A beggar (乞丐) woke up early to beg. Before going out, he put some small potatoes in his bag because of a(n) ________. It’s required that beggars shouldn’t keep their bags ________ while going out to beg.

The beggar got out of his house and ________ his bag would be full of food before evening.

Just then, he saw the king riding towards him. The beggar became happy and thought that his life would be much ________ after receiving some money from the king. He became more ________ as the king came close.

As soon as the king came near the beggar, he stopped. To the beggar’s ________, the king asked him for something instead of giving him something. The beggar didn’t ________ what to do. He had never had a ________ of giving. However, he still quickly ________ two potatoes and put them in the king’s hand.

When the beggar returned home and ________ his bag in the evening, he was surprised to find there were two gold potatoes. He realized that giving is greater than taking.

Frenchman Frigara couldn’t visit China for some time. However, his love for Pingyao still kept, and he showed this in an e-mail to his Chinese friend, Wang Xiaojun, the owner of a small hotel in Pingyao.

Over the past twenty years, Frigara has stayed at the hotel six times, each time for one or two months. Wang said, “He liked the old houses here, as well as the culture. He always visited the local women making paper-cut, the men painting boxes, and the old men selling small objects.”

Wang and her family also showed him around, washed clothes for him and celebrated his birthday. Once, when Frigara had a stomachache, Wang took him to the hospital. In return, Frigara taught Wang French and bought gifts for her children. Wang described her French friend as a kind man. Frigara also wrote down all his experiences in Pingyao. He said the hotel made him feel at home.

Frigara is just one of many French visitors to Pingyao. Before 2020, Pingyao received more than 30,000 French visitors a year. They all thought they had found ancient China in Pingyao.

The earth is our home and we should protect it. So, let’s join hands to make it greener! Green inventions become popular at present. More and more people use used things in their works.

Special furniture (家具)

When we’re talking about furniture, we always think of furniture made of wood and plastic. However, Vadim Kibardin created a set of special furniture. It was made of waste paper.

The woven (编织) bag

It’s made of bamboo, which is strong and not easy to break. Sho Shibuya believes that using woven bags can decrease the use of plastic shopping bags.

Woven sports shoes

Emilie Burfeind has created a pair of woven sports shoes. One part of the shoes is made of dog hair collected from dog owners. In Germany, up to 80 tons of dog hair is thrown away every year. The cost of such woven sports shoes is low.

The special iron (熨斗)

Saksham Mahajan thinks that bamboo should be widely used, so the bamboo iron was born. The bamboo iron is different from the traditional iron in both the look and use. It can save energy while smoothing down the clothes.

Tan Yinghuan, a 43-year-old woman from Shandong, has taught herself over 10 dialects (方言) during the past nine years. She’s helped over 300 people find their loved ones.

In 2014, Tan joined a QQ group that shared information on people searching for lost loved ones. She met a girl who grew up with her adopted (收养的) parents. By studying her accent (口音)and childhood memories (记忆), Tan helped the girl return to her hometown. She was glad that the girl finally found her birth parents.

“When I talked with the girl’s birth parents, they kept saying thanks,” Tan says. For the first time, she felt what she did was meaningful.

Since then, Tan has spent all her spare time helping people separated from their families.

Tan has hundreds of videos and thousands of voice recordings in her phone. And she has joined over 300 WeChat groups, all related (相关的) to people searching for their families. When hearing words she doesn’t understand, Tan records them and listens over and over again.

In the course of helping people, she was often mistaken, but she was never angry. She would still send text messages to them until they believed her. “I’m happy that I can use what I’ve learned to help others,” she says. “I don’t want anything in return.”