Twenty years ago, I drove a taxi for a living. Once at midnight, an old lady in her 80s took my taxi. She gave me an address, and then asked, "Could you drive through downtown?"

    "It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly.

    "Oh, I don't mind," she said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice (临终关怀医院）. I don't have any family left. The doctor says I don't have very long time."

    I quietly shut off the meter. "What route would you like me to take?" I asked.

    For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked, the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived, the place where she danced as a girl. As the sun was rising, she asked me to go to the address she had given me.

    "How much do I owe you?" she asked, reaching into her purse.

    "Nothing," I said.

    "You have to make a living," she answered.

    "There are other passengers."

    "You gave an old woman a little moment of joy," she said. "Thank you."

    I drove into the fine morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I drove aimlessly（漫无目的地），lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run?

I went home one Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1993 to get some work done in the garden. While sweeping leaves on the ground, my five-year-old son Nick came over and asked me to write something on a piece of paper to make a sign for him.

    "What for?" I asked.

    "I'm going to sell some of my stones," he answered.

    Nick was fascinated with stones and had collected many stones from all over. "I'm too busy to do that for you. Go and ask your mum for help," I said.

    A short time later, Nick, returned with a sign, reading, "Stones, One Dollar Each". He took the sign, a small chair and 4 of his best stones and walked to the road in front of our garden. There he put the stones in a line and sat down on the chair.

    After half an hour, nobody passed by. I walked to him and asked him to go back, but he didn't. Another half hour later, a small car came down the road. I watched as Nick stood up, holding his sign up. A woman rolled down a window and read the sign. I couldn't hear their talk, but I saw the woman turn to the driver and the man reach for his pocket.

    I sat in the yard, as Nick ran to me. Waving the dollar, he shouted, "I told you I could sell one stone for a dollar—if you believe in yourself, you can do anything."

    A'Layah Robinson lives in Oklahoma, USA. She is only seven years old, but already she has big ideas for helping other kids!

    One Saturday morning when A'Layah was five, she noticed some teenagers who had a lemonade stand(柠檬饮料摊位). They wanted to raise money to help some of their friends. A'Layah wanted very much to help kids too, especially foster kids(寄养儿童)! You see, A'Layah and her brother were both foster kids. The little girl's birth mother was a drug addict (吸毒成瘾者), so she was taken to a foster care centre. Luckily, she finally found a forever home in the Robinson family.

    But A'Layah still couldn't forget the day when her brother came to live with them. She felt sad that he only had old clothes and shoes that were too small. She thought maybe she could help with a lemonade stand! That way she could raise money so that other foster kids could have a toy and a few other things of their own.

    A'Layah's first lemonade stand made $132! A'Layah was so excited to go with her mother to buy things for the foster kids. She decided they should have a toy, a toothbrush, a blanket and a book. Her first donation(捐赠物) was for 24 kids!

    A'Layah wanted to help more kids, so her mum helped her start a charity called A'Layah's Lemonade for Love. Till now, it has already raised over$17, 000! A'Layah hopes someday she will be able to send a toy to every kid in foster care.

    I found out one time that doing a favor for someone could get you into a lot of trouble. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and we were having a final test. During the test, the girl sitting next to me whispered something, but I didn't understand. So I leaned over her way and found out that she was trying to ask me if I had an extra pen. She showed me that hers was out of ink and would not write. I happened to have an extra one, so I took it out of my pocket and put it on her desk.

    Later, after the test papers had been turned in, the teacher asked me to stay in the room when all the other students were dismissed. As soon as we were alone she began to talk to me about what it meant to grow up; she talked about how important it was to stand on your own two feet and be responsible (负责任) for your own acts. For a long time, she talked about honesty and emphasized the fact that when people do something dishonest, they are really cheating themselves. She made me promise that I would think seriously about all the things she had said, and then she told me I could leave. I walked out of the room wondering why she had chosen to talk to me about all those things.

    Later on, I found out that she thought I had cheated on the test. When she saw me lean over to talk to the girl next to me, it looked as if I was copying answers from the girl's test paper. I tried to explain about the pen, but all she could say was it seemed very very strange to her that I hadn't talked of anything about the pen the day she talked to me right after the test. Even if I tried to explain that I was just doing the girl a favor by letting her use my pen, I am sure she continued to believe that I had cheated on the test.

    I am a fifteen-year-old girl in a junior high school. I have a problem now. I hope you can give me advice. Three months ago, I knew a boy on the Internet. I found that he had the same hobbies as me, so we got on well soon. Two weeks ago we began to talk on the phone. We both felt comfortable when talking to each other, as if（好像）we had been good friends for a long time. Last week we met because he doesn't live far from my home. We talked a lot and enjoyed ourselves together in the gym.

    However, some of my friends said that I shouldn't make friends on the Internet. They also said that the boy might be dangerous. I don't know what I should do. I don't want a close relationship with him, but I'm really happy with him. Should I talk about this problem with my parents or teachers? I'm afraid that they would be angry and think I'm a bad girl. So I am turning to you for advice. Please help me.

    Thanks to the hybrid rice that was discovered by Yuan Longping, the hunger problem of thousands of Chinese people was mostly fixed in the 1980s.

    On Sept 8^th, Yuan, together with two other scientists, won China's 2018 Future Science Prize, for his continuous research on rice. Even on his 88th birthday on Sept 7^th, he took part in the International Development Forum of Rice Production in Hunan province. Although he was recovering from an illness at the time, he was happy to talk to reporters about his latest work on seawater rice.

    Yuan has been researching on rice since he was at college. In 1964, he discovered a natural hybrid rice plant in Hainan. Since then, he has focused on developing high﹣yield, hybrid rice varieties(多样性). In 1973. he became the first to successfully cultivate(培育) a type of hybrid rice species in the world. With the hard work of Yuan's group for about ten years, the production of the rice was increased.(From 150 kg per mu (亩) to 500 kg per mu and more. )These varieties now take up about two thirds of China's rice crop, according to China News. So, it's no wonder that he's known as the "Father of Hybrid Rice".

    And because of China's Belt and Road (一带一路)initiative. Yuan's hybrid rice is helping to solve food problems around the world. Indeed, according to Xinhua News Agency, hybrid rice plants in Kenya produce four to five times more rice than the country's usual nice plants.

    With a rising fame all over the world, Yuan gave a speech in English at the 9th Shandong High﹣Level Talents Forum in Qingdao last year. His speech made him an internet sensation. Beginning with" I speak broken English", his 20﹣minute speech turned out to be a huge success, with barely any pauses or mistakes. The humble Yuan was simply being modest during his speech. According to an article in 1999 by CNN, the scientist speaks both English and Russian fluently. "I never need an interpreter when I go overseas," he told the US news network.

    But in spite of his great knowledge, Yuan understands that even the wisest people should still be open to learn new things. "The farmers of our country possess rich experience in planting rice," he told Xinhua." We should learn from them."