【推荐1】A bag is useful and the word “bag” is useful, too. It reminds us of an interesting phrase（习语）— to let the cat out of the bag. In meaning it is the same as “to tell the secret”. And there is an old interesting story about it.

Long ago, when farmers wanted to sell chickens at the market, most of the time they would just throw the chickens in cloth bags. But cats were cheaper than chickens, so many farmers would put cats into the cloth bag instead of chickens.

One day, a woman asked a man for a chicken. The man gave her a cloth bag in which there was a cat. The woman begged to see the chicken. When the man opened the cloth bag, a big black cat ran out. Not a chicken! The man’s secret was out and everyone knew it.

Now when someone lets out a secret, he “lets the cat out of the bag”. And that is the story where the interesting phrase comes from.

【推荐3】Many daily American expressions are based(以……为基础) on colours.

Red is a hot colour. Americans often use it to represent heat. When they say “red-hot”, that means they are very angry about something. Loud music is popular with many people. Some may say that such music is red-hot.

Pink is a lighter kind of red. People sometimes say “I’m in the pink” when they are in good health. The expression was first used in America at the beginning of the 20th century. It probably comes from the fact that many babies are born with a nice pink colour that shows that they are in good health. Blue is a cool colour. The old Blues music in the United States is the opposite of red-hot music. Blues is slow and sad. Someone who is “blue” is very sad.

The colour green is natural for trees and grass. But it is an unnatural colour for humans. A person who has an upset stomach may say “I’m feeling a bit green”. A person on a boat who is feeling very sick from high waves can be said “look very green”. Sometimes a person may be very jealous because he does not have anything as nice as someone has, like a fast new car. That person may say “I’m green with envy”. Some people are green with envy because someone has more dollars or “greenbacks’’. Dollars are called greenbacks in American slangs because that is the colour of the bottom of their bank notes.

The colour black is used often in expressions. People may say “it’s a black day’’ when everything goes wrong on that day.

In some cases, colours describe a situation. Blackouts were common during the World War II. All the lights in a city were turned off at night to make it difficult for enemy planes to find their aims in the dark.

Welcome to China. I am a student in Beijing NO. 5 Middle School. I’m Chinese. Now I want to introduce(介绍) Chinese meals to you.

We Chinese people have three meals every day. We have breakfast at about 7:00 am. We have eggs, bread, noodles, milk or other food for breakfast. Lunch is a big meal in China. We always have lunch at about 12: 00. Students have lunch at school on school days. Workers have lunch at their mill. We have rice, vegetables, meat, soup or other food. We always have dinner at home at about 6:00 pm. We have rice, vegetables, fish and meat. The dinner is usually big, too.

In a word, I think Chinese food is very nice. Please remember to eat some Chinese food when you come to China. I hope you will like it. Can you tell me about your food in your country?

Yours,

David