When I was eight or nine years old, I wrote my first poem.

My mother read the little poem and began to cry. "Buddy, you didn't really write this beautiful, beautiful poem!" Shyly, I said that I had. My mother poured out her welcome praise. Why, this poem was nothing short of genius!

What time will Father be home?" I asked. I could hardly wait to show him what I had accomplished. My mother said she hoped he would be home around 7. I spent the best part of that afternoon preparing for his arrival. First, I wrote the poem out in my finest handwriting. Then I used colored pens to draw a border around it. Then I confidently placed it right on my father's plate on the dining table. But my father did not return at 7, Seven-fifteen, Seven-thirty. My father had begun his motion-picture career as a writer. He would be able to appreciate my poem even more than my mother.

    It was almost 8 o'clock when my father burst in. He was an hour late, but he could not sit down. I can see him now, a big Havana cigar in one hand, the rapidly disappearing drink in the other, calling down bitter words on his employees.

    Suddenly, he paused and glared at his plate. There was a silence. He was reaching for my poem. I lowered my head and stared down into my plate.

"What is this?" I heard him say.

"Ben, a wonderful thing has happened," my mother said. "Buddy has written his first poem. And it's beautiful, absolutely amazing".

"If you don't mind, I'd like to decide that for myself," Father said.

I kept my face lowered to my plate. It was only 10 lines long. But it seemed to take hours. I remember wondering why it was taking so long. I could hear him dropping the poem back on the table again. Now was the moment of decision.

"I think it's bad," my father said.

    I couldn't look up. My eyes were getting wet.

"Ben, sometimes I don't understand you," my mother was saying. "This is just a little boy. You're not in your studio now. These are the first lines of poetry he's ever written. He need encouragement."

"I don't know why," my father held his ground. "Isn't there enough bad poetry in the world already? No law says Buddy has to become a poet."

    I couldn't stand it another second. I ran from the dining room, threw myself on the bed and cried.

    That may have been the end of the anecdote(轶事) — but not of its significance for me.

    A few years later I took a second look at that first poem, and unwillingly I had to agree with my father's tough judgment. It was a pretty bad poem. After a while, I worked up the courage to show him something new, a short story. My father thought it was overwritten but not hopeless. I was learning to rewrite. And my mother was learning that she could disapprove of me without ruining me. You might say we were all learning. I was going on 12.

As I worked my way into other books and plays and films, it became clearer and clearer to me how fortunate I had been to have had a mother who said, "Buddy, it's wonderful!" and a father who shook his head no and drove me to tears with his, "I think it's bad." In fact all of us in life need that mother force, the loving force from which all creation flows; and yet the mother force alone is incomplete, even misleading, finally damaging, without the father force to caution, "Watch. Listen. Review. Improve." Between the two poles of affirmation (肯定) and doubt, both in the name of love, I try to follow my true course.

    As the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, mooncakes are turning up all over China, from traditional teashops to Starbucks counters. The holiday is one of China's four most important festivals, and in the weeks before the date arrives, top hotels get into the spirit with lavish(奢华) treats in lovely packaging. Traditionally, the cookie-sized round pastry(馅饼) has a rich thick filling usually made from red-bean or lotus-seed paste and covered by a thin crust. It may also contain yolks from salted duck eggs, integrating a beautiful savory tinge into the sugary taste. Fillings and crusts have become more diverse over time, especially in the hands of skilled pastry chefs. The mooncakes in Chinese culture represent homesickness, and the top crust of each moon-shaped pastry is generally imprinted with the Chinese characters for longevity or harmony.

    This year, the fancy gift boxes that have long driven the mooncake trade are particularly striking and rich with tradition.

    For example, the Fairmont Peace Hotel in Shanghai, built in 1929 and a magnet for Hollywood celebrities in the 1930s, has prepared a selection of mooncake gift boxes with designs inspired by the beauty and elegance of the hotel's famous art deco style. The simplest box of four pieces (red-bean paste, creamy custard, plain cheese, green-bean paste) is 198 yuan($29.64), while more lavish selections of five or six pieces, including mooncakes with egg yolk, run up to 338 yuan for a box.

    Beijing's Nuo Hotel, meanwhile, has created Ming Dynasty (1368－1644) inspired mooncake gift packs based on the design of porcelain vases in the hotel lobby, with the essence of landscape painting using Zhang Dai's poetic passages to show the peaceful harmony of man and nature. The box of six is 158 yuan, and includes mooncakes ranging from cheese mango to charcoal burning fragrant Pu'er tea and white lotus with egg yolk. A box of eight cakes of different flavors is 228 yuan.

    America is the world's largest food exporter. But the worst drought in half a century is hitting corn and wheat harvests. The drought across the central United States adds to concerns about world food supplies and prices in the coming years.

    Experts say by 2050, the world will have to produce at least sixty percent more food to feed a population growing bigger and bigger. China, a major food importer, is looking for producers around the world to guarantee future food supplies.

    China has invested in food production in Australia and New Zealand. A new source of supply is Ukraine. Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of Europe because of rich corn and wheat harvests a century ago.

    Galyna Kovtok is chief executive of Ukraine's largest agricultural business, ULF. She predicts that within a few months her company will be approved to export corn to China. That will make Ukraine the first country outside the Americas to do so.

    ULF will soon have almost two million tons of elevator storage capacity as it prepares for the Chinese market. Chinese money is financing the building of six grain elevators. But the company's equipment is largely American, including half-million-dollar John Deere combines to harvest wheat.

    ULF'S grain production per hectare (公顷) is now halfway between Ukrainian averages and the high yields of the American Midwest. But farming depends on the weather. Across the Black Sea region—in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan--drought this year is pushing harvests down by fifteen to twenty percent.

    Traditionally, the Black Sea region is the main source of wheat for North Africa and the Middle East. But this year, on the supply side, Russia may have to stop exports. And, on the demand side, Africa and the Middle East are now competing with China.

    At the same time, a new report says large parts of Asia may face long periods of severe drought within ten years. It says northern China, India, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Pakistan will be especially hard hit. It says other parts of Asia are likely to face longer and wetter monsoon seasons (雨季) because of climate change.

    How did the sea horse get its name? It's not hard to guess. The top half of this fish looks like a small horse. But looking at the sea horse's tail, you might think "sea monkey" is a better name. Then there's the sea horse's pouch(袋). "Sea kangaroo" might also be a good name for this fish.

    Sea horses live in warm ocean waters all over the world. They keep safe from other fish by hiding in plants and grasses that grow under the sea. They can also change colors to match their surroundings(环境). A sea horse remains in one place for hours at a time by winding(缠绕)its tail around a plant. It feeds on live food, such as small shrimp. For a fish that doesn't move around much, the sea horse eats a lot--in just one day, a sea horse can eat 3,000 shrimp!

    A sea horse keeps the same mate for its whole life, and it's the male(雄的)sea horse that gives birth to baby sea horses. How does this happen? Baby sea horses start out as eggs, which come from the female's body. The male carries the eggs in its pouch for about three weeks until they hatch(孵化). Soon after the babies are born, the female gives her mate a new set of eggs. The male sea horse spends most of its life carrying eggs.

    Sadly, the number of sea horses is becoming smaller. Why is this happening? Some places where sea horses once lived have been filled in to make new land. Also, many sea horses are caught and sold as aquarium（水族馆，养鱼缸）fish. This really is not a good idea because most sea horses don't live long in aquariums. The best place for a sea horse is the ocean.

Fauja Singh, 109, who broke marathon records and was called the "Superman" before hanging up his running shoes six years ago, will be the subject of a Bollywood film, Fauja, tracing his remarkable career.

Mr. Singh, born in India in 1911, was a keen amateur runner in his youth, but gave it up. Getting over a series of personal tragedies including the deaths of his wife and two of his children, he returned to his former passion in his eighties.

He moved to the UK soon after and now lives in Ilford, east London. He arrived for his first training session in Redbridge in a three-piece suit, and his first race was the London marathon in 2000. Three years later in Toronto, he broke the world record for the 90-plus. In the early 2011, when he turned 100, Mr. Singh set eight world records in a day. He ran the 100m in 23.14, then added the 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m, the mile, the 3000m and 5,000m world records. Three of the events had never been attempted by anyone over the age of 100 before. Days later, he became the first centenarian (百岁老人) to complete a marathon, again in Toronto, with a time of 8:25:27.

Mr. Singh retired from competitive running in 2013 but continued jogging for pleasure. He owed his extraordinary longevity to a vegetarian diet and avoiding smoking, alcohol and fried food.

Of marathon running he has said: "The first 20 miles are not difficult. As for the last six miles, I keep talking to myself, 'Keep it up, old boy!'"