestures are important, but also have different meanings.

    Hello! My name is Cindy Brown. I am thirteen years old. Cindy is my {#blank#}1{#/blank#}name and Brown is my family name. Can you {#blank#}2{#/blank#}"Brown"? Yes, B﹣R﹣O﹣W﹣N, Brown. I am an English girl.I am in China now. I am a student in a middle school in ZhouSan. Do you know {#blank#}3{#/blank#}（I）?

    Zhao Qi is a Chinese girl. She is thirteen years old, too. She is my good {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Her father is a teacher in our school. Her mother is a teacher too. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}she isn't in our school. Zhao Qi always {#blank#}6{#/blank#}（ask）her parents for help. Zhao Qi has{#blank#}7{#/blank#}（a） iPad. Many {#blank#}8{#/blank#}（photo）are in it. Look at this photo! {#blank#}9{#/blank#} the little baby in the photo? Aha, it's Zhao Qi. What are those on the chair?{#blank#}10{#/blank#} are her hats.

Whenever I'm invited to somebody's house for the first time, I'll take a close look at their bookshelves. What they keep on their shelves, in my eyes, is a reflection(反映) of their personal tastes and interests. The books on a bookshelf tell the story of a life.

My own shelves are a kind of road map through my life, telling a chronological tale. First up come my favorite childhood reads, like Water ship Down and His Dark Materials. The collection then moves on to teenage things I read in school — Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid's Tale and A Clockwork Orange. Finally, we come out of full-time education and enter the real world, and this part is a reflection of my professional( 职业的) life, from the first exciting days of their work experience to the present.

If you pointed to any book on my shelves, I could name the year I got it, where I was working, and probably where I was living at the time.

▲ It is an easy way to get to know about his hopes, dreams and interests. And a big part of that story is how we arrange our books, and get on with them. It's such a personal thing, different from each other. Some want to be with their books in every room, others have them on shelves, behind glass or simply lining their floors. Each home has a story to tell through the way they live with their books.

It's often said that what we read says something about who we are. The way we fill our bookshelves might also send a message about ourselves. From the pile of books on your bedside table to your well-organized shelves, whether we notice it or not, our book collections are telling a story before a single page has been turned.