“Beating is a sign of affection, cursing (骂)is a sign of love.” Many may not expect to hear the words of the old Chinese saying in these modern times—with parents wealthier and better educated than they have ever been—but experts say they still ring true.

    Today, it seems, Chinese parents are more likely to send their children to pre­college military academies in the United States in the hope that some tough love will pave the way to success.

    “Good education doesn't mean letting your children enjoy privileges, especially our boys.” said Song Wenming, an entrepreneur (企业家)in Jinhua' East China's Zhejiang province. “They should be raised in tough conditions to know what to fight for in the future.”

    In August, Song sent his 17­year­old son to Valley Forge Military Academy (VFMA) in Pennsylvania. And he is far from alone, even though it takes a lot of money—around $48,000 per year—to send a child to a strict military school.

    Statistics show that an increasing number of Chinese students have been registering with such academies .

    A few years ago, there were no Chinese students at Valley Forge. Today, there are 28.“All of the Chinese students at Valley Forge came from wealthy families; some of them were spoiled.” said Jennifer Myers, director of marketing and communications at the school.

    Song's only son, Song Siyu, had a rocky start during his first six weeks at the school. The teenager said he went to the school voluntarily but did not expect it to be as difficult.

    Now, three months later, he has perfected the art of taking a bath in 35 seconds, finishing a meal without looking at his food, and making his bed with precision. He can even take criticism, no matter how unreasonable.

    “The training is hard but I know it is good for self­development of individuals.” said Song Siyu. “The endless training and scolding are just ways to build up our character; they are not personal .”But his enthusiasm is not universal. Ten of the 13 Chinese students who joined the academy this year have transferred to other schools. But for those who stick with it, there is a reward for all the hard work.

    Mariah, 35, was a single mother. She had four kids under the age 9, and was hardly keeping up payments on her small two-bedroom home by working extra weekend hours as a waitress. There were times when she lay in bed and cried. She didn't know how she could pay that bill. But she knew she must find a way to change her life.

    She knew how hard it was to mop(拖)the floor. “I was tired of bending down, putting my hands in dirty water and wringing (拧)out a mop,” Mariah says. “So, I got a better way.” How about a “self-wringing” mop? She designed a special tool. You could twist in two directions and still keep your hands clean and dry.

    She set out to sell her mops, but the mops didn't sell well at the market. Then Mariah met with the media. But would people buy a mop by reading an advertisement? They gave it a try, and it failed. Mariah was sure it would sell well if they let her do the on-camera show. “Get me on that stage, and I will sell this mop because it's a great thing,” said Mariah. So QVC let her have a try. “I got on the stage and the phones went crazy. We sold every mop in minutes.”

    Today Mariah is the president of Ingenious designs, a multimillion-dollar company, and one of the stars of HSN, the Home Shopping Network. Talking about her household inventions is as natural for her it is for parents to talk about their child.

    Today one of her favorite products is Huggable Hangers(衣架). The thin, space-saving tool are the most successful goods ever sold on HSN, with 100 million hanging out in closets across the country.

    Mayor Day called me that morning, his voice full of an urgency I'd never heard before. "These Chinese big people are coming to our town and I need you to prepare something really special for them. I'm relying on you, Adrian. The whole town is. This could be just the thing to put us over the top."

    "Okay, I'm on it," I said. I'm a caterer (酒席承办人), and for years I've done all the mayor's events for Thomasville, Alabama, our little town of 4,099. He likes everything I make, but I knew exactly what he wanted this time, banana pudding, his favorite.

    It's my mama's recipe. It was her desserts that she was known for. Mama cooked her banana pudding on the stove. Hers was thick and cream-colored, not dark yellow like the other ladies made. I remember practicing in the kitchen when I was a young girl. Mama showed me how to make banana pudding properly. "Good job, Adrian," Mama would say. I was so proud when I finally got mine just right, the way she did.

    For months Mayor Day had tried his best to persuade some Chinese businessmen who ran a copper company to build their new plant in Thomasville, but our little town didn't have the land they needed. "We are leaning toward Houston or Lamar," the company representative told Mayor Day. "There is nothing personal, just business."

    "Wait! What about Wilcox County?" the mayor asked. Wilcox, just east of us, was one of the poorest counties in the entire United States and had got plenty of land. There hadn't been any kind of plant built there since the 1970s.

    "But that's not your county," the company representative said. "Why are you lobbying (游说) for them?"

    "Because if you build in Wilcox County their economy will grow and so will Thomasville's. Besides, there's something to be said for loving your neighbor, isn't there?"

    The representative agreed to visit Wilcox County before the final decision was made. All the top leaders would come and have lunch in Thomasville, lunch that I cooked. And for dessert, the dish the mayor hoped would sweeten the deal. Banana pudding with 300 jobs riding on it, I knew it had to be perfect, like Mama's.

    The luncheon was held at the Thomasville Civic Center. Next to each plate I'd placed a little cup of pudding. I looked on anxiously as the Chinese businessmen eyed the dessert. Were they curious or sickening? One of the men pointed at his cup and said something to the translator. I couldn't hear his answer but the businessman still looked puzzled. He took a spoon, inserted it into the pudding, then put barely a taste to his lips. For a moment there was no reaction. Then he smiled, a grin that went from ear to ear. The rest of the businessmen started eating their pudding, one bite after another. In seconds all the cups were empty.

    One of the businessmen looked toward me and said something to the translator, who waved me over to the table. "Excuse me," he said. "Is there more? More …" he searched for the word, "… pie?" I brought out all the banana pudding. Even last cup was finished. By the time the men put down their dessert spoons they'd reached an agreement. They needed to know more about Wilcox County. There would be another meeting, another lunch.

    "And we will have again the banana pie?" one of the leaders asked.

    Mayor Day didn't miss a beat. "Absolutely," he said. "Adrian's lunches always come with banana pie."

    And a few months later, when it was announced that the plant would be built in Wilcox County instead of Houston, everyone joked that the decision had come down to one thing. Mama's been away for a few years now, but I like to think she's up in heaven, looking down on that new copper plant going up in Wilcox County, and saying, "Good job, Adrian."

    If you live in a big city, there are many thing to drive you crazy on your daily route, and it's not just overcrowded subway trains.

    Vicky Zhao is a mainlander working in Hong Kong. For her, one thing she can't put up with is people standing on the wrong side of the escalator(自动扶梯) in subway stations. "Escalators help us move faster and save time. It isn't a place to rest," the 24-year-old says. "I often see tourists block the way with their suitcases or chatting on the escalators during rush hours. It annoys me to no end."

    Admitting she is not the patient type, Zhao says things are much better in Hong Kong than in cities on the mainland where "stand right, walk left" signs are often ignored.

    The logic behind the "stand right, walk left" escalator etiquette(礼仪) seems obvious. Even though you may want to catch your breath while you're transported up or down, you should still consider others and leave enough space for people in a hurry, so that they can run and catch the train.

    Many cities' escalators, including London's and Beijing's, use the "stand right, walk left" system to speed up the flow of people. (Australia is an exception and you should stand on the left side instead.) But some cities discourage people from moving on escalators out of safety reasons. In Hong Kong's subway stations there are regular announcements asking people to "stand still" on escalators. Even so, most people in this fast-paced city observe the "stand right, walk left" etiquette.

    But the people who stand on escalators defend themselves by telling the walkers not to be so impatient. The BBC quotes one stander as saying: "If the person is in such a rush, why not just take the stairs? Even when the escalator is packed and there's nowhere to move, I see these same people complaining about not being able to pass."

    Whatever the escalator etiquette is in the place you live or visit, do what most people are doing and always be mindful of others: leave enough space between each other, don't stay at the end of the escalator, and if someone is blocking your way, a simple "excuse me" is enough.

    Emily Temple-Wood was 12 years old the first time she was bullied(欺凌) online. They left ugly comments on her Wikipedia and Facebook pages about her looks "that would make my mother's hair curl." says Temple-Wood, now 22 and in medical school. The reason? "I was a woman on the Internet," she said.

    Over the years, she considered how she might take revenge(复仇). Then, as a freshman in college, it hit her: "What do misogynists(men who hate women) hate most?" she asked herself. "Women who are productive!" Her solution: For every rude comment she received, Temple-Wood would post a biography(传记) of a woman scientist, and thus, in 2012, Wiki Project Women Scientists was born. She wrote about her heroes, like Barbara McClintock, who received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and Caroline Still Anderson, one of the first African American women to become a doctor in the United States, in the late 1800s. With help from other women, many of them scientists who have also been bullied online, Temple-Wood has published hundreds of these biographies and women of all ages have taken notice.

    "When I was a kid, I could count the number of women scientists I knew about on one hand," wrote Siko Bouterse, who used to work for the Wikimedia Foundation. "But our daughters have the chance to get much more knowledge about scientists who look like them because of Emily.

    The ugly comments still come, says Temple-Wood. Being a strong woman online is not easy. "We all have days when we break down and need to have a glass of wine," she says. "I tell people who are being bullied that it's OK to be sad. But now you need to find a productive way to take revenge."

    When I was a boy, our extended, immigrant family would sometimes gather at my aunt's tiny house over the summer. Relatives from all over the country would come in to visit. The adults would crowd together in the living room to talk and catch up on each other's lives. And the kids would be sent out into the front yard to play when dinner was slowly cooked for all of us.

    Those were the days before video games, smart phones, and motorized toys, so we often ended up playing an old game. I remember one of those moments especially. As I was the youngest and smallest of all the kids there, I got caught first and couldn't catch anyone else. My brothers and cousins were all too fast for me, and I grew more and more frustrated. I finally fell my face first into the dirt. I got up with tears forming in my eyes. Then I saw one of my female cousins Susan standing there. She started to run but was going much slower than before. I easily caught up and seized her. Then she turned to me, smiled, and said, I'm it! You'd better run! Iran off laughing with glee while she turned and started to chase others.

    Now I see how her act of kindness that day saved me from sadness and returned me to joy. It didn't matter that we hardly ever saw each other. I know we are family and she loves me.

    In her wonderful book: Box of Butterflies, Roma Downey writes, "We are all one, we all belong to each other, and we are one big beautiful family." Perhaps it is time that we all started to treat each other that way. Perhaps it is time that we shared our love, our kindness, our laughter, and our joy with everyone without fear. Perhaps it is time to finally and forever bring this world together in one big family reunion.