A man was walking through the woods with his axe（斧头）when a small tree called to him. It said, “Hello friend. Can you _________ those bigger trees? They’re stopping the sun. It is so _________ here that I have no room to spread my roots（根）. I can’t _________ the wind.”

The little tree held out its tiny leaves. It looked so sad. It _________, “If those trees were gone, I’d be _________ to grow. A year from now, I would be the biggest tree here.”

The man thought for a while and then _________. He walked over to the big trees and started cutting them down. Soon he cleared lots of _________ around the small tree. Now it would grow bigger and become the biggest tree in that area.

_________, something else happened. The sun’s heat came first, burning the small tree, which wasn’t used to so much _________. Heavy wind and rain came—__________ the bigger trees to protect it, the small tree was hit by the storm. Soon, the tree was __________ dead.

“You’ve been quite foolish,” said a snake that saw __________ happened. “You brought this on yourself. If you’d left the bigger trees __________, the sun and storm wouldn’t hurt you so badly. __________, they protected you. If you had just waited longer, you would have grown to be just as __________ as them. You’ll be strong. But now, you’re dying.

How time flies! It’s been 3 months since I came to China. I’m having a great time on my student exchange program here. So far, I’ve completely got used to the life here and have known a lot about traditional Chinese culture. I’d like to share some with you.

In China, there are many different kinds of traditional art forms, such as paper cutting, Chinese clay art and so on. Among them, the kite interests me most. The first ancient Chinese kite appeared more than 2,000 years ago. Then flying kites was spread into Japan, Korea and Malaysia during the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Kites are regarded as the earliest craft (飞行器). They played an important role in the process of inventing the plane.

Tea culture is important in China. Tea was discovered as a kind of drink by accident about 5,000 years ago. It is believed that tea was brought to Korea and Japan during the 6th and 7th centuries. It didn’t appear in England until around 1660. The tea trade from China to Western countries took place in the 19th century. Now tea has become one of the most popular drinks around the world.

Lastly, I’d like to tell you something about one of the traditional Chinese festivals — the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar (阴历). Chinese people have been celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival and enjoying mooncakes for centuries.

If you’d like to know more about traditional Chinese culture, I will talk about it in the next letter.

Best wishes!

yours,

Tom

I noticed a dad and his son at the park. His son wasn’t able to communicate, but he seemed satisfied sitting in the sand. The dad explained to me that his son could only make some sounds. The boy had been in speech therapy(言语治疗)for years. After so much time in therapy, the boy was able to keep eye contact for a few seconds! He told me how expensive the therapies for his son’s special needs were and what a pleasure it was to see all of the years of hard work pay off.

As we talked about therapy, the dad shared with me that his goal for his boy was to someday be able to go for ice cream together. He said his father used to take him out for ice cream and he hoped he could do the same with his child. Suddenly, the son stopped putting his fingers in the sand, looked at his father and said, “hi.” Seconds later the boy went back into his own world. The dad wanted to say something, but be couldn’t. His love for this boy was so great that the words would not come. But what did come were tears. Those tears conveyed how proud he was of his son.

Although they were strangers to me. I am happy to have shared the unforgettable moment. I hope someday they will be able to go fur ice cream and have a beautiful father and son outing. This event touched me deeply and made me consider my relationship with my own father. I hope that as they communicate further, more and more memories will be created for them to share. I believe the feelings held by all awesome fathers— their hard work, their love, their pride, and their tears of love— are all the same.

The envelope(信封）is designed to protect letters. It is so common today that we pay little attention to it.     46     The history of the envelope may be much longer than you think.

It’s believed the envelope first appeared in ancient China. It was used to protect royal messages. However, the early envelope was nothing like what we use today.     47     After the message was put into it, the envelope would be closed with more clay. To read the message, one had to break the “envelope”.

    48     It was also invented by the Chinese. However, at first, people used it only to send money to each other as gifts. The design of the early paper envelope was very simple, but it was made completely by hand.     49    

In the 19th century, printing methods improved greatly. The machine could produce about 12,500 envelopes every day.     50    

Today, e-mails have become more popular than handwritten letters. But billions of envelopes are used around the world every year. They are still part of modern life.