The word "hobby" is an interesting word. Every person has one thing he or she likes to do for fun. Some people like to collect things like stamps or story books. Others like to play football or go window shopping where you can look at many beautiful things without buying them.

    I have many hobbies I do for fun. I sometimes play golf with my sons. I play tennis with all the family. I like to collect music books. I also collect musical instruments from China like the erhu, the dizi, the xiao, the suona, and the pipa. These are the instruments of China which cannot be found in America.

    My favourite hobby is fishing. I like to go and see my brother in the state of Alaska where fishing is wonderful. The two of us take a boat and go to a small river where we fish for salmon, the American most famous fish.

    Is there a connection between music and language? According to recent studies, the answer is yes: {#blank#}1{#/blank#}Here, we look at two examples

    A recent study by researcher Kraus shows that playing a musical instrument can improve a person's hearing ability.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}The people in the first group were musicians, while those in the second group had no musical training. The musicians were able to hear the talking person more clearly.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}Think about violinists in an orchestra (管弦乐团). When the violinists play with the group, they hear their own instrument and many others, too. But the violinists must listen closely to what they are playing, and pay no attention to the other sounds. In this way, musicians are able to focus on certain sounds, even in a room with lots of noise.

    Schlaug, a doctor at Harvard Medical School, works with stroke (中风) patients. Because of their illness, these people cannot say their names, addresses, or other information normally. However, they can still sing.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Why does this work? Schlaug isn't sure. Music seems to make different parts of the brain work, including the damaged (损坏的) parts. This might help patients to use that part of the brain again.

    Music improves concentration (注意力), memory, listening skills, and our overall language abilities.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Playing an instrument or singing can help us do better in school and keep our brain sharp (敏锐的) as we get older. Music is not only enjoyable, it's also good for us in many other ways.

    It was too late at night when an old man came to a small town. He found a small hotel and wanted to stay there for the night. After he went into his room, the owner said to his wife, "Look at his bag, there must be much money in it. Let's take it away when he is asleep, shall we?"

    "No, no." said the woman, "He must look for his bag tomorrow morning. If he can't find it, he'll telephone the police. "They thought for a few minutes. Then the woman had an idea, "We have forgetful grass. Why not put some into his food? If he has the food, he will forget to take his bag away. "The old man had the food with the forgetful grass and went to bed. The next morning, when the owner got up, he found the door open, and the man had left with the bag. He was angry and woke his wife up, "What a fool! Your forgetful grass isn't useful at all."

    "No, I don't think so. He must forget something." She said. "Oh! I remember now!" cried out the man suddenly, "He forgot to pay for the night."

From the story we know the owner of the hotel wanted to {#blank#}1{#/blank#} the old man's bag when he slept. But his wife {#blank#}2{#/blank#} with him, and she {#blank#}3{#/blank#} up with a good idea that they put some forgetful grass into the food {#blank#}4{#/blank#} that the old man would forget his bag. The forgetful grass worked. The old man really forgot something—he didn't {#blank#}5{#/blank#} to pay for the night.

    Tea, coffee and cocoa are three major drinks all over the world. Tea is drunk by the largest number of people in the world. Tea, as well as silk and porcelain, began to be known by the world over a thousand years ago and has been an important Chinese export since then.

    Tea has a history of over 4, 000 years and China is the home of tea. In ancient China, tea was used as a kind of medicine, while nowadays people drink tea daily.

    Longjing, Pu'er, Wulong and Tieguanyin are all famous tea. Thanks to the mild climate and rich soil in Fujian, Zhejiang and Yunnan, tea is produced mainly in these provinces.

    The word for tea in different languages came from Chinese, like "cha'i" in Russian. And the Japanese character for tea is written exactly the same as it is in Chinese.

    Over the past centuries, Chinese people have developed their unique tea culture, which includes tea planting, tea-leaf picking, tea making, tea drinking and so on. Tea is also popular in some sayings, like "A friendship between gentlemen is like a cup of tea." In dances, songs, poems and novels, tea is often mentioned, too

    In a school, some students didn't follow the school rules. They always caused trouble.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}They never meant to forgive (原谅) each other.

    One day a new teacher came to this school.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}He told each of his students to bring a bag of potatoes to school. For every person they didn't want to forgive, they chose a potato, wrote the person's name on it, and put it in the bag.

    Some of their bags were very heavy.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}They would put them beside their beds at night, on the seats when they sit in a car or on a bus, and next to their desks at school. They had to take care of them all the time so that they didn't forget them.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Days of carrying the bags along with them made students get to know what a weight (重量) they were carrying in their minds. After that, the students learned to forgive.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

    Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to other people, and it clearly is for ourselves!