“No man is an island” is a well-known line from John Donne's Devotion， written more than three hundred years ago. Even now people still agree with him. No one can live a completely isolated life. Without other people， life became empty and sad. We all need friends.

    For some of us， though making friends is not difficult， feeling shy， we may not want to make the first move. It is also difficult at times to keep the friends we already have.

    There are many books about friendship， but Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence (影响) People， written in 1936， is the most famous. This “how to” book about getting along with other people became a best-seller. It was later put into 28 languages.

    Dale Carnegie's advice (劝告) seems to be simple， but can his advice help you? Do you need to change the way you act? Here is the list of advice from his book.

1)Be friendly and polite.

    Always greet with a smile. Begin with “excuse me” or “would you please”， when you want to ask somebody. Remember to say “thank you” and try to be as helpful as you can.

2)Go out of your way to be nice.

Find some time to do special things for other people. Making some soup for a sick neighbour may seem like a little thing to you， but it will make your neighbour feel a lot better.

3)Remember names.

    They say that the sweetest music to a person's ears is the sound of his or her own name.

4)Be open-minded.

    Try to understand other people's ways and ideas and learn something from them.

5)Listen patiently.

    When someone is talking to you， look at him or her， listen carefully and say something when necessary.

    The Chinese New Year is called the Spring Festival, which is the biggest festival in China.

It usually comes in January or February. Where there are Chinese, there is the Spring Festival. Each Chinese year has a name. We may call it the Year of the Tiger, the Year of the Pig or the Year of the Snake. And the year of 2015 is called the Year of the Goat. The year after it is the Monkey Year.

    People always spend a month before the festival in preparing for it. They are busy shopping and cleaning their houses. On the eve there is a big family dinner. All the family stay up late to welcome the New Year, watching the CCTV programs or playing cards. On the first day of the Chinese New Year, people put on their new clothes and go to visit their relatives(亲戚) and friends, saying "Happy New Year", "Good luck" and some other greetings to each other. It often lasts to the Lantern Festival, which is also an important Chinese festival and people usually have sweet dumplings (yuanxiao).People always have a very good time, especially children. Children can usually get some money for the new year from their parents and the elder relatives.

    In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what 'keeping up with the Joneses' is about, It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbours.

    The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighbourhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants. Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbours.

    It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.

    Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich life--style of their neighbours. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series (系列) of short stories, He called it 'Keeping up with the Joneses' because 'Jones' is a very common name in the United States.' Keeping up with the Joneses' came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand's series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.

    People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are 'Jonses' in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.