When her five daughters were young, Helene An always told them that there was strength in unity (团结). To show this, she held up one chopstick, representing oneperson. Then she easily broke it into two pieces. Next, she tied several chopsticks together, representing a family. She showed the girls it was hard to break the tied chopsticks. This lesson about family unity stayed with the daughters as they grew up.

Helene An and her family own a large restaurant business in California. However, when Helene and her husband Danny left their home in Vietnam in 1975, they didn't have much money. They moved their family to San Francisco. There they joined Danny's mother, Diana, who owned a small Italian sandwich shop. Soon afterwards, Helene and Diana changed the sandwich shop into a small Vietnamese restaurant. The five daughters helped in the restaurant when they were young. However, Helene did not want her daughters to always work in the family business because she thought it was too hard.

        Eventually the girls all graduated from college and went away to work for themselves, but one by one, the daughters returned to work in the family business. They opened new restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Even though family members sometimes disagreed with each other, they worked together to make the business successful. Daughter Elisabeth explains, "Our mother taught us that to succeed we must have unity, and to have unity we must have peace. Without the strength of the family, there is no business."

        Their expanding business became a large corporation in 1996, with three generations of Ans working together. Now the Ans' corporation makes more than $20 million each year. Although they began with a small restaurant, they had big dreams, and they worked together. Now they are a big success.

    What might the future be like? Here are some predictions: things to come, things to go.

    Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday when everyone returns home has caused headaches for millions of Chinese. More than 2 billion people travel at the same time, making getting travel tickets and the journey difficult. But in 28 years, Spring Festival travel may not be a problem at all. China plans to build more than 120,000 kilometers of railway and a fast transportation network that will serve 90% of the population by 2020.

    And because most of China will be cities, people will not have to go to other places to find a job, so it will no longer be a problem.

Newspapers will come to an end in 2043. In the future, digital newspapers will be sent to personal web tools through Internet. Readers can discuss topics with journalists and editors. Information will move faster.

    Oil is running out faster than expected. But scientists have found something else for oil as fuel. Coal, natural gas, solar power, nuclear power and even water can take the place of oil as sources of energy.

    Schools will go electronic. Computers will be important and popular among the students. Everything will be in the computer and students will not need to bring books to school. They will find information on the Internet. A computer will be the students ‘library, schoolbag and connection to the outside world. There will be robot teachers, who will check homework on computers and communicate with the students' parents through e-mail. And school buses will be like spaceships, comfortable and safe.

    Larry was on another of his underwater expeditions(探险)but this time, it was different. He decided to take his daughter along with him. She was only ten years old. This would be her first trip with her father on what he had always been famous for.

    Larry first began diving when he was his daughter's age. Similarly, his father had taken him along on one of his expeditions. Since then, he had never looked back. Larry started out by renting diving suits from the small diving shop just along the shore. He had hated them. They were either too big or too small. Then, there was the instructor. He gave him a short lesson before allowing him into the water with his father. He had made an exception. Larry would never have been able to go down without at least five hours of theory and another similar number of hours on practical lessons with a guide. Children his age were not even allowed to dive.

    After the first expedition, Larry's later diving adventures only got better and better. There was never a dull moment. In his black and blue suit and with an oxygen tank fastened on his back, Larry dived from boats into the middle of the ocean. Dangerous areas did not prevent him from continuing his search. Sometimes, he was limited to a cage underwater but that did not bother him. At least, he was still able to take photographs of the underwater creatures.

    Larry's first expedition without his father was in the Cayman Islands. There were numerous diving spots in the area and Larry was determined to visit all of them. Fortunately for him, a man offered to take him around the different Spots for free. Larry didn't even know what the time was, how many spots he dived into or how many photographs he had taken. The diving spots afforded such a wide array of fish and sea creatures that Larry saw more than thirty varieties of creatures.

    Larry looked at his daughter. She looked as excited as he had been when he was her age. He hoped she would be able to continue the family tradition. Already, she looked like she was much braver than had been then. This was the key to a successful underwater expedition.

    Traveling to Europe to see its famous monuments like the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Colosseum(古罗马竞技场) in Rome，is not exactly the perfect vacation for kids. Fortunately, Europe has more to offer than lots of old churches and ancient history. You can enjoy some fun with your kids in the sun at some of the famous beaches of the continent.

    Dubrovnik, Croatia .

    There's nothing more attractive than the beautiful beaches bordering Dubrovnik, Croatia's most beautiful city. It's surrounded by stone walls like a castle. It almost makes you feel like you're suntanning(晒黑皮肤)at Hogwarts, where the hero Harry Potter of the story is trained!

    Sicily, Italy

    Rabbit Beach on the island of Sicily offers shallow and crystal clear waters, making it a perfect beach for families with young children. And if you want to add interest to your experience, try snorkeling(徒手潜水).

    Nice, France

    Lined with palm trees and first-class hotels, the city of Nice, located on the French Riviera, offers a whole coastline of Mediterranean beaches. Because they're in the heart of the city, these beaches attract a large crowd. So if you're looking for something more private, you'll have to travel a few miles outside of the city center.

    Ribadeo, Spain

    At low tide, Playa de las Catedrales in Ribadeo, Spain is the perfect beach to take in the natural wonders without urban amusements like restaurants, bars or huge crowds. It boasts beautiful wild flowers and unique rock formations ma king it truly a picture worthy.

    The ocean is filled with eight million tons of rubbish—enough to fill five carrier bags for every foot of coastline on the planet. But a new invention could deal with this problem, one port at a time.

    A pair of surfers from Perth, Australia, has invented a "floating bin" that automatically draws rubbish floating on the water into it like a vacuum (真空) cleaner. While the invention may do little to battle against five giant "garbage islands" that flow around the world's  major ocean gyres (环流), it could stop waste from leaving harbours and marinas, for example. Peter Ceglinski and Andrew Turton said their device could spell the end of polluted seas.

    The concept is simple: A bucket connects to a water pump, drawing in any floating trash inside a removable net bag. There is also an optional oil-water separator system inside the pump. It can remove oil from the seawater before spitting it back into the ocean — pollution-free — through the other side of the pump.

    The water filtration (过滤) system is much like what you'd find in a fish tank, but it has the potential to clean up an entire ocean. The seabin can run 24/7, according to its website. And, amazingly, Peter and Andrew say they have never caught a fish or sea animal in their pumps in four years of testing.

    The Seabin Project aims to improve on the traditional and sometimes expensive — harbor cleaning methods of having a person physically remove trash from the water or sending boats equipped with nets to collect it. While it's not as extensive as 21-year-old Boyan Slat's plan to clean the entire Pacific Ocean in 10 years, starting in 2020, the seabin's creators said their device is something that harbors can start using to clean our oceans now.

    They're starting "close to the source of the problem in a controlled environment," Seabin's website states. "It's a big mission, but it can be done. In fact, we're doing it right now."

    Filled with much housework, meals and childcare at home, many people feel that being at work sounds more like having a picnic. Even for those who have a happy family life, they feel actually more stressed at home than at work.

    Recently, a study carried out by the researchers at a university in the USA found lower levels of hormone released in response to stress in a majority of subjects when they were at work compared to when they were at home. This was true for both men and women, and parents and people without children.

    Both men and women showed less stress at work. But women are more likely to report feeling happier there. Men were more likely to feel happier at home. Experts say there are other reasons why work is less stressful than home for many. “Paid work is more valued in society,” said Sarah Damaske, the lead researcher on the study, “Household work is boring and not particularly rewarding.”

    We get better at our job with time and the increased competence means less stress and more rewards. Yet none of us, no matter how long we've been doing it, ever truly feels like an expert at parenting or even at marriage.

    The support and friendship of co-workers also offer stress relief. At home, meanwhile, stress spreads and increases quickly. “That's the reason why most housewives wish they were the bread earners,” Dr. Damaske says.

    Much of the advice to families and couples includes the warning to “leave work stress at office” and even to change our mind-set from work to home, for example, a walk around the block. The recent findings, though, suggest our home life, not our attitude, might be due for some change.