【推荐1】I was born and raised in England in a culture where privacy and “keeping yourself to yourself”were valued traditions. Speaking to strangers was not encouraged. People were most hospitable (好客的) and friendly — but only once they had been introduced to new people.

However, I have been lucky enough to spend some time in both Italy and the US, where I found traditions of hospitality and politeness to be very different.

I experienced Italian hospitality first-hand on a crowded railway carriage traveling, one afternoon, from Genoa to Florence. Sinking gratefully into an empty seat, I was berated (斥责) in rapid Italian by a gentleman who was returning to this seat — it had not been “spare” after all. I apologized in English, and got up to allow him back into the seat. The gentleman obviously had no understanding of the English language, but he, too, realized my genuine mistake. He smiled and gestured for me to remain in the seat, and he himself remained standing in the corridor for the rest of the journey. The other passengers of the carriage smiled and nodded at me and made me feel quite welcome amongst them. I feel that if this had been in England, a foreigner who made a mistake would not always be so kindly treated.

Transport was also obvious in the differences I noticed between English and American culture. I flew to New York on a plane with mainly English passengers. We sat together in near silence. Nobody spoke to me nor, as I expected, to anyone else they did not know. They felt it was not polite to disturb someone else’s privacy. However, when I traveled across the United States, whether by plane or Greyhound bus, I was never short of conversation. Conversation was going on all around me and whoever sat next to me was happy to introduce themselves and ask me about myself. They obviously felt it would have been rude not to speak to another person, whether they were strangers or not.

【推荐2】 Some parents said that they had difficulty in getting along with their children. I heard many parents complaining that their teenage children are rebelling. I wish it were so. At your age you ought to be growing away from your parents. You should be learning to stand on your own two feet. But take a good look at the present rebellion. It seems that teenagers are taking the same way of showing that they disagree with their parents. Instead of striking out boldly on their own, most of them are holding firmly at one another’s hands for confidence.

They say they want to dress as they please. But they all wear the same clothes. They set off in new directions in music. But somehow they all end up crowded round listening to the same record. Their reason for thinking or acting in thus-and-such a way is that the crowd is doing it. They have come out of their cocoon into a larger cocoon.

It has become harder and harder for a teenager, to stand up against the popularity wave and to his or her own way. Industry has firmly carved out a teenage market. These days every teenager can learn from the advertisements what a teenager should have and be. And many of today’s parents have come to award high marks for the popularity of their children. All this adds up to a great barrier for the teenager who wants to find his or her own path.

But the barrier is worth climbing over. The path is worth following. You may want to listen to classical music instead of going to a party. You may want to collect rocks when everyone else is collecting records. You may have some thoughts that you don’t care to share at once with your classmates. Well, go to it. Find yourself. Be yourself.

When times are tough, how should governments in poor countries ensure their citizens remain fed? In the past, most of them used subsidies (现金补助) to keep food prices low for all their citizens. But these policies have become ineffective: the cost of maintaining Egypt’s food subsidies, for instance, nearly doubled between 2009 and 2013. And much of the money goes to the wrong people. In Egypt and the Philippines less than 20% of spending on food subsidies goes to poor households. In the Middle East and North Africa only 35% of subsidies reach 40% of the poorest, the IMF notes.

Motivated by a desire to control growing budget deficits (赤字) , many countries are replacing broad subsidies with policies aimed more directly at the needy. But what form should the targeted aid take? Earlier this month Iran introduced free handouts of food to replace its subsidy method. Other countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, have chosen instead to provide extra cash benefits to the poor. So far, food vouchers (代金券) have been the least popular option. Proposals to introduce food vouchers in such countries as Malaysia have been rejected on the basis that they were too American and un-Asian.

However, the researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) thought that might have been a mistake and analyzed the results of an experiment conducted by the World Food Programme in Ecuador, a South American country, in 2011, which compared handouts of food, cash and vouchers in the experiment. The study found that direct handouts— Iran’s new policy—were the least effective option. They cost three times as much as vouchers to promote calorie intake by 15%, and were four times as costly as a way of increasing dietary diversity and quality. Distribution costs were high, and wastage was also a problem. Only 63% of the food given away was actually eaten, while 83% of the cash was spent on food and 99% of the vouchers were exchanged as intended. Food handouts have also been the costliest option in similar projects in some African countries, according to John Hoddinott at IFPRI.

In Ecuador there was little difference in cost between handing out cash and food vouchers, the other two options. But food vouchers were better at encouraging people to buy healthier foods because of restrictions on what items could be exchanged for them. It was 25% cheaper to promote the quality of household nutrition using food vouchers than it was by handing out cash.

A switch from universal subsidies to vouchers could be the most efficient way of promoting health as well as relieving poverty. This is very necessary in many developing countries, according to Lynn Brown, a consultant for the World Bank.

【推荐2】Recently, the TV show “Where are we going, Dad?” produced by Hunan SatelliteTelevision is a big hit across nation. Many famous stars brought their children to a strange village alone, and they had to spend 72 hours with their children there. The program fully showed us a modern version of the “how to be a good father”. As the young parents today are too busy to take care of their children, this new form of “Lost on the way” played by nanny Daddy and cute kids triggered（触发）a lot of people’s emotional resonance（共鸣）. Both the kids and their parents will find that their hearts are being drawn closer. But this kind of feeling has just proved that there is a big spiritual barrier between the modern parents and children.The TV shows like “Children are hard to support!”, “Where are we going, Dad?”, “hot mom” and “cute kids” are becoming more and more popular. All of these show the new parents’ confusion in children’s education and the appeal for the balance between career and family.

In the real life, on the one hand, the young parents feel helpless because they are too busy to accompany their children under the pressures of work and life; on the other hand, they continue to do so. The data collected by HNTV shows that nearly two-thirds of their audience are female, among whom 36% are aged from 25 to 34.We can imagine such a scene that one evening a young mother is watching the show with her young children, while her husband is still at work or trapped in socializing, or maybe is just playing computer games in the bedroom. The story of a child without the company of father is still going on. In fact, it is sometimes the same to mothers. In a modern family, it is often the old who take the responsibility of raising a child. The participation of mother in the children’s education is also very low.

It is just this kind of confusion where the parents have gone in the modern family education, and where the parents will guide their children to go that “Where are we going, Dad?” shows us. If a child wants to grow up healthily and safely into a modern citizen with independent personality and free spirit, it is very important for him or her to follow the parents who serve as their first teacher. Maybe this is the real reason why such kind of TV programs could get hot. The truth is that children will go where their parents go; and society will go where the children go.

【推荐3】Sometimes children do not do what their parents tall them to do. When this happens, a parent tries to help the child to do the right thing. When this does not work, the parent usually punishes the child.

There are many things that a parent can do. One thing that people have done is to spank the child. When a parent spanks a child, they will use their hand or a hard object to strike them on their bottom. This is meant to show the child that they have done something wrong.

One parent remembers being spanked when he was a child. His parents used a wooden spoon. When he spanked his own children with his hand, he saw that he put a red mark on his child’s leg. He never did that again.

One problem with spanking is that it teaches the child to hit someone when they do not like what the other person is doing. Another problem with spanking is that the parent is usually angry and can hit the child too hard. Sometimes parents will use spanking for everything and not try other ways to get the child to do the right thing.

Many parents are not sure of what to do instead of spanking. Some people think that their religion(宗教)tells them that spanking is okay. Some think that the law lets them do it. The courts(法院)say that parents have the right to teach their children how to behave.

Other things should be tried before a parent decides to spank a child. Telling the child exactly what is expected of them can be one thing. Giving a child more than one choice is another thing that can be tried. Getting down to the child’s level and taking a more child-friendly approach (方法) can help as well.