English ─ speaking people say many “thank you” every day. Early in the morning when a teacher  asks a student，“Good morning. How are you?”,  his answer should be.“ I'm fine, thank you. And you?" This is the first "thank you" of a day.

    When you hear “Your skirt is nice.” you say, “Thank you. I'm happy you like it.” At your birthday party, when people give you something and say “This is for you. Happy birthday!”，you also answer, “Thank you."

    When your friend helps you clean the classroom after school, you say “thank you" to him.

    When you hear people say to you "Your English is very good. how do you answer it?

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    Many people believe that tea was first drunk nearly 5,000 years ago. It is said that a Chinese ruler called Shen Nong was the first to discover tea as a drink. More than 4,000 years later, Lu Yu, "the saint of tea", mentioned Shen Nong in his book Cha Jing. The book describes how tea plants were grown and used to make tea. It also discusses where the finest tea leaves were produced and what kinds of water were used.

    It is believed that tea was brought to Korea and Japan during the 6th and 7th centuries. In England, tea didn't appear until around 1660, but less than 100 years later, it had become the national drink. The tea trade from China to Western countries took place in the 19th century. This helped to spread the popularity of tea and the tea plant to more places around the world. Even though many people now know about tea culture, the Chinese are without doubt the ones who best understand the nature of tea.

    Besides chopsticks vs. knives and forks, there are more differences between Chinese and western dinning.

    Cooking methods

    While westerners boil, fry roast and bake, Chinese use more methods of cooking, like frying, stewing, boiling and steaming. Besides, Chinese cooks cut everything into small pieces, so people don't need knives to cut it but just pick up their food with chopsticks. Westerners cook food in big pieces and serve it with knives and forks for cutting it up.

    Ingredients and spices

    Chinese dishes use many ingredients seldom seen in western cooking, like animal feet, ears, tongues and so on. Chinese usually use animal or peanut oil to fry food; westerners use more butter and olive oil. Chinese cooks like to add spices when cooking, like ginger, pepper, garlic, etc. Western cooks usually use pepper powder, mustard(芥末), and tomato ketchup(番茄酱), etc.

    Serving the dishes

    On the western table, vegetable soup or salad is usually served as the starter, then the main course includes beef, chicken or fish. After the main course, normally some sweet food is served, which can be ice cream, cakes, fruits, etc.

    On the Chinese table, the cold dishes and drinking are first. After that, kinds of meat and vegetable dishes are served, to be followed by soup. Then Chinese usually have rice, noodles or dumplings as main course. At last, Chinese like having fresh fruit such as watermelons and pears after meal. That can make one feel fresh and cool in his mouth and stomach.

    Placing the dishes

    In western dinner, dishes are served in each person's own plate. So each person uses a big plate. In China, dishes are served at the middle of the table for all to share, and each person uses a small plate in front of him or her to hold the food.