抗击疫情——最美逆行者

Since the outbreak（爆发）of the COVID-19 in Wuhan, most people have avoided going to the city. But some kinds of warmth and ______ are showing up. They are a group of volunteers from every place and what they have done are worth remembering.

Driver Li Gaofeng from a transportation team with his friends, volunteered to ______ more than 30 tons of vegetables to Wuhan. They overcame all kinds of ______ and travelled more than 1,700 kilometers. They ______ arrived in Wuhan on Feb 1. They are ordinary people who are not ordinary.

Medical workers from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing ______ hands before entering Wuhan. Doctors and nurses from around the country were sent to the area of the outbreak to provide ______.

By Sunday, 155 doctors and nurses from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing had been sent to ________ the outbreak in Wuhan. More than 11,000 medics have been sent to Wuhan since the start of the outbreak.

There are so many stories in this outbreak. ______ the outbreak didn’t come, we would celebrate the festival happily. It would have been hard to know that so many shining souls were hidden among the ordinary crowd. These ______ ordinary people let us feel warm and calm in heart. There is a problem: the country is ______ trouble, what should we ordinary people do? The answer is: each person shoulders their share of duty.

There was once a boy who was out playing in a field with his friends. As they were playing, the boy happened to see a stone that looked interesting. It wasn’t as dull（黯淡无光的）as the other stones. It was a little bit sparkly（闪耀的）. But it was still quite dirty. The boy picked it up and decided to polish it.

His friends made fun of him for this. They said, “Why are you polishing that dirty old stone? It isn’t worth anything at all. ” But every day, when they went out to play, the boy would bring the stone with him, polishing it whenever they took breaks.

This went on for some time. Then one day, the boy left his home to join his friends as usual. He had quite a surprise for them. When he showed them the stone, they were amazed. It was, in fact, not an ordinary stone after all—it was a beautiful diamond（钻石）. The boy had stayed up polishing it until it was completely clean.

There will be times in your life when people try to stop you. They will tell you that you are wasting your time on a meaningless task. But when they do this, the best thing you can do is to ignore（忽视） them and continue to work toward your goal. You can turn a stone into a diamond if you have persistence（坚持）and courage.

“The delivery driver (送货员) has your food and is on his way.” This is a message you might receive after placing a take-out order. But in the near future, a self-driving car may bring food to your door instead of a human driver.

Baidu and Meituan are now working together to use self-driving technology to deliver food. They will be experimenting with this in the Xiong’an New Area, Beijing Evening News reported. The self-driving cars will mainly be used to send group orders. They won’t deal with the single orders that are usually sent by delivery drivers.

Sina Tech noted that using self-driving cars would be considered as a revolution (革命) in the food delivery industry, for it will eliminate (消除) the cost of labor (劳动力). Online food delivery services have developed rapidly in China. Almost 300 million users have used online services to order food, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In the first half of 2019, Meituan Waimai ranked highest among all food delivery companies in terms of total orders, with Chinese food delivery company Eleme ranking second. Self-driving delivery services will promote (促进) the development of the industry. But that doesn’t mean that delivery drivers will lose their jobs. There are still some problems to be worked out. There are other safety-related problems that must also be solved before self-driving cars can be used.

China’s colorful picture menus

Different countries have different customs and cultures, such as they greet each other in different ways, celebrate festivals in their own special ways and so on. There are many habits and customs that are special to China and Chinese people. Because of the powerful influence that China around neighboring cultures, some of these customs are repeated in other Asian peoples—including Japanese and Korean. The following example is from a menu.

When I first arrived in China, some of the first Chinese vocabulary I learned had to do with food. I learned the names of a few dishes, but still didn’t know most of the items I saw on Chinese restaurant menus. Luckily, there were pictures to help me decide.

Nearly every restaurant menu in China has pictures of food in it. But many restaurants I’ve been to in the US don’t. It’s the biggest difference between them. What is the reason of the difference?

One thing I’ve definitely noticed about China is that food is a bigger part of their culture than it is in the US. A common way to greet someone in China is to ask them, if they’ve eaten yet. My Chinese friends post pictures of their meals online way more often than my US friends.

Food is just a bigger deal here—and having pictures of food in menus is part of that. Some menus are almost like works of art, with lively and well-framed photos.

Another factor（因素）is the names of the dishes. Chinese dishes sometimes have fanciful names like “Palace guard chicken” or “three fresh things from the soil”. These are interesting names, but they don’t really tell you what the dishes are like. Therefore, it’s helpful to have pictures so you can actually see what’re going to be eating.

There’s probably even more to it than that. All I know is that I was very grateful to have those picture menus when I first came here all those years ago.

Li Shizhen (李时珍) was one of the most famous doctors in Chinese history. He was born in Qichun, Hubei in 1518.

Both of Li Shizhen’s father and grandfather were doctors. Li Shizhen’s grandfather was a country doctor who travelled in the countryside with a bag of herbs (药草) and medications and cured (治愈) people. His father was a doctor who wrote several books.

Li Shizhen used to help his father in his medical practice when he was young. Li Shizhen’s father wanted him to enter politics (从政). Li Shizhen studied for the exams and passed the country-level examination, but he was never able to pass the imperial examination.

When he was 33, he cured the son of the Prince of Chu and was invited to be an official in that court (宫廷). A few years later, he became an official at the Imperial Medical Institute. Even though he fulfilled his father’s dream, he didn’t want to continue working for the court. One year later, he left the court and returned to be a doctor again.

Li Shizhen was famous for his book, Compendium of Materia Medica (《本草纲目》). He spent 27 years writing the book. Unluckily, Li Shizhen died before the book was officially published. It is such a successful book. Now it is still one of the most important medical books in China.

Once there was a businessman whose company was deep in debt (债务). He sat on a park bench, head in his hands. Suddenly, an old man appeared. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the businessman’s story, the old man wrote out a check, and put it in his hand, saying, “Take it and pay me back here exactly one year from today.” Then he disappeared.

The businessman saw in his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in the world! “I can pay off my debts in a second!” he realized. But after thinking for a while, the businessman decided to put the check in his safe. Just knowing it was there would give him the power, he thought. He went back and worked hard to make his business successful. Within several months, he was out of debt and making money once again.

At the agreed-upon time, the businessman returned with the check. But the old man appeared with a nurse behind him. The nurse told the businessman that the old man was mentally (精神上) ill and was always telling people he was John D. Rockefeller.

The businessman was shocked to hear this. Suddenly, he realized that his new-found self-confidence in his heart was the most powerful thing in the world.

76. “你养我长大，我陪你变老。”父母亲一直在为我们的成长默默付出，成长要学会感受爱、回报爱。今天是父亲节，是我们向爸爸表达感激的好机会。请根据以下所给要点，写一篇英语短文。