You may know the English letters A, B and C. But do you know there are people called ABC? You may like eating bananas. But did you know there is such thing as a “banana person”? How strange! Are these people from “another earth”? No. They are just Chinese people like you and me.

    ABC means American-born Chinese. An ABC is a Chinese, but was born in the United States. Sometimes, people call an ABC a “banana person”. A banana is yellow outside and white inside. So, when a person is a banana, he or she is white inside-thinking like a Westerner and yellow outside-looking like a Chinese.

    Do you know why? Usually, ABCs know little about China or the Chinese language. Some of them don't speak Chinese. Also, they are not interested in Chinese politics.

    But if ABCs cannot speak Chinese, can we still call them Chinese people? Yes, of course. They are Chinese. They are overseas (海外的) Chinese. These people may be citizens(公民) of another country like the US, Canada or Singapore. But they have Chinese blood. Their parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were from China. They all have black eyes and black hair. But they are not Chinese citizens. They are not people of the People's Republic of China. For example, we all know the famous scientist C. N. Yang (杨振宁). He got the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957. Chinese people love him. But he is an American citizen.

    As we all know, children are our future, and it's up to us to arm them with the tools to succeed. Sadly, today's children are sometimes being armed with more dangerous tools like weapons, drugs and gangs in the USA. Once a relatively peaceful environment, many schoolyards of today are becoming unsafe for both students and teachers.

    Home schools are available to give you choices. Home schooling provides top-quality education, flexibility and freedom to create your own schedule. At Sunny Home School we believe the choice should be yours.

    Thanks to modern technology, home schooling information is becoming readily available across the nation. A recent study by the ITBS (Iowa Tests of Basic Skills) and TAP (Tests of Achievement and Proficiency) shows us that students of home schools do particularly well when compared with the nationwide average. In every subject at every grade level, students of home schooling scored obviously higher than those in public and private schools.

    If you're new to home schooling, you may be asking yourself, “Will home schools really work for my children?”

Fact: A nationwide study using a random selection of 1,516 families found students of home schooling to be scoring, on average, at or above the 80^th percentile (百分位的第80位) in all areas, on standardized achievement test. (Note: The national average on standardized achievement test is the 50^th percentile.)

    Collectively, the staff at Sunny Home School brings 65 years of experience in home schooling curriculum. We've placed students in the top 2% of the nation in math and many are successfully moving on to college.

    One study found that of the home schooled students, 94% said home education prepared them to be independent persons.

    For more home schooling information, call us today toll free at (1800)542-8668.

    Long before they can actually speak, babies pay special attention to the speech they hear around them. Within the first month of their lives, babies' responses to the sound of the human voice will be different from their responses to other sorts of hearing stimulation. They will stop crying when they hear a person talking, but not if they hear a bell or the sound of a rattle. At first, the sounds that a baby notices might be only those words that receive the heaviest emphasis and that often occur at the ends of utterances(讲话，说话). By the time they are six or seven weeks old, babies can detect the difference between syllables pronounced with rising and falling tones. Very soon, these differences in adult stress and intonation can influence babies' emotional states and behavior. Long before they develop actual language comprehension, babies can sense when an adult is happy or angry, attempting to begin or end new behavior, and so on, merely on the basis of clues such as the rate, volume, and melody of adult speech.

    Adults make it as easy as they can for babies to pick up a language by exaggerating(夸张) such clues. One researcher observed babies and their mothers in six diverse cultures and found that, in all six languages, the mothers used simplified utterances and nonsense sounds, and transformed certain sounds into baby talk. Other researchers have noted that when mothers talk to babies who are only a few months old, they exaggerate the pitch, loudness, and intensity of their words. They also exaggerate their facial expressions, hold vowels(元音) longer, and emphasize certain words.

    More significant for language development than their response to general intonation is observation that tiny babies can make relatively fine distinctions between speech sounds. In other words, babies enter the world with the ability to make those precisely perceptual（知觉的，感性的） recognition that are necessary if they are to acquire listening language.

    Babies obviously obtain pleasure from sound input, too: even as young as nine months they will listen to songs or stories, although the words themselves are beyond their understanding. For babies, language is a sensory-motor delight rather than the route to boring meaning that it often is for adults.

    It's a warm summer afternoon. You're cooking up the catch of the day over a campfire. Suddenly, a few raindrops fall on your arms, and before you know it, the sky is opened up. Then you hear what sounds like thunder in the distance. What should you do? Your tent is close by and would offer shelter from the pouring rain. There's a campsite picnic shelter a few minutes down the path. And then you remember that your car is parked down the road. What's your safest choice to make sure you and your families are safe?

    It's a common question for many hikers(徒步者) and campers, especially when they are camping during summer months. Heading to your car is almost always the safest choice. Your tent and a picnic shelter will keep you dry, but they offer little or no protection against lightening. Your car, on the other hand, will keep you dry and protect you from lightening strikes. Protecting yourself against possible lightening strikes is very important; lightening kills an average of 62 people in the US each year. If you keep all of the windows and doors closed in your car, you'll be able to return to your campsite safely.

    Of course, if you're backpacking(背包旅行), not car camping, and you're deep in the woods, your car won't be a good choice. So, what should you do if your car is far away and there's no other safe shelter nearby? First, you'll have to make sure that tree limbs or other objects don't fall on you or your campsite. Then you'll have to get in a safe position to avoid lightening, or flash flood conditions. What else should you do?

    The flowers are blooming and the birds are singing as Melinda sits in the rose garden of the nursing home. She is recalling old times as she waits for her family's arrival. The nursing home has been Melinda's new settlement ever since Thomas passed away a week ago. Thomas had fought a long and hard battle against lung cancer for three years. Unfortunately, he has broken the promise that he and Melinda had made: to be with each other for every birthday. Melinda knew this was unrealistic (不现实的) but agreed to the promise for Thomas's sake.

    "Thomas, you are completely a dreamer." Melinda shouted to Thomas as he dragged on about living on an island with his beautiful wife. That's what she loved about him most—he had a vivid imagination. They got married at age eighteen and began having children right away. Mary came within the year, followed by Thomas Benjamin II, Lilly-Ann, and Joseph “Little Joey” George. The family lived an exultant life filled with laughter and love.

    "Mom!" Lilly shouted, but it really sounded like a howl. Melinda had lost herself in thinking about the life she had shared with her late husband. Lilly pushed her down the long dark halls of the nursing home until they arrived at the recreational room.

When the doors opened, Melinda put her hand over her mouth and was completely speechless. The room was crowded with the people nearest and dearest to her and the warmth and love was felt instantly. The night went on; stories and cocktails were shared and everything was perfect.

    However, when Melinda caught a moment to herself she looked around at her family. With a smile on her face, she raised her Manhattan and called out for a toast. “This one is for you, Thomas, though you are not here.”

Passing the Cities through the Lens (镜头) of Women, a solo exhibition by Swiss artist Catherine Gfeller, is being held at the Swiss embassy in Beijing.

Between 2016 and 2019, Swiss artist Catherine Gfeller embarked on a journey to a number of Chinese cities, weaving a narrative as she engaged with the stories of women from different backgrounds. Her vision of the women, the challenges they confront, and their distinctive spirit are the focuses of the artist's subsequent explorations.

In the bustling streets of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Hong Kong, Beijing and Kunming in Yunnan province, Gfeller found a means of exploring the essence of these urban landscapes by focusing her lens on women. On Saturday, the Swiss embassy in Beijing launched a solo exhibition, Passing the Cities through the Lens of Women, which spotlights the perspectives and voices of women with photographs, texts, and videos. Through her lens, Gfeller skillfully establishes a dialogue and builds a bridge between the narratives of the women and the liveliness of the cities they inhabit. 

For Gfeller, women's voices are very important in modern Chinese society. During shooting, she learned how the women perceive the new ways of life and how they find an anchor in their cities. "The moment I pressed the shutter, I felt like I became part of the city," Gfeller says.

Ambassador of Switzerland to China Jurg Burri said at the opening ceremony, "Ms Gfeller cares very much about people, especially women in cities. Women's issues are a global topic and I hope that more women's voices will be heard."

The exhibition is open to the public until the end of March. The 58-year-old artist is known for her focus on landscape photography. Using techniques like montage, collage, and superimposition, she creates unique photographic artworks.