Four men who would become fathers were in a hospital waiting room while their wives were going to give birth to their babies. The nurse arrived and proudly said to the first man, “Congratulations, sir. You're the father of twins!”

    “What a surprise! Believe it or not! I work for the Minnesota Twins Baseball teams!”

    Later the nurse returned and congratulated the second father on the birth of his triplets (三胞胎).

    “Wow! That's unbelievable! I work for the 3M Company.”

    An hour later, the nurse returned to congratulate the third man on the birth of his quadruplets (四胞胎). Surprised, he only could answer, “I don't believe it! I work for the Four Seasons Hotel!”

    After this, everyone turned to the fourth man who had just fallen down. The nurse ran fast to his side. As he slowly came to himself, they could hear him speak in a very low voice over and over, “I should never have taken that job at 7-Eleven. I should never have taken that job at 7-Eleven. I should never have taken that job at 7-Eleven.”

    Can you write down a Chinese word being read to you? Sometimes it can be difficult when you find the word is not included in most dictionaries.

    Lu Jialei, 14, from Hangzhou Foreign Language School, won the CCTV Chinese Character (汉字) Spelling Contest on Oct 18^th, 2013. About 160 people competed. The host read a word to the contestant, explained its meaning and gave sample sentences. The contestant was required to write down the word.

    Winning the contest was a “surprise” to Lu. “I was not the smartest one,” she said. “But I paid attention to details.” To prepare for the contest, she and her teammates studied the Modern Chinese Dictionary for 10 days. There are more than 56,000 entries (词条) including characters, words and phrases in it. She also had a secret weapon. She studied how Chinese characters were formed.

    “When others paid attention to the plot of a story, she looked at how authors use words and sentences to express themselves,” said Su Yunsheng, Lu's Chinese teacher. Su is happy to see students like Lu find the beauty of Chinese language.

    “Besides using something Chinese and having Chinese traditional festivals, learning to write Chinese characters is also an important part of inheriting (传承) Chinese culture,” said Su.

    A man was visiting a rich person's house. As he went along, he saw a box of apples on the side of the road. He said, "I do not want to eat those apples. The rich man will give me very nice food to eat." Then he took the apples and threw them away in the dust(尘土).

    He went on and came to a river. The river had gotten so high, and he could not get through it. He waited for some time and said," I cannot go to the rich man's house today, for I cannot get over the river."

    He started to go home. He had eaten no food that day. And he was very hungry. He came to the apples, and he was glad to take them out of the dust and eat them.

    Do not throw good things away. You might be happy to have them later.

    What's that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Hello Kitty.

That's how Lauren Rojas, 12, from the US thought of her science project. She sent her Hello Kitty doll into the sky early this month. She wanted to find out how altitude(高度) changed air pressure(气压) and temperature, according to New York Daily News.

    Rojas put the doll and a small computer into a rocket model, and then sent it up with a weather balloon(气球). The computer recorded the height, air pressure and temperature. Rojas also put in a video camera to record the trip.

    "It took about two or three weeks to put it all together," said Rojas. "I think people will think it (the video) is really cool."

    The balloon got to 28.5km above the Earth. At that height, the doll could see the blue curves(曲线) of our planet. The air was very thin up there, and soon the balloon broke up (爆炸). The doll fell from the sky and at last it ended up in a tree. It was 76km from the place where it had started its journey.

Today, people all over the world have the same hobbies, watch the same movies, and wear the same clothes. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

In the East, it can take a long time to become someone's friend. People are very close to their friends. When people from the West meet you, they will call you a friend right away. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} When people from the East meet you, they often ask questions. They want to know about your age and your family. To people from the West, these are not polite questions. They don't like to talk about these personal things. 

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} In the East, family is always a part of life. Kids there live with their parents for a long time. They still listen to them after they grow up. 

However, in the West, independence (独立) is very important. Parents prepare their kids for life. Then, after their kids grow up, they say goodbye and leave home.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} They don't have to listen to their parents. 

In the East and in the West, people think differently too. People in the West think about small de tails (细节). They also think less and act more. In the East, people notice (注意) relationships between things. And they often keep their opinions quiet.