Betty and I are best friends. Our birthdays are on the same day, so every year we have a birthday party together. But this year, we had a costume party instead.

      While we were writing the invitations, my mum came in and asked, "Why not invite John?" John had been in our class for only a few months, but he was already getting better grades in Maths than anyone else in class. I wrinkled (皱起) my nose, “Mum, he wears the same pants to school every day. How could he even afford a costume?" Mum said nothing. The next day, mum gave me an envelope with a shopping certificate (凭证) in it. "I thought it would be nice for you to give this to John" Mum said. But how? We didn't want to make John embarrassed. We discussed it for a long time. Finally, Betty and I had a good idea.

      On the day of our party, kids arrived, dressed differently. John arrived, in an old sheet (床单), but still in the same brown pants as usual. We danced, ate snacks and played games in groups. Before eating the birthday cake, Betty said in a loud voice, “Now it is time for the great prize game.  It is the following riddle……". It was a maths game. None of us was surprised when John came up with the right answer first and walked off with the envelope.

      Everything went on well as we planned. John wore a new pair of pants and a new shirt the next week. He felt happy. So did we.

When we help others, we need to find a proper way, or we may hurt them in another way.

    Most of the taxi drivers in Beijing can speak some simple English, so western tourists can communicate (交流) with them. If a foreigner is in a street in Beijing, and he wants to take a taxi, the friendly taxi driver will stop near him and ask him in a friendly way. Here is the usual dialogue in English between them.

The taxi driver:” Can I help you?”

The foreigner: “Yes, please.”

The taxi driver:” Please get on the taxi.”

The foreigner: “Thank you.”

The taxi driver: “Can you tell me where you would like to go?”

The foreigner: “I'd like to go to Tian Qiao Street.”

The taxi driver: “OK, I see.”

    During the ride, the driver will play the western music for the foreigner, and the driver will also begin the conversation with a small talk like the weather or the fashion.

    After getting off the taxi, the foreigner will give the driver some tips (小费) like the way in his country, however, the driver will say politely, “Thank you, but I only take what the ride costs.”

    Once upon a time, there was a family with 18 children living in a village. Two of the children, both boys, loved painting very much, but the family was so poor that it was impossible to send both of them to study at art school at the same time.

    After many discussions, the two boys finally worked out a plan. They would toss(抛) a coin. The loser would go down into the mines(煤矿) and, with his money, pay for his brother's college tuition(学费).Then, when the brother who won the toss finished his studies, he would pay Tor the other brother to study at the college.

    One of the brothers, Albrecht Durer, won the toss and his brother Jack went down into the mines. Durer worked with all his heart and his paintings were much better than those of most of his teachers. He was beginning to make a lot of money for his paintings.

    Durer returned. When he told Jack he could go to art college, Jack said softly: "The four years in the mines have done too much to my hands. It is too late. Now I can't even hold a glass."

    To show his great love and respect for his brother, Durer drew his brother's hands with palms(手掌)together and thin fingers towards the sky. He called his drawing The Praying Hands, which became very famous years later.

    The next time you see a copy of that touching work, take a second look. Let it be your reminder: No one can ever succeed alone!

Ghaffar Pourazar, a British man, has learned the necessary skills to perform Beijing Opera and he has become popular with his lively performance of the Monkey King.

Born in Iran, Ghaffar has been a big fan of Chinese culture since he was a child. And he is interested in China.

In 1993, he happened to watch Beijing Opera performed in London by professionals from Jingju Theatre Company of Beijing. Ghaffar fell in love with the beautiful voices, colorful costumes, excellent shows and so on. So after a year, he arrived in China alone and became a student of Beijing Opera at a school in Beijing.

At the age of 32, he had to learn with teenage students every day, starting from the most basic training of the legs and waist. At that time, he was mostly troubled by the dialogue in Beijing Opera. To him, it was the biggest problem. But he never gave up.

Four years later, he began to learn to perform the Monkey King, a traditional character from the Chinese classic story Journey to the West. He usually arrived at the workroom an hour earlier than the other performers and he also bought books and CDs to understand the character better.

Ghaffar is not only good at speaking Beijing dialect (方言) but also has won the world reputation for Beijing Opera He once won a top international prize for performing the Monkey King.

To help more people enjoy Beijing Opera, Ghaffar often teaches the traditional art form in schools in the United States, Britain and other countries. When he found that the language was difficult to understand, he started to translate the lyrics of Beijing Opera. Ghaffar led a group of actors to perform 66 times in a month and a half in the United States. He also led a 48-member team to perform in Malaysia. In the past 10 years, he has performed in more than 400 shows.

 Who would have thought that Albert Einstein, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} famous German- American scientist from the early 1900s, would make it into the news these days? But that's {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(exact) what happened. Recently, his handwritten work notes about the theory of relativity(相对论) went up for auction(拍卖).

 Einstein, along with an {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(Italy) engineer Michele Besso, worked together for several years on a scientific paper. They hoped to come up {#blank#}4{#/blank#} a mathematical equation(数学方程式) to explain the theory of relativity. It {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(involve) the factors of energy, mass and light.

 They ran into {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(problem) and stopped working on it, but Besso saved the written papers anyway. Einstein didn't successfully finished the work {#blank#}7{#/blank#} he realized that gravity also needed to be considered. He finally published a paper about it on his own in 1915. After all these years, the 54 pages of notes were recently put up for auction at Christie's (佳士得拍卖行) in Paris.

 The buyer's name was not released, but the manuscript (手稿) is {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(expensive) scientific paper ever bought, at over $15 million. One has to wonder {#blank#}9{#/blank#} the owner is going to do with those notes. Frame them? Keep them in a vault(保险库)? Resell them {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(make) even more money? Only time will tell.