People eat different things in different parts of the world.

    In south China we eat rice every day. Sometimes we eat it two or three times a day, for breakfast, lunch and supper. We usually eat it with fish, meat and vegetable.

    The Japanese eat rice, too. They also eat a lot of fish. They sometimes eat raw（生的）fish. In Africa, maize（玉米）is the most important food. People there make maize into flour（面粉）.From this flour they make different kinds of bread and cakes.

    In western（西方的）countries such as Britain, Australia and the U.S.A, the most important food is bread or potatoes. People there usually make their bread from wheat flour. They cook the potatoes in different ways. In England the most popular food is fish and chips. Sometimes people cook this food at home, but usually they buy it at the shop. They eat this food at home, in their work place, in the park or on the road. People call it "take-away" food.

    For Suilasaikhan, a man living in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region(IMAR)(内蒙古自治区), life was hard years ago. When the wind blew, the sand made it almost impossible for him to see anything. He had to find his way back home by following the barking of dogs.

    Thankfully, things are much better today. About one third of the desert is now covered with trees, and sandstorms are less common. Ian Teh, who comes from Malaysia, came to China last year and was amazed to see people planting trees in the several deserts in northern China. "To be honest, it was hard to imagine it was ever a desert at all," he said.

    These are the results of Chinas years-long efforts to deal with desertification (沙漠化). In the 1950s, this widespread problem affected the life of about 400 million people in 18 provinces and autonomous regions in China. So China started several programs to deal with it. For example, the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, saw thousands of trees planted in northern China.

    In 1994, China joined the United Nations' convention (公约) against desertification and created the world's first law on sand prevention in 2001. With these efforts, the past five years have seen the area of desert in China decrease by 242,400 hectares.

    Desertification isn't the problem only in China. With china's success in dealing with desertification, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) believes the country is a good example for other countries to follow. "China is one of the most successful countries in greening the desert and has lessons to share with the world." UNEP Executive Director Erik Solheim told Xinhua.

    It was a cold winter. The wind blew all night and the snow was blinding. When morning came, my three children and I got up and made our way to the windows. As we looked out the window, we saw that the henhouse was gone. Our three hens had been blown away.

    I looked at the emptiness outside. Then I saw all three chickens sat around the edge of a white bucket. How was this violent wind not blowing them into the field beyond? I quickly pulled on long snow pants and heavy winter coat, wrapped a scarf and stuck my feet into very large boots .

    I shouted at the wind as it blew. I was alone, save for my children. They stared out the window into the vast white sea of snow, their eyes peeled for any sign of movement. Outside I heard the sound of my boots as I walked against the wind.

    The snow circling around me, I steadily made my way to the soft cluck-cluck-cluck sound my hens always made. When I reached them, I saw that their little feet were holding on to the edge of the bucket, heads bent forward and away from the wind. I gently lifted each hen and put it carefully into the warm inside. Then I began the freezing walk back to the small shed directly behind our house. One by one I laid my chickens on the cold floor, and they began to cluck softly.

    As I shut the shed doors, my eyes went directly to the window where my children were watching. They jumped up and down cheering, and so did I! I wasn't some dragon slayer (屠龙者) from a fairy tale. I was simply a mom, but the look on my children's faces told me that they thought I was a hero mom.

    Before I had my son, I spent two years working with children with disabilities. I learnt that shouting and threats of punishment would result in a disaster. Coming up against their behaviour could only make the job harder and their behaviour more extreme. I found something that worked, though.

    There was a very naughty boy in the nursery and a teacher who was generally very confident with the children was asked to take charge of him. One day the boy joined a session in the room next to mine. His appearance created an atmosphere of tension. He spent the entire session running around, hitting and kicking, and destroying property.

    I was in the craft room working with some other children when my co­worker told me that this boy's teacher was in tears, and could not get control of the situation. As we were talking, the boy ran in. I told my co­worker that I would take care of him.

    I closed the door. He was full of energy, throwing things around and making a huge mess. But I could see that he was doing all these to annoy me. He needed connection, and this was the only way he knew how to ask for it. So I sat back down and kept quiet. Then he slowed down and began making a rocket. I talked to him about it. We continued like this for a few minutes before I slipped into the conversation：

    “So what happened today？”

    It was purely a question, no blame or anger in my tone. I believe that if I had criticized him, the gate that was slowly opening would have shut firmly closed. He told me that the teacher didn't let him do what he knew well due to safety but asked him to do what he disliked. He also admitted that he had enjoyed making her run around and saw it as a game. I explained that his teacher had not seen it as a game and was very upset. This again was stated simply as a fact. I suggested that next time he had a session, he talk about what he hoped to do at the start, which might be easier for everyone. He agreed and was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at me with tears in his eyes before quietly asking if he could go to find his teacher to apologize.

    The Olympic Games are well known and always receive the world's attention, but there has been another little-known Olympic event in the UK for hundreds of years. And it's an event which some say helped start the Olympic movement in this country. The Cotswold Olimpicks take place every year on a Friday in spring. They are held in a village in England known as the Cotswold. It isn't clear when the first event took place but some say it was as early as 1612.

    The Cotswold Olimpicks were the idea of a lawyer called Robert Dover but no one knows exactly why he organized the games. Some people say he wanted to encourage people to support their king and country. Another explanation is that Dover was keen (渴望的) to bring people together, in particular the rich and poor from the local community. Whatever the reason, the yearly games quickly became popular. People competed in familiar activities such as horse-racing, running, jumping, and wrestling; famous people of the time attended it and poets wrote about the celebrations. It is even said that Shakespeare mentioned the Cotswold Olimpicks in The Merry Wives of Windsor, though the play may have been written some time before the first games.

    As the Cotswold Olimpicks grew in popularity, a group of people known as the Puritans(清教徒) started to object to them for religious reasons, saying they encouraged bad behaviour. The games came to an end at the start of the English Civil War but in 1660 they were re-introduced. Over time they became more and more popular and there are records of 30, 000 people attending in one year. However, the games also attracted people who were more interested in the celebrations than the sporting events. Finally, they came to an end once again in 1852. However, this was not the end of the Cotswold Olimpicks. They were re-introduced again in 1966 and have since been recognized by the British Olympic Committee. Out of respect to their history, the modem games are watched over by a man dressed as Sir Robert Dover, riding on horseback and accompanied by a representative of King James I. Unlike the real Olympic Games, the Cotswold Olimpicks has only about two hours and they are followed by celebrations in the village.

    Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall？Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists？In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway？In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand？

    Let's face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy， while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

    We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes(悖论), we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths in them.

    And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham？If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese - so one moose, two meese?

    How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next？

    English was invented by people, not computers, and it shows the creativity of human beings. That's why, when stars are out, they are visible; but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.