With my hands and knees on the floor of the airplane, I was searching for an old lady's missing hearing aid during the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. It occurred to me that this may not be the most dignified posture for a Buddhist nun(尼姑).

    I had seen the old lady from the seat in front of me as she walked up and down the passage with a flashlight. I asked a few times what was wrong, but she didn't answer at first —– she couldn't hear me. She was wearing a woolen coat. Judging from her accent, she came from Eastern Europe.

    Do you know how much hearing aids cost? Thousands, especially for the new tiny hidden-in-the-ear type she described. It takes a long time for an appointment to make a new one, and many doctor visits to get the thing adjusted right. Therefore, my dignity seemed less important than finding that hearing aid. But how does one find a tiny black object in a shadowy jet cabin（机舱）

    The lady wasn't even sure where or when she had lost it. At one point, a couple of flight attendants did a random search around the lady's seat; I wasn't impressed. They left suggesting that she search the seat of her previous flight! My flashlight turned up all kinds of small objects, bits of plastic, broken pieces of headphones.

    The old lady said that she gave up. Yet I couldn't. After we landed, as passengers streamed past us, I insisted that the lady move aside while awaiting her wheelchair. Then I got into a real down and dirty search among the dust under her seat and on the floor.

    Look! A little peanut-sized shiny black object caught the light of my flashlight in a floor crack near her seat.

    What a rush. “I found it!”

    With great astonishment and gratitude, the old lady responded, “I haven't the words to express my thanks!”

The Pathfinder

    When we found him, he was a sorry sight. His clothes were torn, his hands bleeding. Before we reached him, we saw him fall. He lay a moment. Then he pulled himself to his feet, walked unsteadily a few yards through the woods and fell again.

    After we got him out, we went back to find the gun that he had thrown down. His tracks showed that for two days he had circled in the forest, within 200 yards of the road. His senses were so dulled by fear and tiredness that he did not hear the cars going by or see the lights at night.

    We found him just in time.

    This man, like others before him, had simply been frightened when he knew he was lost. What had been a near disaster might have turned out as only a pleasant walk, had he made a few preparations before he stepped from the highway or off a known path.

    Whatever sense of direction that a man may have, it's still largely a question of observation. A skilled woodsman always keeps an eye on his surroundings. He notes that the shape of a mountain, the direction water flows through a swamp, and the way a tree leans across a path. With these in mind, he may be turned around many times, but he is seldom lost.

    There are exceptions, of course, and once in a while a man does come across some strange problem that puts him into the “lost” situation. A rainstorm or sudden blizzard may catch him without a compass (指南针) in his pocket. Darkness may find him in a rough area, where travel is dangerous without a light.

    When this happens, the normal first reaction (反应) is the fear of being laughed at as a result of his poor knowledge in the woods. He may also be concerned about the inconvenience that he will cause his friends when he doesn't show up. This false pride may lead him to keep on the move in a false effort to find his way against all difficulties.

    The person who thinks ahead is seldom in great danger. He'll be safe if he observes carefully, thinks ahead, and remains calm.

    Relieving poverty has been one of our government's top concerns for the past decades. Poverty(贫困) in remote areas in China is virtually a great obstacle for the Chinese to get common progress; thus, it is urgent for us to help the people there to shake off poverty the sooner the better. For this aim, the government has already sent technicians and experts to poverty-stricken areas to help boost local agricultural production and teach the locals new techniques. The Ministry of Labor has also trained many rural laborers through different programs. But all these are not enough. Several other ways have been proposed as follows.

    First of all, the government should encourage a small part of the people in the remote areas to get wealthy ahead of others by equipping them with relevant funds and agricultural technology. These “better-offs” can not only set a good example but give confidence to the poorer in their efforts to get rid of poverty. When all the people get rich, the general level of living standard can be greatly improved. With their living standard improved, they can attach greater importance to environmental protection and are willing to input considerable amount of money to educate their children. Only in this way is a sustainable development guaranteed.

Secondly, we must call upon people in all walks of life throughout the country, especially those wealthy citizens in coastal areas to help those struggling below poverty line in poor remote regions out. We must realize that only after all Chinese people live a comfortable life can we be peacefully enjoying material prosperity in life. Helps can come in various forms—-donating money to the poor family and books to school drop-outs, college graduates volunteering to work in the most needed regions, bringing knowledge to them, etc.

    The last but not the least, the government should raise the rate of tax on the rich. This can shorten the gap between the poor and the rich as well as benefit the country's revenues(财政收入) whose better part is in turn allocated to the poor remote areas.

    Admittedly, it is never easy to cast off the shadow of poverty in the remote areas completely in the short run. But every one of us should go all out to help those in poverty, we are confident that our country will be more powerful and prosperous in the process of relieving poverty.

    It was one of those days when there was way too much to do. I had fallen behind in most of my household chores.

    After breakfast, I sat down at the computer to write an article. My youngest daughter, Julia, walked toward me. "But, Mommy, I thought we were going to do something fun today," she said. "Since it's our day off from school." "I know it's your day off, but it's not Mommy's day off," I explained.

    "Can you play a game with me?" she begged. "Like Candy Land? Or beauty shop?" I sighed. I really didn't have time to play. I desperately needed to get some work done. But then I had an idea. "Can we play beauty shop while I work?" So I got my article done, and my toenails(脚趾甲) painted at the same time. My oldest, Austin, volunteered to fix lunch so I could keep working. Shortly after lunch, we went to the grocery store and I got what I needed. Back at home, the kids decided to play "grocery store". For the remainder of the afternoon, I cleaned house, folded laundry, and started dinner. The kids continued with their game until my husband, Eric, walked through the door.

    He saw me and smiled. "So how was the kids' big day off today?" I began to explain that we hadn't done anything special. But my two middle kids, Jordan and Lea interrupted me. They told their dad, "We had such a special day today, Dad! It was a blast!" I looked at my children's faces. They were lit up with excitement.

    I nodded, realizing how right he was. Happiness is far more about our attitude than our circumstances. I hugged my kids and thanked them for reminding me to look for happiness in the little things. Julia smiled and said, "And the little things that make you the happiest are us, right, Mommy?" Wow, my kids sure are smart.

    To make sure that you enjoy your visit to the Hamper Hot Springs(泉) and that you are safe during your visit, please take time to read the following:

    Do not place your head under the hot water, because it may be bad for your health.

    Do not run around because the floors may be slippery.

    Do not leave your children alone.

    Do not leave your things about. Just ask one of our workers look after your things.

    Do not eat or drink anything in the area because we want to keep here clean. There is a place for you to eat and have soft drinks when you want to have a rest.

    Do not bring into the area anything made of glass, because it maybe easily broken when you fall.

    Do not bring any hard drinks into the area.

    Do not smoke in the area.

    Do not stay in the sunlight for too long.

    We hope that you will enjoy your visit here.

    We have encountered a crisis around the corner. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who's responsible?

Actually, it's more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it – Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.

    There's been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before – there are more and more readers, and more and more books.

    The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example.

    Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.

    As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.

    On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long "digests" of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span—that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.

    In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.

    In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.