One day. Many years ago, when I was working as a psychologist in England, David was brought into my office. His face was pale(苍白)and he looked at his own feet.

    David lost his father when he was two years old and lived with his mother and grandfather ever since. But the year before he turned 13, his grandfather died and his mother was killed in a car accident. His teacher told me that he refused to talk to others from then on.

    How could I help him?

    David didn't say a word. As he was leaving. I put my hand on his shoulder.

    "Come back next week if you like, "I said.

    He came and I suggested we played a game of chess. He agreed. After that we played chess every Wednesday afternoon in complete silence. Usually, he arrived earlier than he agreed. It seemed as if he enjoyed my company. But why didn't he ever look at me?

    "Perhaps he simply needs someone to share his pain with." I thought.

    Months later, when l was looking at his head, he suddenly looked up at me. "It's your turn, "he said. After that day, David started talking. He finally had friends in school and he even joined a bicycle club. He wrote to me a few times. Now he had really started to live his life.

    Maybe I gave David something. But I learned a lot from him. I learned how time makes it possible to overcome(克服)what seems to be so painful. David showed me how one without a word—can reach out to another person. All it takes is a shoulder to cry on, a friendly touch and an ear that listens.

    In a town there lived a little, beautiful and smart girl. Her name was Rose. Everyone in the town liked her. She was very brave, but she was scared of the doctor. One day, one of her teeth was moving. Her mom saw it. She said, "One of your teeth is moving, and you need to visit Doctor Tim."

    Rose said, "No! I'm not going to the doctor." Mom said, "Don't worry. It's not so wobbly(摆动的) now, we needn't go to the doctor at once." That made Rose feel better.

    After five weeks, Rose forgot about her tooth but her mom didn't. She checked her tooth again and it was more wobbly, so she said, "It's time to see the doctor."

    Rose was scared but she had to do what her mom told her, so they went to see Doctor Tim.

    They had to wait in the waiting room.

    When it was her turn, her heart was beating very fast. She went into Doctor Tim's room. He was smiling. She sat on the chair.

    Doctor Tim said," Close your eyes."

    Rose closed her eyes, but just before Doctor Tim started, tears started coming down from her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she saw Doctor Tim holding her tooth, smiling.

    Rose smiled. Then Doctor Tim gave her a teddy bear. From that time Rose wasn't scared of doctors anymore.

    Twenty-two-year-old Timothy Doner from New York City has been able to speak 23 different languages, including some rare African ones.

    Timothy began his foreign language education at the age of 13. Attracted by in Israeli(以色列) musical band. Timothy listened to their album every morning. A month Later, he kept about 20 of their songs in his mind, though he didn't know what the Hebrew(希伯来语) words mean. But once he learned the translation. it was like he had a dictionary in his head.

    Then Timothy moved on to Arabic (阿拉伯语) which he studied every morning by reading newspapers with a dictionary and by talking to street vendors (小贩). After that he learned Persian, then Russian, then Mandarin... and about twenty others and developed a crazy low for languages.

    Now, Timothy is still teaching himself new languages. With the help of language books and word-learning Apps on his iPhone. He can master a language in a few weeks or months.

    What has Timothy got from learning so many languages? "By learning languages, you are learning a lot more. You are learning about culture, everything from cooking to TV，poetry and whatever it may be. That helps you better understand the language,” he said.

    We spoke to three students from around the world about different national holidays. There are different customs for each festival.

    Tan Xiaodong,15, Hong Kong, China

    "It'll soon be the Chinese New Year. Before it, we'll clean the house and decorate it for good luck. Every shop is going to close for a few days and we'll go out a lot to celebrate on the streets. We might go and see the lion and dragon dances in the city center. I love this festival."

    Wendy, 16, Sydney, Australia

    "Australia Day is on 26th January and it's an important holiday here. We always have a Monday off, so we celebrate for three days. My parents and I go to the countryside for a picnic and friends always come over. Many people go to beach parties or street parties and there's lots of music and dancing. What fun!"

    Amy, 14, New York, the US

    "The first Thanksgiving was celebrated hundreds of years ago when Europeans who came to America thanked God for his help. It's still a very important day for family members to be together. This year we're going to visit my grandparents and we'll eat a delicious meal of turkey. Thanksgiving is on the 4th Thursday in November every year."

In 2004, Zhang Guimei saw a girl sitting silently on the side of a road on a cold morning, with a broken basket at her side.

Zhang, a local high school teacher, asked what was wrong. The girl told Zhang that she wanted to go to school, but her family was too poor to afford it. Zhang went to the 14-year-old girl's home and advised her parents to allow their daughter to continue schooling. However, they finally refused her. Unable to help, Zhang left. With the teenager always on her mind, Zhang was trying to work out how to help the local girls.

She came up with the idea of building a girls-only high school where students wouldn't have to pay anything. In 2007, Zhang attended an important meeting. She spoke, through media, to the public about her long-hidden dream. With the support from the local government and warm-hearted people, Huaping Girls' High School was opened in 2008. On the first day of the new school year, 100 students entered the school, most of whom were from mountainous areas. Since she started the school, Zhang Guimei has visited more than 1,600 families, traveled more than110,000 kilometers, and walked to many places to encourage parents to send their daughters to school for more than 15 years, so the girls could improve their education to change their lives.

Thanks to Zhang's efforts to help the students improve their studies, many of them were able to get offers from universities. Zhang Guimei worked silently for years, helping more than 1,800 girls in poor mountainous areas realize their dreams.

Chinese writer Hai Ya's The Space-Time Painter won the Hugo Award(雨果奖)for Best Novelette(中短篇小说)on Oct. 21st. He became the third Chinese writer to win a Hugo Award after Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang. 

When creating The Space-Time Painter, Hai Ya drew his idea from a famous painting, A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains(《千里江山图》). It was created by Wang Ximeng from the Song Dynasty. Based on Wang, Hai created a painter named Zhao Ximeng. After many hard times, Zhao's mind leaves his body and enters a space where a modern policeman is trying to solve a case(案件)about an ancient painting. 

Hai Ya's story with science fiction began in his childhood. "When I was a child. the bookstore in my hometown helped create a beautiful garden in my mind that belonged to me only. In it, science fiction offered the most beautiful'flowers';it opened a new world for me as a kid, "Hai Ya told Beijing Youth Daily. 

Hai Ya's works feature a mix of history and science fiction. These two styles seem opposite:One looks back at the past, and the other faces the future. However, in Hai Ya's works, they find a perfeet balance. 

"If we can only imagine the future and things in space like rockets, it will only limit our imagination, "Hai Ya told Shenchen Special Zone Daily. "I don't think history is something completely in the past. It is flowing(流动的), and we can make predictions about the future by looking back at history.  ▲ , "he added. 

More Chinese writers today are trying to mix traditional culture with modern stories. Hai Ya believes that it is not a choice but a natural process. "Our history and culture have universal values(普世价值)that can touch everyone, "he said to Xinhua.