Friendship Day in India falls on the first Sunday of August every year. It is celebrated with many activities.

     Young people in India spend the day with their closest friends and have fun together. Most youngsters in India plan a movie or have a meal with their friends. Some friends may go on a drive to tourist places. Some friends go to the supermarket for shopping. On Friendship Day, most stores offer discounted prices for customers and it is a perfect day to buy something for friends.

    Some friends go to parties that are organized by many restaurants. Such parties are very enjoyable. You can get food at a discounted price. Some friends just decide to meet up at someone's home and talk about their happy time. The time good friends spend sitting together and talking over a cup of coffee is wonderful.

    Long-distance friends call up each other on this day and wish each other with warm feelings. Some of them even plan to meet up on this day. Yet some others plan a surprising visit just to see their friend gasp in shock!

    He will be the ambassador of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games. Of course, we're talking about the one-and-only Son Goku (孙悟空). Nope, this is not a joke. His dad is named Akira Toriyama (鸟山明). He must be very proud of him. Goku is 1.72 meters tall. He had a monkey tail as a child. He has beaten some of the universe's biggest enemies. The Tokyo Olympics are two years away, but the Olympic committee has already made a decision. Goku is a world famous Japanese character. He's worth investing in for the Olympics. He will be the main character with other eight Japanese popular cartoon characters.

    Americans and Chinese have quite different views about how to treat friends.

    Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon. They don't feel hurt. If the same two people meet again, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand. Friendships between us develop more slowly but may become lifelong feelings, extending(扩展) deeply into both families.

    There is another difficult point for us to understand. Although Americans treat friends warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don't show their politeness to them if they are asked to spend a lot of time staying with friends. But in China, we are usually generous(慷慨) with our time. We, as hosts, will appear at an airport even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days of from our work to act as guides to our friends. It is opposite in America. Americans can't manage the time to do so much with a visitor outside their daily plans. They will probably expect the visitors to get to the hotels by themselves and expect the visitors to phone them there. Once the visitors arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real.

    For Americans, it is often considered more friends to invite friends to their homes than to restaurants, except for business matters. Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. So accept their hospitality(款待) at home and enjoy your visit in America!