If you had a strange sound in your ear, what would you do? One man in Wales who thought he had a fly in his ear called 999, the emergency services number in Britain. And so did a woman who was worried about her green potatoes. Could she make chips with them? Were they poisonous? She didn't hesitate about calling the local ambulance service to ask. According to a recent report, more than 31,000 non-urgent calls were made to the Welsh Ambulance Service in the last year.

    Inappropriate calls are a headache for health professionals everywhere. In the US, prank calls to 911 happen on a daily basis. Many callers use apps which hide their identity. But those who try to be funny shouldn't be surprised if the police have the last laugh. One man from Colorado was arrested for making more than 1,200 prank calls, according to a report on the US television station KOAA—TV.

    People who take these calls are trained to stay calm and keep a straight face, no matter how strange the call sounds. “There's no way for us to know whether the call is real, accidental or a prank call,” said a public safety worker interviewed by the American TV channel.

    The Head of Clinical Services at the Welsh Ambulance Service, Richard Lee, has a warning for prank callers. He says:“ When people misuse the service it means our precious time is being taken away from someone who really does need our help.” Indeed, these hotlines are supposed to help the seriously ill or those with a life-threatening injury. You never know, one day, the person who needs assistance could be you or someone in your family.

    A young Los Angeles actor in need of a second job to pay his bills has come up with a brilliant way to supplement his income-people walking.

    Chuck McCarthy originally considered becoming a dog walker to earn some extra cash, but soon realized that the job required more than walking dogs on a leash. However, walking people didn't require much when they were out on walks. Chuck realized there was money to be made if he walked people around Los Angeles instead.

    It might sound like a joke, but The People Walker, as he calls himself, is very serious about his new job. For $7 per mile, he offers to walk with clients around L.A., listening to their problems or simply making conversations and offering them a sense of security. At 6-feet, 2-inches, and sporting a bulky figure and bushy beard, Chuck doesn't look like the kind of guy you'd want to mess with.

    Chuck's services are aimed at people who need a motivational boost to go walking, those who don't feel safe walking alone in some areas, and those who are afraid that people might see them walking by themselves and think that they have no friends. “I wear my The People Walker shirt upon request and on the first walk with a new client, so they can be 100% sure it's me,” McCarthy says. However, he admits some people are a bit uncomfortable with this policy, as they don't necessarily want everyone to know that they're being walked.

    So far, Chuck McCarthy has already had another five people walkers employed, covering various areas, like downtown L.A., Hollywood, Eagle Rock, or Fairfax. Once he posted signs around the city, his phone started ringing and clients began rolling in. And with all the free publicity he has been getting in the press lately, more requests are coming.

    While he hopes that his acting career will pick up soon, in the meantime Chuck is very happy with his people walking business. After all, it's literally a walk in the park and it pays the bills.

    A friend of mine named Paul received an expensive car from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin (顽童) was walking around the shining car. “Is this your car, Paul?” he asked.

    Paul answered, “Yes, my brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was surprised. "You mean your brother gave it to you and it cost you nothing? Boy, I wish…"He hesitated.

    Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He wished he had a brother like that. But what the boy said surprised Paul greatly.

    “I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.” Paul looked at the boy in surprise, and then he said again, “Would you like to take a ride in my car?” “Oh yes, I'd love that.”

    After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes shining, said. “Paul, would you mind driving in front of my house?”

    Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the boy wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big car. But Paul was wrong again. “Will you stop where those two steps are?” the boy asked.

    He ran up to the steps. Then in a short while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast.

    He was carrying his little. crippled (残疾) brother. He sat him down on the step and pointed to the car.

    “There he is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn't cost him a cent. And some day I'm going to give you one just like it… Then you can see for yourself all the nice things in the Christmas window that I've been trying to tell you about.”

    Paul got out and lifted the boy to the front seat of his cat. The shining-eyed elder brother climbed in and three of them began an unforgettable holiday ride.

    Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding about black culture in America.

    Her poems described conditions among the poor, racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women. But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She was an expert at the language of poetry. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.

    In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago. The South Side of Chicago is where many back people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was A Street in Bronzeville that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skill and her powerful descriptions of the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.

    In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She won the prize for her second book of poems called Annie Allen. Annie Allen is a collection of poetry about the life of a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and being poor. Ms. Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.

    Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called Maud Martha, Maud Martha received little notice when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult life of many women are popular among female writers today.

    In some of her poems, Gwendolyn Brooks described how what people see in life is affected by who they are. One example is this poem, Corners on the Curing Sky.

    By the end of the 1960s, Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry expanded from the everyday experiences of people in Bronzeville. She wrote about a wider world and dealt with important political issues.

    More and more travellers in China nowadays prefer homestays rather than traditional hotels, as they seek private living experiences. The house-sharing model was first introduced by the website Couchsurfing, com in 2003. It is still the largest website for travellers to find accommodation(住宿) without much money to spend.

    Encouraged by her great experience of homestays in France, Maggita, 30, considered short-term hire as her first choice in her future trips. She later went back to her hometown Shanghai and ran a "shared accommodation" business.

    The short-term hire idea has been a win-win business model. For travellers, they can rent a special room at a reasonable price and also enjoy a firsthand experience of the local culture, compared with traditional hotels. For owners, they can gain much with daily rental. Now Maggita has quit her last job in an IT company and become a host of some 20 homestays, which enables her to earn a monthly income of around 40,000 —50,000 yuan.

    In recent years, China has seen many homestay booking websites such as Xiaozhu and Tujia. Chen Chi, the founder and CEO of Xiaozhu, said the model is to share rooms or apartments that are not in use with people who need them. Instead of the traditional view that Chinese people feel uncomfortable living with strangers, Chen found that a large number of travellers got along well with house owners.

    However, experts have pointed out a series of problems brought about by the fashion. Lacking supervision(监管) to those accommodation sharing websites, the service quality and accommodation safety cannot be guaranteed(保障).Experts suggest that the online websites should closely work together with communities and local police stations to improve the services.

    Just what is a tiger mother？Amy Chua is a law professor at America's Yale University and her recent book on the subject is making waves. She's been called "dangerous", "outrageous", even a "monster" for her descriptions of how she brought up her two daughters.

    Her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother describes fighting with a daughter for hours at the piano to ensure the child gets a piece of music right. She rejected birthday cards made for her by her girls because she didn't think they had made enough effort. She compared one child negatively with the other, threatening to burn their toys. Her rules include：schoolwork always comes first; an A ­ minus is a bad grade; children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math, and playing the violin or the piano is a must.

    Ms. Chua considers the Chinese hard work ethic(道德) as a way of creating happy, successful children—at least in her case. Although she's had a large amount of flak for her theories, one thing can't be ignored—the success of Chinese children in the education system.

    In Britain, shocking research shows that Chinese girls, for example, are outperforming all other foreign groups at GCSE—79 percent getting 5 A ­ C Grades, compared with 58 percent of white British girls. So what is it about Chinese parenting that's leading to high achievers？And how do Amy Chua's theories play into that success?

    She told me that if her daughter came back from school with 96/100 in a test, Chua would ask her what happened to the other 4 points. It's about always knowing "you can do better", she told me.

    Interestingly, in China, the birthplace of the tiger mother, people are moving away from traditional Chinese parenting. They are following more western parenting styles.