①Last year I spent my whole winter vacation in the US with my host family. The most unforgettable experience I had there was joining the Boy Scouts (童子军) of America. It was there that I got to face a great challenge: camping in the rain.

    ②One Saturday, we went hiking in the rain for more than six hours. When we finally reached the camping site, my shoes, my clothes, my bag and all the things inside it were totally soaked.

    ③Then, an even worse thing happened. Our guide teacher stepped out and said: “Today's hiking is a test. We're not going back home tonight! We have to live here tonight!” Soon we began to accept the truth and went to work. We just covered ourselves with a kind of plastic sheet and lay down by the campfire. While sleeping, I woke up several times. But to my surprise, I adapted (适应) to the environment quickly. Many others didn't even fall asleep.

    ④The sun finally rose and our hope returned. The bus came at 6 am and sent us back to our lovely home.

    ⑤Many in China say that children in the US were born with an adventurous spirit. But I think they were born with nothing different. Instead, they make differences by facing troubles positively. The camping adventure was a gift they gave themselves. Many Chinese children are over-protected when they are growing up. Therefore, when facing troubles, how can it be possible for us to react positively?

    The Browns have a very nice garden around their house. It has some tall trees and many flowers. Mr. and Mrs. Brown work hard in their garden. Now Mrs. Brown is in the garden getting some flowers. She will put the flowers in the dining room and the sitting room.

    Susan is sitting in a chair in the garden. She is reading a book. Susan doesn't go to work today. So she is at home. David is saying goodbye to his mother. He is running through the gate. He is going to school. He will go to school by bus. At school he studies with his friends. He has lunch at school. Mrs. Brown and Susan will have lunch at home. Mr. Brown went to London yesterday. He is in London now and will have his lunch there. This afternoon he will come back by train and he will drive from the station to his house in his own car. Mrs. Brown will be at home. Susan and her friend Tom will go to the town this afternoon, and have tea there.

    My name is Jack. When my family moved to America in 2014 from a small village in Guangdong, China, we brought not only our luggage, but also our village rules, customs as well as culture. One of the rules is that young people always respect elders. This rule, unfortunately, led to my very first embarrassment in America.

    I had a part-time job as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. One time, when I was serving food to a middle-aged couple, the wife asked me how the food could be served so quickly. I told her that I had made sure they got their food quickly because I always respect the elderly. As soon as I said that, her face showed great displeasure. My manager, who happened to hear what I said, took me aside and gave me a long lecture about how sensitive Americans are and how they dislike the description "old". I then walked back to the table and apologized to the wife. After the couple heard my reason, they understood that the problem was caused by cultural differences, so they laughed and were no longer angry.

    In my village, however, people are proud of being old. Not so many people live to be seventy or eighty, and people who reach such an age have the most knowledge and experience. Young people always respect older people because they know they can learn from their rich experience.

    However, in the United States, people think "growing old" is a problem since "old" shows that a person is going to retire or that the body is not working well. Here many people try to keep themselves away from growing old by doing exercises or jogging, and women put on makeup, hoping to look young. When I told the couple in the restaurant that I respect the elderly, they got angry because this caused them to feel they had failed to stay young. I had told them something they didn't want to hear.

    After that, I changed the way I had been with senior citizens. It is not that I don't respect them anymore; I still respect them, but now I don't show my feelings through words.

    When Mr. David retired（退休）, he bought a small house in a village near the sea. He liked it and hoped to live a quiet life in it. But to his surprise, many visitors came to see his house in summer holidays, for it was the most interesting building in the village. From morning to night, there were visitors outside the house. They kept looking into the rooms through the windows and many of them even went into the house. He decided to drive the visitors away. So he put a notice on the window. The notice said, "If you want to satisfy your curiosity（好奇心）, come in and look around. Price twenty dollars. "Mr. David was sure that the visitors would stop coming, but he was wrong. More and more visitors came and Mr. David had to spend every day showing them around his house. "I came here to retire, not to work as a guide（导游）, "he said angrily. In the end, he sold the house and moved away.