When I was 8 years old, I decided to run away from home after a quarrel with my mother. With my suitcase packed and some sandwiches in a bag, I started for the front door.

     My mom asked where I was going. “I'm leaving home,” I said.

     “What's that you're carrying?” she asked.

     “Some clothes and food,” I replied.

     “If you want to run away, that's all right,” she said. “But you came into this home without anything and you can leave the same way.”

     I threw my suitcase and sandwiches on the floor and started for the door again.

     “Wait a minute,” Mom said. “You didn't have any clothes on when you arrived, and I want them back.”

 This infuriated me. I tore my clothes off — shoes, socks, underwear and all — and shouted, “Can I go now?”

     “Yes,” my mom answered, “but once you close that door, don't expect to come back.”

     I was so angry that I shut the door forcefully and stepped out of my home. Then I noticed down the street two neighbor girls walking toward our house. I was so shy that I saw the big spruce (云杉) tree in our yard and jumped under the low-hanging branches. A pile of dried-up brown needles were beneath the tree, and you can't imagine the pain those sharp needles caused to my body.

     After I was sure the girls had passed by, I ran to the front door and knocked at it loudly.

     “It's Billy! Let me in!”

     The voice behind the door answered, “Billy doesn't live here anymore. He ran away from home.”

     Looking behind me to see if anyone else was coming down the street, I said, “Mom! I'm sorry. I'm still your son. Let me in!”

     The door opened and Mom's smiling face appeared. “Did you change your mind about running away?” she asked.

     “What's for supper?” I smiled back.

    I am a strong believer that if a child is raised with approval, he will learn to love himself and will be successful in his own way.

    Several weeks ago, I was doing homework with my son in the third grade and he kept standing up from his chair to go over the math lines. I kept asking him to sit down, telling him that he should concentrate better. He sat but seconds later, as if he didn't even notice he was doing it, he got up again. I was getting frustrated, but then it hit me. I started noticing his answers were much quicker and accurate when he stood up. Could he be more intent while standing up?

    This made me start questioning myself and what I had been raised to believe. I was raised to believe that a quiet, calm child was a sure way to success. This child would have the discipline to study hard, get good grades and become someone important in life.

    Now those same people perhaps come to realize that their kids are born with their own sets of DNA and personality traits, and all you can do is loving and accepting them. As parents, throughout their growing years and beyond that, we need to be our kids' best cheerleaders, guiding them and helping them find their way.

    I have stopped asking my son to sit down and concentrate. Obviously, he is concentrating just in his own way and not mine. We need to learn to accept our kids' ways of doing things. Some way may have worked for me but doesn't mean we need to carry it through generations. There is nothing sweeter than being individual and unique. It makes us free and happy and that's just the way I want my kids to live their own life.

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    Wong Fuk-wing, a Hong Kong volunteer at an orphanage (孤儿院) in Yushu, was killed in the earthquake when he was trying to save others on April 14, 2010.

    Wong managed to run safely out of the building with some children when the first quake happened at 7:50 am on April 14, but he went back inside to rescue three other children and three teachers inside, although he knew the danger of aftershocks (余震).

    At 10 am, all the children and one of the teachers were saved. However, Wong was buried under the fallen building and died. The other two teachers were still waiting to be rescued.

    46-year-old Wong was a truck driver, who often said he could only give his efforts to charity instead of money, as he did not earn a lot. His tragic (悲剧的) end touched the hearts of many people both in Hong Kong and on the mainland.

    Wong began volunteering in 2002. In 2003, Wong was told by the doctor he got serious illness, which gave him a great blow. However, the illness did not deter the warm-hearted man. When the earthquake struck Wenchuan is Sichuan Province in 2008, Wong rushed to the disaster area of Shifang to offer his help though his family did not want him to go.

    In fact, Qinghai is a place Wong had often visited since 2006. As a volunteer, he gave out medicine and clothing to the orphanage there. No one could expect that Wong would die helping others.

    Hong Kong Chief Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen said he had “the highest respect” for the hero who gave his life for others. “What he did has shown the Hong Kong spirit.” The citizens of Hong Kong called him “the pride of Hong Kong's people” and people on the mainland have also praised him as “a true hero”.

    I always felt sorry for the people in wheelchairs. Some people, old and weak, cannot get around by themselves. Others seem perfectly healthy, dressed in business suits. But whenever I saw someone in a wheelchair, I only saw a disability，not a person.

    Then I fainted(昏倒) at Euro Disney due to low blood pressure. This was the first time I had ever fainted, and my parents said that I must rest for a while after first aid. I agreed to take it easy, but as I stepped toward the door, I saw my dad pushing a wheelchair in my direction! Feeling the colour burn my cheeks, I asked him to wheel that thing right back to where he found it.

    I could not believe this was happening to me. Wheelchairs were fine for other people but not for me. As my father wheeled me out into the main street, people immediately began to treat me differently.

    Little kids ran in front of me, forcing my father to stop the wheelchair suddenly. Bitterness set in as I was thrown back and forth.

    "Stupid kids! They have perfectly good legs. Why can't they watch where they are going？"I thought. People stared down at me，pity in their eyes. Then they would look away, maybe because they thought the sooner they forgot me the better. "I'm just like you!" I wanted to scream "The only difference is that you've got legs，and I have wheels."

    People in wheelchairs are not stupid. They see every look and hear each word. Looking out at the faces, I finally understood: I was once just like them. I treated people in wheelchairs exactly the way they did not want to be treated. I realized it is some of us with two healthy legs who are truly disabled.

New research into a long-lived tree has shown some of the tricks that have helped it survive for thousands of years. The ginkgo(银杏树) is a huge, slow-growing tree with fan-shaped leaves, native to China, but planted in parks and gardens across the world. Some of the largest ginkgoes are said to be more than 3, 000 years old.

In order to discover how these and other trees can live for so long, scientists from the US and China studied 34 healthy ginkgoes of different ages. The team studied growth rings in each tree's trunk(树干), as well as cells(细胞) from the bark, leaves and seeds. They found that 600-year-old trees were just as healthy as 2-year-olds.

To learn more, the team then looked in detail at the DNA of nine trees aged between three and 667 years old. DNA is the chemical in the cells of plants and animals that holds instructions that tell any living thing how to grow and develop-including what to do at different times in its life At the beginning of a tree's life, DNA instructs the cells in a seedling to divide quickly so the tree grows rapidly. The cells also make special chemicals to help the young plant survive difficult situations, such as disease. As most trees grow older, their DNA tells their cells to divide more slowly (so growth slows down) and to make fewer chemical defenses(防御).

Ginkgoes, however, do things differently. The team found that although their growth finally slows, both young and old trees make protective chemicals." The secret is keeping a really healthy defense system," said researcher Richard Dixon." As ginkgoes age, they show no sign of weakening their ability to defend themselves from things like disease. "Other trees that live for a long time may have the same ability.

For all their defenses, though, ginkgoes cannot live forever--they finally meet with deadly accidents such as fire, disease and storms. While they last, however, these leafy trees are some of the most beautiful trees in the world.