Tom arrived at the New York airport two hours before the flight to Paris. He was wearing three shirts, a jacket, two pairs of socks, a pair of shorts, and two pairs of jeans. He was carrying one small backpack, which was very full, but he didn't have any other luggage. Tom needed to meet a man named Tony before he checked in for his flight. He found Tony near the Air France counter. Tony gave him a round-trip ticket and a small package.

    “Give this package to Jean-Paul at the airport in Paris. He will have a sign with your name on it. I think you can find him easily,” Tony said, ”You don't have any luggage, right?”

    “Only this backpack,” Tom answered. ”You said I could bring one carry-on bag.”

    “That's right. One carry-on bag is fine. Have a good trip.”

    “Thanks.”

    Is Tom a criminal (罪犯)? Not at all. He is an air-courier(空中信使). And he paid only $110 for the round-trip ticket to Paris. Air couriers get cheap airline tickets because they take important packages and papers to foreign countries. Businesses sometimes need to get packages and papers to people in foreign countries by the next day. Often, the only way they can do this is to use an air-courier company. It is not cheap for a business to send a package with an air courier, but it is quick.

    Every year about 80,000 people worldwide travel as air couriers. The number of tickets for courier travel is growing by about 10 percent a year. However, air-courier travel isn't for everyone. But if you have very little money, can be flexible(灵活的) about your travel plans, and don't mind wearing the same clothes for a week, it can be a great way to take a vacation!

    My name is Jack. When my family moved to America in 2014 from a small village in Guangdong, China, we brought not only our luggage, but also our village rules, customs as well as culture. One of the rules is that young people always respect elders. This rule, unfortunately, led to my very first embarrassment in America.

    I had a part-time job as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. One time, when I was serving food to a middle-aged couple, the wife asked me how the food could be served so quickly. I told her that I had made sure they got their food quickly because I always respect the elderly. As soon as I said that, her face showed great displeasure. My manager, who happened to hear what I said, took me aside and gave me a long lecture about how sensitive Americans are and how they dislike the description "old". I then walked back to the table and apologized to the wife. After the couple heard my reason, they understood that the problem was caused by cultural differences, so they laughed and were no longer angry.

    In my village, however, people are proud of being old. Not so many people live to be seventy or eighty, and people who reach such an age have the most knowledge and experience. Young people always respect older people because they know they can learn from their rich experience.

    However, in the United States, people think "growing old" is a problem since "old" shows that a person is going to retire or that the body is not working well. Here many people try to keep themselves away from growing old by doing exercises or jogging, and women put on makeup, hoping to look young. When I told the couple in the restaurant that I respect the elderly, they got angry because this caused them to feel they had failed to stay young. I had told them something they didn't want to hear.

    After that, I changed the way I had been with senior citizens. It is not that I don't respect them anymore; I still respect them, but now I don't show my feelings through words.

    There were many plants in a forest. When spring came, a pine tree saw a red rose nearby and said, "What a beautiful flower! I wish I were that lovely."

    The rose proudly said, "It seems that I am the most beautiful flower in this forest." Then the rose looked at a cactus (仙人掌) and said, "Look at that ugly plant full of thorns(刺)!"

    "What a proud flower!" thought the trees.

    As the days passed, the red rose often looked at the cactus and said bad words about it, like "This plant is useless. How sorry I am to be his neighbor!"

    The cactus never got angry and even tried to advise the rose, saying, "God did not create any form of life without a purpose."

    Spring passed, and the weather became very hot. As there was no rain, the red rose began to wilt(枯萎).

    One day the rose saw birds put their beaks (喙) into the cactus and then fly away. The red rose asked the pine tree what the birds were doing. The pine tree explained that the birds were getting water from the cactus.

    "The cactus has water?" asked the rose.

    Yes, you can also drink some from it. The birds can bring water to you if you ask the cactus for help."

    The red rose felt too ashamed to ask for water from the cactus. But finally it did ask for help. The cactus kindly agreed.

    The rose learned a lesson and never judged (评价) anyone by their appearance again.

    Lisa was a single (单身的) mother who lived with her little son. She lost her job two years ago and they had a very hard life. Her heart was broken every time her son asked, "Can I have some more bread and butter please, Mommy?"

    One day, when her son asked the same question again, she decided to prepare a big meal for him with the only 6 dollars in her hand. She went to the supermarket, bought some food and cooked at home. Lisa was a shy mother, but she was strong-minded. "It's time to make a change," she thought. She was good at writing. To make some money, she began to write articles for magazines day and night.

    Things went better. The food bank started to give her some free vegetables every month. Her son finally had enough to eat. Once he told Lisa that the dishes she made were delicious. Suddenly. an idea came to Lisa's mind, "Why not share my recipes (食谱) on the Internet?" She did. Many people liked her recipes and she became popular.

    Soon after that, some reporters interviewed(采访) her and asked her to write a book on cooking. When Lisa got the money for the book she wrote, she had a good sleep for the first night during the two years. Now Lisa has a well-paid job and a beautiful home, but she'll never forget the days when she worked hard for a good life.

    Sam likes fish very much. He often buys fish in the shop and takes it home. But when his wife sees the fish, she says to herself, "Good! Now I can ask my friends to have lunch, and we can eat this fish. They like fish very much."

    So when Sam comes home in the evening, the fish is not there and his wife always says, "Oh, your cat ate it." And she gives Sam some bread for his supper. Sam gets very angry. He takes the cat and his wife to the shop near his house and weighs the cat. Then he turns to his wife and says, "My fish weighs one kilo (公斤). This cat weighs one, too. My cat is here, you see. Then where's my fish?"