In today's society, everyone seems very busy every day. We fee l our time is valuable and needs to be used well. We need cheap meal ideas that can help us save time and money and still offer a healthy dinner to us and our family.

    The fast food makers know we have little time and don't pay attention to what we eat after a long day at work. So they often offer us cheap food that requires(需要) no cooking or cleaning, and only a short time to pick up.

    But eating so much fast food will cause body fatness and fast food is not nutritious(有营养的), so it's not the best choice. There are some very cheap meal ideas that take almost no time to prepare and will make coming home for a good meal more enjoyable.

    The first cheap meal idea is one dish including meat, rice, and also some cabbages, carrots or tomatoes. This is not only a cheap meal idea, but also it is fast because it can be made in only 20 minutes.

    You can quickly make some pancakes and scrambled eggs for the family in about half an hour. If you think it is strange to eat breakfast food for dinner, consider how the same foods give you what you need to go through a whole day.

    Another cheap meal idea to try is a “macaroni(通心粉) and cheese with meat” dish, which is the fastest, only takes around 15 minutes to cook.

    If you are interested in these cheap meal ideas, you're welcome to visit our website for details. When you fix one of these or other cheap meal ideas at home, you are taking time out of your busy day to treat yourself and your family in a special way.

    Growing up is not always easy. When we face difficulties, we should never give up.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    It is not useful to cry for help. Hong Zhanhui's story of growing from boy to man tells us about this.

    Hong was born in 1982 in a poor family in Henan Province. When he was only 11, his father became badly ill. And one day he came back with a baby girl. The girl was very young and they must spend much time looking after her. However, a year later, Hong's mother left home. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} So everything fell onto the young boy：to take care of his father and the sister, and to go on to study.

    Although his life was very hard, Hong didn't go away from his father and sister.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} He climbed tall trees to get birds' eggs for his sister. He walked two hours at weekends to the market to buy different things. Then he sold the things around his school to make some money.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}To take care of his sister, he worked hard to rent（租） a room near his college for her, and sent her to school every day.

    When people knew Hong's story, he became a hero in people's eyes. Many people wanted to help him. But Hong refused the help from others. He said he felt happy by other's help, but he believed he could take care of his family by himself. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

A. He did a part-time job to look after his family.

B. His life was hard, but he has grown up from boy to man.

C. A few years later, he began to study at a college.

D. She no longer wanted to live such a poor life and face her sick husband.

E. We should try our best to make the life better.

    Oldest festivals!

    Festivals and celebrations of all kinds are held everywhere. The oldest festivals would celebrate the end of the cold weather, planting in spring and harvest (丰收)in autumn. Other celebrations were held when they had food. They thought these festivals would bring a year of plenty.

    Festivals of the dead

    Some festivals are held to honor or satisfy and please the dead. In Japan the festival is called Obon. They have lamps on and play music because they think this will help the dead back to Earth. In Mexcio they have the day of the dead in early November. On this important day, people might eat food in different shapes and offer food, flowers and gifts to the dead.

    Festivals can be held as an honour to famous people. One of these is the Dragon Boat Festival in China, which honours the famous poet, Qu Yuan. Another is Columbus Day in the USA, in memory of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America.

    Harvest festivals

    Harvest and Thanksgiving festivals can be very happy events. People are grateful because their food is gathered for the winter. In European countries people usually decorate churches and town halls with flowers and fruit, and get together to have meals. In China and Japan there are mid-autumn festivals, when people admire the moon and give gifts of mooncakes.

    Spring festivals

    The most energetic and important festivals are the ones that look forward to the end of winter and to the coming of spring. In some Western countries, Easter is an important festival in February which celebrates the return of Jesus and celebrates the coming of spring. In Japan, the Cherry Blossom Festi­val happens a little later. In China, families get together to eat, drink and have fun at the Spring Festi­val.

Information Card

    In the 13th century, the famous Italian traveler, Marco Polo, traveled a long way to China. During his stay in China, he saw many wonderful things. One of the things he discovered was that the Chinese used paper money. In Western countries, people did not use paper money until the 15th century. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    A Chinese man called Cai Lun invented paper almost 2,000years ago. He made it from wood. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} He then put these pieces of paper together and made them into a book.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} We use a lot of paper every day. If we keep on wasting so much paper, there will not be any trees left on the earth. Every day, people throw away about 2,800 tons of paper. It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. This means that we are cutting nearly 48,000 trees every day.

    Since it takes more than 10 years for a tree to grow, we must start using less paper now. If we don't, we will not have enough time to grow more trees to take the place of those we use for paper.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} We can use both sides of every piece of paper, especially when we are making notes. We can choose drinks in bottles instead of those in paper packets. We can also use cotton handkerchiefs and not paper ones. When we go shopping, we can use fewer paper bags. If the shop assistant does give us a paper bag, we can save it and reuse it later.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} If we all think carefully, we can help protect trees. But we should do it now, before it is too late.

China has a rich and colorful cultural history，and masks have played a major role in Chinese tradition in thousands of years. Why do people wear masks？The reasons are to protect their body，to hide themselves，masks are used all over the world. 

African masks are usually made by a traditional style. There are many different kinds of African masks，but many of them represent animals. African masks are a part of full—body costumes and they are made for dancers. The dancers usually wear the masks in religious events. 

Japanese masks have been used in many different performances such as dance，theater，festivals or religious events. They represent heroes，devils，ghosts，cloth，wood，or some paper. 

Greek masks are used to represent the spirits of nature during religious events. Also，theater actors use masks to show different characters. In Rome，devil and other masks are used in carnivals（节日）. 

Today，masks continue to be of great artistic entertaining value.