No matter where you travel in Asia, you'll find yourself faced with a new culture. You can start your Asian exploration (探索) by visiting some of these attractive cities first.

    Beijing, China

    Beijing is the second largest city in China and serves as the capital. The city is so old, in fact, that almost every building has some sort of cultural or historic features — no matter how small. Getting around the city you'll find yourself faced with amazing temples (寺庙), the largest palaces in the world, and many works of art that leave you breathless.

    Siem Reap, Cambodia(柬埔寨)

    Siem Reap is the capital city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia. Siem Reap has a lot of French and Chinese­style architecture. In the city, there are traditional dance performances, silk farms, fishing villages and a bird sanctuary (保护区) near the Tonle Sap Lake. Siem Reap today, being a popular tourist attraction, has a large number of hotels and restaurants.

    Kathmandu, Nepal(尼泊尔)

    Situated in the heart of the Himalayans, Kathmandu, the largest city and capital of Nepal, is considered to be one of the most outstanding cities in the world today. The shopping districts are world famous and the hotels in Kathmandu are among the most comfortable in the world.

    Kyoto, Japan

    The city of Kyoto served as the capital of Japan from 794 to 1868. No longer the capital, it is known for being the seventh largest city in Japan. Kyoto was destroyed throughout history by fires and war. But now the city is home to more than 1.4 million people, and it presents a modern face to the rest of the world.

    Every city throughout Asia has a story of its own. It's up to you to explore them all and find out exactly what each one has to offer. Enjoy!

                                                                         Classified ads

    For direct classified service, call 800­0667 10 a.m.—4 p.m., Monday—Friday.

    On the eve of our daughters' weddings, I gave both of them what I considered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised （无人监督的） with pruning shears （修枝剪）.

    If only I had taken my own advice. I recently let my guard down. Thirty﹣some years of marriage can do that to a woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers （电动修剪器） and he will give new meaning to "armed and dangerous."

One day earlier this year, my husband said that the crab apple tree was dead.

    "Why do you think it is dead?" I asked.

    "Look at it. There's not a leaf on it."

    "There's not a leaf on anything. It's March," I said.

    "It looked sick last fall and with this bitter winter we had, I'm convinced it's dead."

    The truth is he's never liked the crabapple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets a disease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on the driveway.

    Each passing week he pronounced the tree dead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be a regrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple of weeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, then a large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of the branches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green.

    The crabapple was not dead. It just hadn't had time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was not dead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the man starts, he can't stop. One trim leads to another.

    "Please, stop!" I called.

    He smiled and nodded, but he couldn't hear because he had started the hedge （树篱） trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges.

    Zip （飕飕声）, zip, zip.

    "What do you think?" he shouted.

    "It's supposed to be a privacy hedge; now all that will be private are our ankles."

    He started the trimmers again.

    "Stop!" I called, "Come back!"

    "Why?" he shouted.

    "You're in the neighbor's yard."

    The United States of America is mainly an English-speaking country. The majority of the population speak English as their native language. Besides, education, social activities, etc. are conducted in English. Across but for the most part, Americans speak one common language. This language is sometimes called American English.

    However, not everyone in the USA is a native speaker of English. Most immigrants (移民)are speakers of other languages. There are hundreds of communities around the USA where English is not the most commonly used languages. Chinese, Italian, German, Greek, Spanish and French are all spoken in various communities in the USA. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language after English. It is widely spoken in New York and across the southern part of the country. For speakers of other languages, learning English is important, but teaching people to speak English as a second language was given little attention. Non-English speakers were expected to "pick up" the language by meeting with others in public. Recently, this has changed.

    Today, most large public schools and community colleges have ESL(English as a Second Language )programs; American English teachers feel that English students should learn the language the way they will use it. Therefore, ESL programs offer different English lessons to different students. Some programs teach students to communicate in English in public. Other programs teach the kind of English people who will need for their jobs. American ESL instructional methods do not lay emphasis on grammar or translation, but on the importance of communication. The goal is to get the English learners to learn by using the language.

    One of my wonderful memories is about a Christmas gift. Unlike other gifts, it came without wrap(包装).

    On September 11^th, 1958. Mum gave birth to Richard. After she brought him home from hospital, she put him in my lap, saying. "I promised you a gift, and here it is." What an honor! I turned four a month earlier and none of my friends had such a baby doll of their own. I played with it day and night. I sang to it. I told it stories. 1 told it over and over how much I loved it!

    One morning, however, I found its bed empty. My doll was gone! I cried for it. Mum wept and told me that the poor little thing had been sent to a hospital. It had a fever. For several days, I heard Mum and Dad whispering such words as "hopeless", "pitiful", and "dying", which sounded ominous.

    Christmas was coming. "Don't expect any presents this year." Dad said, pointing at the socks I hung in the living room. "If your baby brother lives, that'll be Christmas enough." As he spoke, his eyes filled with tears. I'd never seen him cry before.

    The phone rang early on Christmas morning. Dad jumped out of bed to answer it. From my bedroom I heard him say. "What? He's all right?" He hung up and shouted upstairs. "The hospital said we can bring Richard home!" "Thank God." I heard Mum cry.

    From the upstairs window, I watched my parents rush out to the car. I had never seen them happy. And I was also full of joy. What a wonderful day! My baby doll would be home. I downstairs. My sacks still hung there flat. But I knew they were not empty; they were filled with love!

    If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven't you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?

    According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.

    The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of "early bilinguals" who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.

    Scans showed that grey matter density (密度) in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference.

    "Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language," said the scientists.

    It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.

    Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills. "Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible (灵活的)," he said. "You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas."

    The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and thirty-four. Reading, writing, and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. "Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world," explained the scientists.