Can you write down a Chinese word being read to you? Sometimes it can be difficult when you find the word is not included in most dictionaries.

    Lu Jialei, 14, from Hangzhou Foreign Language School, won the CCTV Chinese Character (汉字) Spelling Contest on Oct 18^th, 2013. About 160 people competed. The host read a word to the contestant, explained its meaning and gave sample sentences. The contestant was required to write down the word.

    Winning the contest was a “surprise” to Lu. “I was not the smartest one,” she said. “But I paid attention to details.” To prepare for the contest, she and her teammates studied the Modern Chinese Dictionary for 10 days. There are more than 56,000 entries (词条) including characters, words and phrases in it. She also had a secret weapon. She studied how Chinese characters were formed.

    “When others paid attention to the plot of a story, she looked at how authors use words and sentences to express themselves,” said Su Yunsheng, Lu's Chinese teacher. Su is happy to see students like Lu find the beauty of Chinese language.

    “Besides using something Chinese and having Chinese traditional festivals, learning to write Chinese characters is also an important part of inheriting (传承) Chinese culture,” said Su.

    She was a poor child, but proud and arrogant（傲慢的）, and people said she was nothing but rude and impolite. When but a very little child, she had pleasure in catching flies to pull off their wings, stick them on a pin and watch them try to get off it.

    As Inger grew up she became even worse instead of better. She was very pretty, and that increased her arrogance. "You'll bring misfortune down upon you," said her own mother to her. "As a little child you often used to break things, and when you're older, I fear you'll break my heart." And she really did. Then she was sent into the town to be in the service of a rich family. They treated her as kindly as if she would have been their daughter and dressed her so well that she looked more beautiful.

    When she had been there for about a year, her mistress（女主人） said to her, "You are supposed to go back and visit your parents, little Inger." So she went, but only because she wanted to show them how fine she had become. When she reached the village, and saw her poor mother resting herself on a stone nearby, with a number of firewood. Inger turned away.

    Another year went by. "You must go and visit your old parents," said her mistress." Here's white bread for them." So Inger put on her new shoes, and walked carefully so that her shoes would stay clean and neat. When she came to somewhere dirty, she threw the bread on the ground and use it as a steppingstone to get across. But once she stepped on it, the bread went down quickly, carrying with the girl into the deep.

    Soon nothing could be seen but a black pool!

    My friend's grandfather came to America from a farm in Thailand. After arriving in New York, he went into a cafeteria in Manhattan to get something to eat. He sat down at an empty table and waited for someone to take his order. Of course nobody did. Finally, a woman with a big plate full of food came up to him. She sat down opposite him and told him how a cafeteria worked.

    "Start out at that end," she said, "Just go along the line and choose what you want. At the other end they'll tell you how much you have to pay."

    "I soon learned that's how everything works in America," the grandfather told my friend later," Life's a cafeteria here. You can get anything you want as long as you want to pay the price. You can even get success but you'll never get it if you wait for someone to bring it to you. You have to get up and get it yourself."