Everyone has his own birthday. People in different countries celebrate their birthdays in different ways. Now here are four people from different countries. They will tell us how they celebrate their birthdays in their countries.

    Sandy comes from Madrid(马德里). She says happily," My 21st birthday is on Saturday, and I'm going to go out with some friends. To wish me a happy birthday, they are going to pull on my ear 21 times, once for each year. It's an old custom. Some people pull on the ear just once, but my friends are very traditional."

    Mr. and Mrs. Sato are from Tokyo. Mr. Sato is going to be 60 tomorrow. In Japan, the sixtieth birthday is called Kanreki(花甲)—it's the beginning of a new life. The color red is for a new life, so we always give something red for a sixtieth birthday.

    Liu Mei from Beijing feels very excited and tells us, "Tomorrow is my 16th birthday. It's a special birthday, so we're going to have a family party. Maybe I will get some lucky money from my relatives(亲戚). My mother is going to cook noodles for a long life.

    Phillip, from Paris, smiles to us," I'm going to be thirty next week, so I'm going to invite three very good friends out for dinner. In France, when you have a birthday, you often invite people out."

    How do you usually celebrate your birthday?

    My brother Jerry is a clerk at a clothes store. He works very 1 hours every day. He usually 2 at six in the morning. After he brushes his 3, he starts to 4 for thirty minutes. He thinks running is 5 for his health. Then he has breakfast. After breakfast, he 6 a bus to work. He is very busy. He has no time 7 home for lunch, so he eats 8 at the store. In the 9, he works for four hours. He has dinner at home. On weekends, he is not busy. He usually goes to the movies 10 me.

When my brother and I were children, we spent a few weeks each summer in the countryside with our uncle. He was a geologist and loved to go on long {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(步行) to find stones to add to his collection at the university.

One {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(星期六) morning, our uncle gave us two backpacks. "You can help me carry the samples(样本)," he explained. The whole day, we walked around the countryside, and every now and then, our uncle put stones in our bags. We were a bit {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(惊讶的) that sometimes he also took some stones out from our bags, but thought he had just found better samples.

We {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(到达) the house in the late afternoon. The backpacks were so heavy that we were really tired out when we put them on the ground. Yet our uncle's backpack was nearly {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(空).

"Why did you give us so many stones?" we asked.

"I didn't. You did," he said, waiting for a {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(一会儿) before continuing. "You did not know it, but I made you go through a little attitude(态度) test today."

"What do you mean an ‘attitude test'?" we were {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(想知道).

"You see, I listened to every word you said. And if you complained(抱怨) about anyone or {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(任何事情), I added a stone to your bags. But whenever you talked about something in an attitude of positive(积极乐观的) thinking, I took out a stone. And now look at your backpacks."

We did. Surely, {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(我们的) were full.

"I hope you will {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(记住) this little attitude test and live your life wisely. The more negative thoughts you have, the heavier your mind is.

2023 was the Year of the Rabbit. Children felt very surprised and they couldn't believe their eyes when they 1 Liu Ping make a lifelike rabbit in just one minute. 

 Liu Ping was a(an)2 from Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. She began blowing sugar figures(糖人) fifteen 3 ago. She understood the children's feelings because she was also4 when she watched her grandfather do the same thing. At that time, she thought her grandfather 5 a magician. She showed her interest and6 in making sugar figures at the early age. Liu Ping could make easy shapes with syrup(糖浆) when she was only six years old. After she finished high school, her family decided to 7 their hometown— Hegang. They moved to Harbin to have a8 life. Her grandfather wanted her to get a good job in a factory, but she 9 had the dream of doing magic like him. 10 , the grandfather agreed to take her on as his student. She spent three years learning the folk art and later opened three 11 in Harbin. People could buy many kinds of sugar figures there. 

"As far as I know, lots of people don't want to do this job. 12 people are good at blowing sugar figures. " she said. "It's really difficult to make something new and popular in such traditional art. 13 I' ll never stop and I must keep trying. "

 Every month, Liu Ping and other folk artists visit schools in Harbin to teach14 about the art. She said, "We are15 to know that more and more children love this kind of folk art. For me, making sugar figures is not just a childhood memory. It also brings me great happiness. It's my duty to make more people understand the meaning and the beauty of the traditional art. "