Every week in China, millions of people will sit in front of their TVs watching teenagers compete for the title Character Hero, which is a Chinese­style spelling bee (拼写大赛). In this challenge, young competitors must write Chinese characters by hand. To prepare for the competition, the competitors usually spend months studying dictionaries.

    Perhaps the show's popularity should not be a surprise. Along with gunpowder and paper, many Chinese people consider the creation of Chinese calligraphy (书法) to be one of their primary contributions. Unfortunately, all over the country, Chinese people are forgetting how to write their own language without computerized help. Software on smart phones and computers allows users to type in the basic sound of the word using the Latin alphabet(字母). The correct character is chosen from a list. The result? It's possible to recognize characters without remembering how to write them.

    But there's still hope for the paint brush. China's Education Ministry wants children to spend more time learning how to write.

    In one Beijing primary school we visited, students practice calligraphy every day inside a specially decorated classroom with traditional Chinese paintings hanging on the walls. Soft music plays as a group of six­year­olds dip brush pens into black ink. They look up at the blackboard often to study their teacher's examples before carefully trying to reproduce those characters on thin rice paper.＂If adults can survive without using handwriting, why bother to teach it now?＂we ask the calligraphy teacher, Shen Bin.＂The ability to write characters is part of Chinese tradition and culture,＂she reasons.＂Students must learn now so they don't forget when they grow up.＂says the teacher.

    They like using the Internet. They have lots of pocket money to spend．And they spend a higher proportion of it online than the rest of us. Teenagers are just the sort of people an online seller is interested in, and the things they want to buy — games, CDs and clothing — are easily sold on the Web.

    But paying online is a tricky business for consumers who are too young to own credit cards. Most have to use a parent's card. They want a service that allows them to spend money.

    That may come sooner than they think: new ways to take pocket money into cyber (网络的) space are coming out rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic. If successful, these products can stimulate (刺激)online sales.

    In general, teenagers spend huge amounts: $153bn (billion) in the US last year and ￡20bn annually in the UK．Most teenagers have access to the Internet at home or at school — 88 percent in the US, 69 percent in the UK. According to the Jupiter Research, one in eight of those with Internet access has bought something online — mainly CDs and books.

    In most cases, parents pay for these purchases with credit cards, an arrangement that is often unsatisfactory for them and their children. Pressing parents to spend online is less productive than pressing on the high street. They are more likely to ask “Why?” if you ask to spend some money online.

    One way to help teenagers change notes and coins into cyber cash is through prepaid cards such as Internet Cash in the US and Smart cards in the UK. Similar to those for pay-as-you-go mobile telephones, they are sold in amounts such as￡20 or $50 with a concealed (隐藏的) 14-digit number that can be used to load the cash into an online account.

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Summer Activities

    Students should read the list with their parents/carers, and select two activities they would like to do. Forms will be available in school and online for them to indicate their choices and return to school. Before choices are finalised, parents/carers will be asked to sign to confirm their child's choices.

    There is a lake near a forest in Sweden. The water in lake is very clear and everything is quiet and still. On the far side of the water is some farmlands and further away, across the fields, is an old church built on a hill. It has just stopped raining. The brook flowing into the lake is full and there is still some half-melted snow from last winter on the ground.

    The reason the water is so clear and everything is so quiet and still, is that most of the plant and animal life in and around the lake is died. There are no birds because all the fish and insects, which the birds need for food, have disappeared. Many trees in the forest are losing their leaves and bark, and are sick and dying. Others were blown down by the high winds of last winter. A farmer is working in a field planting something, but unless he plants a stronger kind of seed this year, the crop will be between 25 to 40 percent lower than a few years ago. The stones of the old church tower are turning to power and unless the tower is repaired soon, it will fall down.

    The smoke coming out of factories and poisonous gases from cars and trucks causes all the death and destruction in this place. And yet this silent lake is hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest factory and highways.

    In China, Major Cold (大寒) is the last solar term in winter and also the last solar term in the annual lunar(阴历的) calendar. In this period, snow, rain and icy cold weather have a big influence on people's lives.

    Here are several things you should know about Major Cold.

    Eating "dispelling cold cake" (吃"消寒糕")

    During Major Cold, people in Beijing have a habit of eating "dispelling cold cake", a kind of rice cake. Sticky rice, the cake's main ingredient, contains more sugar than rice, which can make people feel warm all over their bodies. In Chinese the word "rice cake" has the same pronunciation with the word "higher in a new year", which symbolizes good luck and continual promotion.

    Eating fried spring roll（吃春卷）

    In Anqing of Anhui province, people traditionally eat fried spring rolls during Major

    Cold. They use a round, cooked, thin pancake to wrap stuffing（馅料）in a thin roll. Then it is fried in a pan with oil until it turns yellow and floats to the top. The stuffing inside the spring roll contains meat or vegetables and the flavor can be salty or sweet.

    Drinking stewed soup

    People in Nanjing of Jiangsu province like to drink stewed soup during Major Cold, which can make people feel warm from head to foot. They always stew the aged hen soup with ginseng(人参), matrimony vine(枸杞) and black fungus(黑木耳).

    Doing winter sports

    There is a saying that goes, "Dripping water freezes during Minor and Major Cold." In various regions of China, Major Cold is the perfect time for winter sports such as skiing, ice skating and sledding.

    John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose.

    His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II.

    During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like.

    When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting -- 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen.

    I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened: A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, attractive smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" she murmured.

    Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own.

    And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her.

    This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant(中尉)John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?"

    The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!"

    It's not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. "Tell me whom you love," Houssaye wrote, "And I will tell you who you are."