My Family Is Very Poor
    A little boy comes to a new city. His name is Peter. Of course（当然）, he lives with his mother and father. His family is very rich（富裕的）. They have a driver（司机） and a lot of servants（仆人）.
    Peter is going to a new school. On the first day his parents say to him, "peter, be modest（谦虚的）at your new school. Don't say we are rich. "And Peter says, "Yes, Dad, mom. ”
    So Peter goes to school. He sees his new teacher. And he sits down with the other children. The teacher says. “Good morning，children. The first exercise today is a composition（作文）. The topic（题目） of the composition is "My Family".So every child writes a composition. This is Peter's composition:
  “My name is Peter. My family is very poor（贫穷）. Both my father and my mother are very poor. Our driver is very poor and all the servants are poor…”

    On December 14，2017，we were sorry to hear that Yu Guangzhong, a famous poet died of illness in Taiwan. He was born in Nanjing in 1928. His mother's hometown is in Wujin，Changzhou. So he called himself a southern person.

    Later, he went to Taiwan. In 1952 he graduated from Taiwan University. Then he graduated from University of LOWA in 1959. He taught at Soochow University, Normal University, Taiwan University , and Chengchi University. He got a lot of prizes in literature(文学)，such as.Wu San lien Literature Prize, China Times Award, Golden Tripod，National Arts Award and all the major(主要的)Awards in Taiwan. He is famous both in Taiwan and in Mainland.

    He was in Taiwan, but he always missed his hometown in Mainland. In one of his poems Nostalgia(乡愁) ，he showed his feeling of homesickness. Let's enjoy his famous poem Nostalgia.

Nostalgia

When I was young，                   But later on,

Nostalgia was a tiny, tiny stamp.          Nostalgia was a low，low  grave.

Me on this side，                      Me on this side，

Mother on the other side.                And my mother ;inside.

When I grew up，                     And at present，

Nostalgia was a narrow boat ticket.        Nostalgia becomes a shallow strait.

Me on this side，                      Me on this side，

Bride on the other side.                  Mainland on the other side.

    Canada Geese are large blue and white birds. When autumn arrives, they have to fly south where the weather is warmer. The winters are so cold in Canada that the birds die if they stay there.

    Last spring, Bill Lishman found sixteen young Canada Geese on his farm. They had lost their parents. Bill thought, "These young birds won't know what to do in the autumn."

    Bill had a small plane and he decided to teach the birds to follow him. All through the summer, he went on short trips in his plane and the young geese flew after him.

    When the cold weather arrived in autumn, Bill flew to Virginia in the United States, 600 miles (英里) south of his home in Canada. The geese followed him all the way. Bill left the geese in Virginia and he returned home.

    This spring. Bill was waiting for the birds to come back. They didn't arrive, so Bill flew to Virginia to get them. He looked for them for two weeks but he couldn't find them.

    When he arrived back home, Bill found the geese waiting for him. They had found their way home without him!

When I was fourteen, I made my first visit to the United States. It wasn't the first time I had been abroad. Like most English children, I learned French at school. And I had often been to France, so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn't understand French. I believed that I wouldn't have any 1 problems when I went to America. So I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday there.

How2 I was! The misunderstanding (误解) began at the airport. I was looking for a public telephone to call my friend Danny who had been in America for two years and told her that I had arrived. A friendly old man saw me looking confused and asked if he could 3 me.

"Yes," I said, "I want to give my friend a ring."

"Well, that's nice," he said. "Are you getting married? But aren't you a bit too 4 ?"

"Who is talking about marriage?" I replied. "I just want to give my friend a ring to tell her I've arrived. Can you tell me 5 the phone box is?"

"Oh! I see. " he said, "There's a phone downstairs."

When Danny and I met up, she explained the misunderstanding to me. Then I knew "Give somebody a ring" could mean deciding to get engaged or marry someone else. I felt shamed for myself.

"Don't worry," she said to me. "I had so many difficulties at first. There are lots of words which the Americans use differently in meaning from the British. You'll soon 6 all the funny things they say. Most of the time British and American people understand each other!

Hard-working horses have always been man's best friends, but the playful pony is a kid's best friend.

A pony is a small horse. Like horses, they have a lot of hair. The most well-known is the small Shetland pony, only as tall as a six-year-old child! Shetland ponies can pull twice their own weight (重量), with only their thick hair to protect them from the cold.

Ponies eat grass, oats and bran (燕麦和糠) and they also love carrots and apples. They don't eat meat, ponies can sleep both lying down and standing up.

They are very playful, which is why they get on so well with children! They are happy to hang with their friends and go for rides. They enjoy having fun as much as their riders.

Like you and your friends, every pony is different. Some are quiet and some are cheeky (嬉皮笑脸的). Some are hard-working and others can be a bit lazy. Ponies are sensitive and often try to cheer you up when you feel sad. Just like you, they prefer to be spoken to kindly rather than shouted at!

A pony makes a great playmate but remember that it is not a toy. It is a living animal that needs care and lots of loving attention. You have to learn how to feed and groom (刷洗) it every day, how to clean its feet so that they stay healthy, are they?

① In the summer of 2023, it was quite hot in Beijing, so I planned to stay for several days in the countryside. " Why not go to an island? It's my dream trip, " one of my friends said. Finally, we decided to go to an island county (县)—— Shengsi.

② Shengsi County is in the northernmost part of the Zhoushan Islands in Zhejiang Province. There are more than 400 islands in the county. Of these islands, only 16 are inhabited (有人居住的). And the most famous islands for visitors are Sijiao, Gouqi, Shengshan and the Flower and Bird.

③ First, three of us drove to Shenjiawan Wharf in Shanghai. After parking the car, we took a ferry (轮渡) to Gouqi Island. It took us about two and a half hours to arrive in the island.  ▲ — the endless blue sea, the forests, the beautiful stone houses . . . We really had a great time enjoying the beauty of nature and delicious seafood.

④ The next day we went to Shengshan Island. There is a beautiful uninhabited village in the island's northeast. In the 1970s, more than1,000 people lived there and most of them were fishermen. Later they all left and moved to big cities. But we can see many beautiful photos of the village on the Internet, especially the photos of creeping plant mountain tigers (爬山虎). We really liked the green village.

⑤ A five- day trip in Shengsi was really enjoyable. When we were about to leave, I asked a fisherman, "When is the best time to visit Shengsi County?" "Each day if you like," he answered.