So, let's imagine you are walking down the street drinking a box of tea. You finish drinking the tea. Now, what do you do with the box? Do you drop it on the ground? Or, do you do the right thing and drop it in a trash can? Hopefully, you drop it in the trash can because, besides harming the environment, littering is also very impolite.

    Recently, a magazine published a list of the most polite cities in the world. They looked three things: did people litter, did shop clerks say thank you and did people hold the door open for the person behind them? The top three politest cities were New York, USA, Zurich, Switzerland, and Toronto, Canada. Hong Kong, China was number 35. Shanghai wasn't even on the list.

    Does that mean that Shanghai is not apolite city? Well, maybe. There are different ways to judge(判断) politeness but the survey was looking at how a visitor to a city would feel when walking around its public places. Visitors don't like to step over empty tea boxes as they walk down the street. They don't like it when they buy something and the shop clerk doesn't say thank you or even give them a smile. They also don't like it when someone lets a door slam(砰然关上) into them instead of holding it open.

    Shanghai is a nice city but it is not always the most polite city. I don't think this is intentional(有意的). I think it's just a lack of awareness(缺乏意识). China is becoming a popular place for tourists to visit. When they come to Shanghai they will find a friendly city: it would be nice if they also found apolite one. And, remember, being polite makes you feel good, too. It's nice to be nice.

    These days, anyone who uses the Internet on their phone understands the power of different kinds of pictures. They are emojis (表情符号) which have swept the world since the late 1990s. One could say that, in the Internet age, emojis are the world's most widely understood language.

    However, on Chinese social media, just understanding how to use emojis is not enough. Now young Chinese enjoy an even more complex (复杂的) form of emoji called biaoqingbao, or sticker sets. Much like emojis, sticker sets are groups of pictures used to express feelings.

    Sticker sets are popular among the young people, especially those born in the 1990s. During a recent conversation with a friend of mine—a 90s kid—on WeChat. I wrote that l disagreed with something he had said. In response, he sent back a group of stickers. The first was a screenshot (截图) taken from the Chinese political drama In the Name of the People, in which an actor, Xu Yajun, purses his lips in a look of doubt. Next came a popular Internet picture of a girl pulling a face of exaggerated (夸张的) anger. Then quickly by an image of an orange cat that has funny drawn-on frown. At last, my phone lit up with the baby face of Huang Zitao. None of these stickers expressed teal anger. Instead, they meant: "Why don't you agree with me?"

    Using sticker sets skillfully can express the speaker's mind correctly without misunderstanding.

    The sticker sets can also end the conversation when its user is ready to go to bed. Between close friends or couples, only saying "Goodnight" might seem common. Instead, imagine a man with a sweet heart beside, his face red with words: "I'm going to bed." Not only is this sticker able to end the conversation, but it also refers to a closer relationship between speakers.

    Sticker sets are the new language of China's youth. They now need more ways to express themselves. We must allow them to speak more freely and independently. For the moment, at least, sticker sets are playing this important role.

    We have three meals a day. In the morning, we have breakfast. It is at about 6 or 7 o'clock. Breakfast should be good. We can have milk, eggs, and other things. Some students often have no breakfast. It is very bad for their heath. In China, lunch is the main meal of the day. It is at about 12 o'clock. It is a big meal. There are often three or four dishes. We should be full after lunch. We usually have supper at about 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. We should have a small supper. But in England， people call the main meal dinner. It often means supper.

    The British Museum is the biggest museum in the world. Inside, you feel smaller than usual. There are many things to see.

    The story of the British Museum goes back three hundred years to one unusual man, Sir Hans Sloane, a doctor to King George II. The doctor collected books, drawings, clothes, money, animals, flowers, things from all over the world. The doctor wanted everything to stay together when he died, so that people could come and have a look. The British Museum began. King George II gave his library, and the museum started to grow.

    The British Museum opened in 1759, six years after Sir Hans Sloane died. At first the museum was only open three days a week and only ten people could enter in an hour. There wasn't much time to see things.  Visitors had to run through the room.

    By about 1800, things began to get better. Wonderful statues, three thousand years old, arrived from Egypt. King George IV sold all his books to the museum secretly. A hundred years ago not only old books but also new ones arrived at the museum, and more people came to read them. Since then many famous men have written and studied there. And the library is growing faster and faster. There are four kilometers of new shelves every year and there are about two million visitors every year.