A jobless man wanted very much to have the position of “office boy” at Microsoft. The HR manager interviewed(面试) him and then watched him cleaning the floor as a test. “You have passed the test,” he said. “Give me your e-mail address and I'll send you the form（表格） to fill in and the date when you may start.” The man replied, “But I don't have a computer, neither an e-mail.” “I'm sorry,” said the HR manager. “If you don't have an e-mail, that means you are not living. And anyone who isn't living cannot have the job.”

    The man left with no hope at all. He didn't know what to do with only $10 in his pocket. He thought and thought. Then he went to the supermarket and bought 10 kilos of tomatoes. He sold the tomatoes from door to door. In less than two hours, he had 20 dollars. He did that three times, and started to go early every day, and returned home late. Shortly, he bought a cart , then a truck, then he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles(运货车队). Five years later, the man was one of the biggest food retailers (零售商)  in the US.

    One day, one of his friends asked him for his e-mail. He said, “I haven't got one.” His friend couldn't believe his ears. “Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an e-mail?” The man thought for a while and replied, “Yes, I'd be an office boy at Microsoft!”

    Annie Sullivan had a hard life. She grew up alone and very poor. Annie had trouble with her eyes, too. She could not see well.

    One day after Annie grew up, a family called her. They needed help with their daughter. Their little daughter's name was Helen Keller. Helen needed a teacher.

    Helen could not see. She could not hear, either. She felt scared and lonely(孤独的). Annie wanted to help Helen. She wanted to be able to talk to her.

    Annie tried to teach Helen a sign language, a way to make words with hands. But Helen did not know what Annie tried to teach her.

    One day near the outside water pump, Annie had an idea. She put one of Helen's hands in the water. Then Annie let Helen feel W-A-T-E-R on her other hand again and again and again.

    At last, Helen knew. She learned that what she was feeling had a name. Helen was on her way to a lifetime of learning.

Zhou Jinrui and Harry are two middle school students in Hangzhou. They didn't have much money with them. But they have dreamed to visit Beijing for a long time. So they went to Beijing from Hangzhou by bike last summer holiday. They spent nearly one month on the bike travelling. The journey（旅程）was hard, but they felt happy. 

They went through many cities and villages during the travelling. They ate the food they took or had cheap meals. When they were tired at night, they took out their map to find small and cheap hotels or the farmers' houses to stay in. They also took some medicine with them. When they had a cold, they didn't need to go to hospital. When it was rainy, they stopped for a while and went on with their travelling. 

At the end of August, they got to Beijing successfully. They visited a lot of places of interest in Beijing, such as the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and Tian'anmen Square. 

They had a fun time in Beijing for ten days. At last, they had to return to Hangzhou by train because the new term began in September. 

"I killed the wrong goose (鹅), " a man complained in his letter about the Xinhua Dictionary. It was the 1970s. The man wanted to kill a male goose. He didn't know the difference between male and female goose, so he turned to the dictionary for help. It read, "The male geese have a yellow bump on their head."

The man chose a goose that matched the description. But when he opened its stomach, many eggs poured out, and the man was angry. 

The dictionary wasn't totally wrong. However, it didn't make it clear that all geese have a yellow bump on their head. Males have just bigger ones. The dictionary's editors corrected it in the next edition (版本) . 

Since its birth in 1953, the Xinhua Dictionary has been used as an encyclopedia (百科全书) by people across China. More than 600 million copies have been sold. 

In 1949, about 80 percent of China's population was uneducated. Xinhua Dictionary succeeded in opening up knowledge to millions of Chinese people. "I had no education when I was little. The dictionary helped me get into high school. " Said a woman in her 50s. 

Over the past 50 years, the dictionary has been improved in each edition. "鲟"was once explained as"can be eaten". Later editions made it clear that it was "an animal in danger". The meaning of "豹"is no longer "wild animals whose fur can be made into clothes". New editions have included many new meanings. The character "晒" (to dry something under the sun) , for example, now has a second meaning: to share. Popular expressions like "初心"have also been added to dictionary. 

In a way, Xinhua hasn't just explained words; it has shaped the way Chinese people think. According to an article in Southern Weekly, "When children write about a spring outing, the sky is always ‘cloudless for ten thousand miles'. They will always ‘sing and dance' on the way. " "Both sentences, " the editor added, " are from examples in the Xinhua Dictionary."