【推荐1】This year at the Olympic Games in Rio, you might stumble across a pretty interesting sight outside the various stadiums holding competitions around the city, and meet Chen Guanming, a 60-year-old Chinese farmer who pedaled his rickshaw (人力车) all the way from China to Rio.

He calls himself “Olympic madman” and surely he deserves it: this is the third Olympic Games he rode to. Brazilians welcomed him with the best friendship and a splendid show after he arrived in Rio a week earlier.

Seventeen years ago, he embarked on the crazy adventure as an Olympics chaser: he toured around China before attending the Beijing Olympics in 2008, then made it to London in 2012, and now he’s in Rio. He plans to finish his global journey in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics.

He doesn’t really have money, but strangers he met on the road have been pouring support to him: a heartfelt encouragement, a warm meal, or a lift up a hill — the rickshaw, his good buddy, carries all his luggage and weighs as heavy as 400 pounds.

Zsofia Korodi, a Hungarian living in London, set up a Facebook fan page after “inspired by his actions”, so that supporters could keep track of him. That way his journeys were pieced together, and people called out the next town to look out for and take care of him. When there’s water to cross, people he met flew him over, and he would patiently wait for the rickshaw to arrive by ship.

Chen spent two years traveling almost 40,000 miles to get to the London Olympics. For Rio, he hopped a plane to Canada and then made his way from Canada through the US, South America to Rio. Chen said he did it all to promote the Olympic spirit. “My biggest hope is to encourage the vulnerable, the weak, and those who are afraid of challenges.”

In Rio, he’s apparently becoming an Olympic celebrity — a sportsman that competes out of the fields, with himself and gets stopped wherever he goes to take pictures. Even though he couldn’t watch the games at the scene, he’s completely happy by helping to pick up trash and clean the surrounding areas of the stadiums. That’s what the Olympics are about, in his own words, “to challenge the boundaries, compete in a friendly manner, and win the honor of the higher calling.”

【推荐2】As Torri’ell Norwood drove through St. Petersburg, Florida, last February, the laughter and chatter from the four teenage girls quickly gave way to screams. As they approached a crossroads, another car crashed into their car, sending it to hit a tree.

Smoke and fire surged from the car and a bystander shouted, “It’s about to blast! Get out!” Norwood crawled out through the window. Along with two of her friends, she ran for her life.

But halfway down the street, she realized that her best friend, A’zarria Simmons, wasn’t with them. Norwood ran back and found Simmons sank in the back seat. She opened the back door and pulled her out. She dragged Simmons a few feet to safety and laid her on the ground. “I checked her pulse.” Norwood said to Inside Edition. Nothing. “I put my head against her chest.” No sign of life. “That’s when I started CPR.”

Had the accident happened a few weeks earlier, she might not have known what to do. But Norwood, who wants to pursue a career in medicine, had earned her CPR certificate just the day before. Looking down at her dying friend, Norwood started pumping Simmons’s chest with her interlocked fingers and breathing into her friend’s mouth in hope of filling her lungs with the kiss of life. No response. And then, after the 30th compression, Simmons began coughing and gasping for air. The CPR had worked.

Soon, medics arrived and rushed Simmons to the hospital, where she heard how her best friend had saved her life. “I wasn’t shocked,” Simmons told CNN. “She is always helping anyhow she can.”

【推荐3】When I was young, I lived on an island in the north of Scotland, but I went to school in Edinburgh. It was a music school, and I studied the violin. We practiced for six hours every day. Our school was a boarding school. At the end of the term, we all packed our bags and our instruments to go home for the holidays. Most kids went by train, or bus, or their parents took them home by car. Not me! I went home by ferry (渡船) —14 hours overnight on the open sea. I loved it!

One summer I packed my suitcase and violin and said goodbye to my friends. I took the train to the ferry station and then got on the ferry. When we started moving away, I remembered a terrible thing! I left my violin on the train! I went to ask one of the crew (船员) what to do, but he said he couldn’t stop the ferry for me.

What should I do? What would my dad say? He’d be really angry! I was worried, and didn’t sleep all night. The next morning I got off the ferry to meet my dad. I didn’t want to look at him. I told him what happened. He laughed. I looked at him and couldn’t believe it. Why was he laughing?

In my violin case, I always have a label with my address and a telephone number. My dad told me, “A cleaner found your violin by the label on the train in London and took it to the police. They called me. They put the violin on a plane and it arrived an hour before you did.” My dad had it in his car! Thanks to those people, my violin was safe home!

【推荐3】Last Monday, I visited Jalan Besar to find a new fan blade for a standing fan that my daughters had broken.

I’d worked in the Jalan Besar area 30 years ago and remembered that there were lots of small hardware shops selling unusual things so I thought that I would have no problem finding a fan blade. However, after walking around for almost an hour, I found out that these shops were no longer around.

When I was ready to give up and go home, I spotted an old-fashioned hardware store. After being greeted by a woman, I explained my predicament. She immediately asked me to show her the broken blade. Out of nowhere, a man who looked to be in his 60s came out.

He asked to see the blade and then disappeared into the shop. He came back with a blade but it did not look the same as what I had in my hand. We compared the two blades and he said that it might work.

I asked him how much it was. He told me that he had taken the blade off an old fan that someone had brought in for repair. He said: “It didn’t cost me anything, so why should I charge you for it?” That really touched me. I took the blade home and it work perfectly! My daughters got a “new” fan for nothing.

When I told them this story, they were shocked as they are used to patronizing big modern shops where everything is transactional and the employees go strictly by the book. Not so much my wife. She is almost in her 60s, and said this reminded her of the kind aunties and uncles who used to run small shops and were always ready to help others when she was growing up.