Did you visit the Shanghai World Expo last summer? What impressed (给……留下印象)  you? 21st Century Kids invites four kids to talk about their experiences. They are back from the Expo. What did they bring us? Let's see what they have to say.

    I went to the SAIC-GM Pavilion (上汽集团通用汽车馆). I found my dream car there. It is a green car. Its name is “Leaf”. Chinese engineers made the car. Its roof is in the shape of a leaf. The roof takes in CO₂ and changes it intoelectricityfor the car.
    The Japan Pavilion is full of high technology. The “Wonder Camera” is cool. It can find a smiling face in a crowd. When you're smiling, it takes a photo of you. I want to invent something like that in the future.
    My favorite pavilion is the Germany Pavilion. I watched the Energy Source show. Visitors made a ball swing back and forth (来回摇摆) by using only their voices. It's amazing! Although we had waited for quite a long time before we entered the hall, I think it is well worth seeing with your own eyes.
    I like painting, so my parents took me to the France Pavilion to see the famous paintings. But the French cooks caught my eye. I saw them cook. My mom told me that they are some of the best cooks in the world. The dish they cooked looked like a painting. So, being a cook is my second dream job.

    An important question about eating out is who pays for the meal. If a friend of yours asks you to have lunch with him, you may say something like this, "I'm afraid it'll have to be someplace cheap, as I have very little money." The other person may say, "OK, I'll meet you at McDonald's."

    This means that the two agree to go Dutch, that is, each person pays for himself. He may also say, "Oh, no. I want to take you to lunch at Smith's," or "I want you to try the Chinese dumplings there. They're great." This means the person wants to pay for both of you. If you feel friendly towards this person, you can go with him and you needn't pay for the meal. You may just say, "Thank you. That would be very nice."

    American customs (1) about who pays for dates (2) are much the same as in other parts of the world. In the old days, American women wanted men to pay for all the meals. But, today, a university (3) girl or a woman in business world will usually pay her way during the day. If a man asks her for a dance outside the working hours, it means "Come, as my guest (4)." So as you can see, it is a polite thing to make the question clear at the very beginning.

    If someone says to you: "give me five", do not search your pocket to get five yuan! It will make others laugh! The person's not asking for your money, but your fingers.

    In the US, "give me five" or "give me the high five" is a popular gesture (动作). You can see it often in films or on TV It means the clapping (拍) of each other's raised right hands together.

    People do it when they meet for the first time or something happy happens. For example, a student has good marks in exams or wins a lottery ticket (彩票). If a football team wins a game, the players will give high fives to everyone around to celebrate.

    This gesture may come from the old Roman gesture of raising the right arm for the emperor to show respect. This also showed that the person raising his am did not have a sword (刀) in his hand.

    Why not try to give the high five to your friends?

Do you like writing by hand or with a keyboard?

A new brain research, led by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, shows that choosing handwriting over using a keyboard results in better learning and memory.

"When you write your shopping lists or notes by hand, you simply remember things better after some time."said Audrey van der Meer, author of the study.

The study was done using equipment(设备) to track(跟踪) and record brain wave activity. 12 young adults and 12 children took part in the study. Each person was asked to write by hand and type on a keyboard while wearing a special ca p with over 250 electrodes(电极). The sensors (传感器) in the electrodes picked up the electrical activity that took place in the brain. Each examination took 45 minutes per person.

The results show that the brain in both young adults and children is much more active when writing by hand than when typing on a keyboard. According to Van der Meer, plenty of senses become active by pressing a pen on paper, seeing the letters written and hearing the sound made while writing. These build connect ion between different parts of the brain, opening the brain up for learning.

Van der Meer believes that the results show the importance of children's learning to draw and write at an early age, especially at school."Learning to write by hand is a bit slower course, but it's important for children to experience the tiring step of learning to write by hand"she said,

The hand movements are good for us in many ways. "If you use a keyboard, you use the same movement for each letter. Writing by hand requires control of your fine motor(精细动作) skills and senses.It's important to put the brain in a learning state as often as possible."Van der Meer added."You might use a keyboard to write an article, but you should learn by hand during a class."