This is a tale of two friends — one is blind, the other has no arms. On their own, the two are “disabled”. But together, they are a powerful team that has changed part of their village in North China's Hebei Province into a rich, green forest. Meet 53-year-old Jia Haixia and Jia Wenqi!

      Their story began in 2000, when Haixia, who was already blind in his right eye, lost his left one after an illness. Wenqi lost his arms in an accident when he was just three. Neither could find a job, so the two decided to team up. They rented some poor land and began to plant trees. In return, the local officials paid them a small fee.

      Haixia and Wenqi never imagined that they would end up creating an environmental paradise. Their forest now has over 10,000 trees, hundreds of birds and many other wild animals. In addition, it saves the village from river flooding during the rainy season.

      When the friends work together, they focus on their strengths not their disabilities. Their day begins at 7 a.m. when the sightless Haixia carries Wenqi across the river to get to their worksite. Since they cannot afford to buy young trees to plant, the two use branches from existing trees. Haixia climbs to the tree-top and with Wenqi's direction, selects the perfect branch. He then digs a hole and carefully plants it. Finally Wenqi waters the area.

      Though hard-working, the men don't make much money. But as Wenqi puts it, “We stand on our own feet, so the fruits of our work taste sweeter.”

Neither Haixia nor Wenqi cares about money. Together, they already have everything they need — a perfect pair of eyes, two strong hands, and the best friendship in the world!

A

    This is a photo of my classmates. This is Tom. He can play the piano. He wants to join the music club. He thinks music is interesting. Who is the beautiful girl? Oh, she is Lisa. She can speak English very well. And her favorite subject is English. She wants to join the English club. Bob is a cute boy. He likes chess. He wants to join the chess club. I am good at swimming. I think it can make me relaxed. So I want to join the swimming club.

    There was once a man called Mr. Flowers, and flowers were his only joy in life. He spent all his free time in one of his four glass-houses and grew flowers of every color, with long and difficult names, for competitions（比赛）. He tried to grow a rose of a new color to win the silver cup（银杯）for the Rose of the Year.

    Mr. Flowers' glass-houses were very near to a middle school. Boys of around thirteen of age were often tempted（引诱）to throw a stone or two at one of Mr. Flowers' glass-houses. So Mr. Flowers did his best to be in or near his glass-houses at the beginning and end of the school day.

    But it was not always possible to be on watch at those times. Mr. Flowers had tried in many ways to protect his glass, but nothing that he had done had been useful. He had been to school to report to the headmaster; but this had not done any good. He had tried to drive away the boys that threw stones into his garden; but the boys could run faster than he could, and they laughed at him from far away. He had even picked up all the stones that he could find around his garden, so that the boys would have nothing to throw; but they soon found others.

    At last Mr. Flowers had a good idea. He put up a large notice（布告）made of good, strong wood, some meters away from the glass-houses. On it he had written the words: DO NOT THROW STONES AT THIS NOTICE. After this, Mr. Flowers had no further trouble; the boys were much more tempted to throw stones at the notice than at the glass-houses.

    My name is Xiaoyang. I'm a boy from Shandong. I have a cousin. His name is Wu Bin. He's twelve. He's from Hubei. He's very friendly. Wu Bin's father, Wu Hai is tall and strong. He's a basketball player. Wu Bin's mother, Wang Li has long black hair. She's a cook. Wu Bin has a little puppy. He's cute. I like it, too.