A girl was walking in the woods when she found two weak birds. She took them home and put them in a small cage (鸟笼). She took good care of them. The birds grew strong. Every morning, they greeted her with a beautiful song. The girl felt great love for the birds. She wanted them to sing for her forever.

    One day, the girl left their cage door open. The bigger of the two birds flew out. The girl watched as he rose high into the sky. She was afraid that he would fly away and she would never see him again. As he flew close, she caught him in her hand and held him tightly. She was happy. Suddenly, she felt the bird go limp (无力 ). She opened her hand. The bird was dead! Her love had stolen life from the beautiful songbird.

    The other bird was pushing against the bars (条) of the cage. She could see how much he wanted to be free. She took him out of the cage and gently tossed him into the air. Would the bird fly away? She could hardly bear to watch. But the bird just wanted to stretch its wings. He flew around the girl twice and then came to rest on her shoulder.

    The girl watched the bird with joy in her heart. She wasn't worried anymore. She wanted the bird to be happy. The bird sat by the girl's ear and sang the sweetest song she had ever heard.

    The best way to keep love is to give it wings.

    It is believed in some ways that the daughter is father's lover. But my experience has taught me in a different way. For a long time my father has been a very vague figure(模糊形象)to me. He was a man of few words, tall but slim and nothing else.

    When I was in primary school, my father was never there to pick me up, and he never came to any of my parent-teacher meetings. He was always busy doing projects. I remember when I was in middle school and my head was badly hurt in a PE class. During my operation my father was nowhere to be found. This hurt me most. At that moment, I considered my father as a cold-blooded man who did not care about me at all.

    But things seemed different at my high school graduation ceremony where I was chosen to represent my class and give a speech. My father, once again, told me he had a business trip in a place outside the city and would be unable to show up(露面), "Don't come. I will be very nervous if I see you. "I told him.

    I remember my speech went smoothly. After the ceremony was over and I was about to leave, I suddenly noticed a familiar looking man sitting in a corner of the hall. It was my father！I was so surprised that I rushed to him with tears running down my face. "Well done," he said. His eyes were also filled with tears.

    Later, I found out that my father had managed to finish his work by staying up late, and he drove for eight hours to get back. He had been sitting in the corner because he didn't want me to see him. My father remembered every word in my speech.

    For much of my life I described my father was a cold-blooded man who only cared about his work. But when I thought deeply about this, it was obviously not true. At my graduation ceremony, I could feel my father's deep love. The fact is that seeing is not believing, and seeing may not be the fact if we don't perceive(感知)the world with our hearts and minds. There's no doubt that life doesn't lack(缺少)love, but sometimes our eyes have trouble seeing it.

    A taxi hit a truck. A policeman spoke to the taxi driver and the truck driver. He also spoke to Tom. Tom was a witness(目击者). This is what they said.

    Truck driver: I was driving from the airport to Newtown. A car crossed the road, so I slowed down. I did not stop. A taxi hit the back of my truck. Nobody was badly hurt but both vehicles were damaged.

    Taxi driver: I was driving behind a truck a few kilometres from Newtown. The truck stopped suddenly. The driver did not give me a warning. I was driving very slowly. I could not pass the truck because there were two cars coming near from Newtown. My taxi hit the truck, and some glass cut my left hand.

    Tom: I saw the traffic accident about a kilometre from the airport. A truck was going to Newtown. It was not going very fast. There was a taxi about two hundred metres behind the truck. It was going fast. When the truck slowed down, the taxi hit it. The taxi driver was not looking at the truck. He was looking out of the window at something. My friend saw the accident too.

    Tom's friend spoke to the policeman and agreed with Tom.

①Most people who move to a foreign country may experience a period of time when they feel very homesick and have a lot of stress. This feeling is often called "culture shock (文化冲击)". It is important to understand it and learn how to deal with it if you want to adapt successfully to your new home's culture.

②There are four stages that you will experience after you move to a foreign country. The first stage is usually referred to as the "excitement" stage. When arriving in a new environment, you'll be interested in the new culture; everything will seem exciting and everyone will seem friendly.

③But it won't be long before you move from the "excitement" stage to the second stage. The excitement you felt before changes to stress. It seems that everything is difficult. The language is hard to learn, friends are difficult to make, and even simple things like shopping have become a challenge. It is at this "stress" stage that you are likely to feel worried and homesick. This is the stage which is referred to as "culture shock".

④However, culture shock doesn't last for very long. If you are one of those who solve it successfully, you'll move to the "recovery" stage. At this stage, you start to understand and accept the way things are done and the way people behave in your new environment.

⑤The last stage is the "home" stage. This is the stage when you start to feel at home in the new culture. You start to learn from your new home and to like something of the new culture better than those of your own culture.

⑥Culture shock is normal. Everyone in a new situation will go through some form of it. Continue to be brave! And overcoming culture shock will be a piece of cake.

The story was a true one and still moved me deeply. Thirty years ago, I got to know a 1 lady named Rose. She had no kids and lived alone. When I went to visit her, I always took Rose some coffee and food. One day she said she wanted to 2 me to have lunch. 

We walked from my workplace to a little restaurant on David Street. On the way, I began to worry. I knew that she had no money, but if I offered to  3 the lunch, I was afraid I would hurt her. 

There were many people in the restaurant, and all of them were happy. Rose told me to sit and drink coffee by the window. Then she went to 4 in the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, she came out and sat with me. She just paid for one meal and we started to 5 the delicious food together. She told me that the restaurant let people work for a meal if they had no money, or would give them a free meal if they were not able to work. To my surprise, she also explained that the workers who were working there were all volunteers. 

I 6 remember the beautiful afternoon I shared with Rose. Though we had a meal together only once, it was paid by Rose's work. The weather was warm and bright, and everyone's smile was warm and bright too. 

I'm still thinking that life cannot be easy to us, but we can still do something for our friends and neighbors. The world will be nicer if everybody would like to share happiness with others. 

It will never be dark if there is a light in everyone's heart. 

A foreign girl named Kris posted a sad photo online. It looked like her boyfriend made her cry. Some nice Chinese people tried to cheer her up. They asked her to find someone better. Some made funny Chinglish to make her feel happy, such as "You swan（天鹅）, he frog（青蛙）."

This became a hit with foreigners. Many found it cool, shared it a lot online and made funny pictures with it.

"I need Chinese netizens（网友） in my life who call the people that have hurt me frogs," said a foreign internet user, showing her love for the expression. Some of them wanted to know why Chinese people use "swan" and "frog" to describe this couple. After looking into it, they learned that it came from the famous old Chinese story of the beautiful swan and the ugly toad （癞蛤蟆）, and got interested in the Chinese stories behind Chinglish.

In the past, people often corrected those who spoke Chinglish because it was full of grammar mistakes. However, with globalization（全球化）, people from different countries can now share their ideas more often. Different styles of speaking English are becoming common and even accepted. English with local features can also be popular. For example, the well-known "add oil" has now appeared in the Oxford dictionary and people use it widely. The phrase shows Chinese culture.

"Once I understood the full meaning, it became much funnier," said Cody, a young man from New Zealand, when asked about "you swan, he frog". "It's great that more Chinese culture is being shared with the rest of the world," he told China Daily.