1 . My first shopping in a general store was in Miss Bee’s when I spent the summer with my grandmother in New York.

“Go get them yourself” Miss Bee said, ignoring the shopping list held up before her nose. “I’m not your servant, so just get yourself a basket from that pile over there and start filing.”

It took me three wall-to-wall searches before I found the first item on my list — a pork can be placed between boxes of cereal and bread. Next up was toilet paper, found under the daily newspaper, and Band-Ads, found next to the face cream. The store was a puzzle, but it held some surprises too. I found a new Superman comic behind the peanut butter.

I visited Miss Bee a couple of times a week that summer. Sometimes she short-charged me. Other times she overcharged or sold me an old newspaper instead of a current one. Going to the store was more like going into battle. I left my Grandma’s house armed with my list — memorized to the letter — and marched into Miss Bee’s like General Patton (巴顿将军) marching into North Africa.

All summer long she found ways to trip me up. No sooner had I learned how to pronounce bicarbonate of soda (小苏打) and memorized its location on the shelf than Miss Bee rearranged the shelves and made me hunt for it all over again. By summer’s end, however, the shopping trip that had once taken me an hour was done in 15 minutes.

The morning I was to return to Brooklyn, I stopped in to tell her that she was mean. To my amazement, she laughed and said. “Well, I don’t care! Each of us is put on this earth for a reason. I believe my job is to teach every child I meet some life lessons to help them. Think what you will, but when you get older you’ll be glad our paths crossed!”

Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet, a BBC one-hour documentary, was launched on April 6 this year. It was the first time that Du’s life    1     (put) in a global context.

For the Chinese, Du,     2    style of poetry is called realism, is more than a poet; he has been the guardian of the moral of the nation. The BBC gave great    3     (recognise) to the works of Du for his unique     4     (way) to express his concern for his country and people.

To explore his life and discover what the poet means to China and the Chinese people, the film crew had an     5     (extreme) tough time tracking the footsteps of the eighth-century poet.

    6    Du’s poems were mostly written in plain and simple language, they are not an easy watch for many foreigners. To help overseas audiences make sense of the poet’s great achievements in literature, Du is compared     7    Shakespeare in this documentary. Also, the program invited McKellen,     8    screen actor who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies,     9     (read) 15 of Du’s poems that had been translated into English. With all these efforts     10     (make), foreigners can better understand what makes Du’s works so special.

4 . The text from my son said it all, “Dad, there’s an article you were born to write that the world is finally ready for: Bring Back the Handkerchief (手帕)!” As my son knows, there’s no “bring back” for me. For me, the handkerchief never left.

My mother raised me with several fixed rules. One was that a gentleman always has a clean handkerchief in his right rear pocket, a piece of simple cotton, roughly 15 inches square and less than four inches when folded. I was a dutiful son, but as a child, I had been wondering what it was there for. After 60 years, my body weight now feels wrong if I’m heading out of the house with an empty back pocket.

I am sure this habit has sometimes struck friends but in polite company nobody comments on somebody else’s business. Children like my kids think of my hankie ridiculously old-fashioned and they have their arguments. If you have to be prepared every day for allergies or a cold, why not choose a little packet of tissues (纸巾), which saves you from that disgusting business of blowing your nose in the thing and then stuffing it back in your pants?

I understand their point. But a handkerchief is more durable and has a far wider variety of uses. Can you grab the handle of a pot that’s boiling over with a Tempo tissue? Or do you recall the cases of skinned knees and drippy noses that hankie wiped? In fact, my wife gave me several new handkerchiefs as gifts. Neither of us can count the number of times she wiped her tears at a movie, or, as it happens, she’s needed to blow her nose.

Yet not even my mother could have predicted the hankie’s new role as an Essential Public Health Appliance. All of us have learnt how hard it is to follow advice from medical experts about not touching your face. Here is an answer. Use your hankie. In case of emergency, your handkerchief can become a makeshift DIY mask that can be pulled over your lower face like a robber entering a bank.

And it will certainly give me the chance to lift my chin and look at my adult children through one eye, asking in her good-hearted way, “What do you have to say now, smarty-pants?”

7 . “The arrow shot is so straight that it hits the bull’s eye. The young people will have good luck…” Dargye sang as he worked on his handmade bag.

Dargye, 56, an artist who excels at traditional craftsmanship (技艺) and Tibetan folk music in Drinba village in Dragyib district, Nyingchi, Tibet autonomous region, remembers many folk songs he learned from his father and uncle. Now, it’s his turn to pass them on.

“I have liked traditional songs and dances since I was a child,” said Dargye, who has four apprentices (学徒). “The songs tell the histories of our ancestors and carry our unique culture, and it’s always a lot of fun to perform these traditional songs and dances at various gatherings.” The song topics vary from archery, love, to labor and praise for the land. In addition to teaching these songs to his family members and apprentices, he also uses social media platforms such as WeChat to teach songs.

His daughter, Chok Butri, also admires the folk culture. After posting a video of her daughter, Tsering Kyi, dancing on Douyin, she gained a lot of new fans on the popular short-video platform. “We are modern people living in a modern era, so it’s important and our responsibility that we use modern tools to pass on our traditional culture to make it last forever.” said Chok Butri, adding that she often posts songs and dances on WeChat and Douyin.

Dargye and his fellow villagers also recreate songs, adding modern elements such as aircraft and trains to the lyrics. Besides singing and dancing, Dargye makes handicrafts decorated with Tibetan cultural elements, including various hide and hair ropes, bags made of leather and cloth, and knife sheaths.

The local government encourages villagers to inherit (继承) and develop folk songs and other forms of traditional culture. Dargye’s efforts to preserve folk culture have been acknowledged by the government. In 2014, he was chosen as a county-level intangible (无形的) cultural inheritor and receives funds every year.

8 . I was brought up in the British, stiff upper lip style. Strong feelings aren’t something you display in public. So, you can imagine that I was unprepared for the outpouring of public grief at a Chinese funeral.

My editorial team leader died recently after a short illness. He was 31. The news was so unexpected that it left us all shocked and upset. A female colleague burst into tears and cried sadly at her desk. Somehow, we got through the day’s work. The next day was the funeral.

Our big boss stepped forward to deliver a eulogy (悼词) and was soon in tears. She carried on, in Chinese of course, but at the end said in English: “There will be no more deadlines for you in heaven.” Next came a long-term colleague who also dissolved in tears but carried on with her speech despite being almost overcome by emotion. Then a close friend of the dead man paid tribute, weeping openly as he spoke. Sorrow is spreading. Men and women were now sobbing uncontrollably. Finally, the man’s mother, supported between two women, addressed her son in his coffin. She almost collapsed and had to be held up. We were invited to step forward to each lay a white rose on the casket. Our dead colleague looked as if he was taking a nap. At the end of the service I walked away from the funeral stunned at the outpouring of emotion.

In the UK, families grieve privately and then try to hold it together and not break down at a funeral. Here in China it would seem that grieving is a public affair. It strikes me that it is more releasing to cry your eyes out than try to keep it bottled up for fear of embarrassment, which is what many of us do in the West.

Afterwards, a Chinese colleague told me that the lamenting (哀悼) at the funeral had been restrained (克制) by Chinese standards. In some rural areas, she said, people used to be paid to mourn noisily. This struck me like something out of novel by Charles Dickens. But we have all seen on TV scenes of grief-stricken people in Gaza and the West Bank, in Afghanistan, Iraq and the relatives of victims of terrorist bombings around the world. Chinese grief is no different. I realized that it’s the reserved British way of mourning that is out of step with the rest of the world.

9 . We were sitting in the doctor’s waiting room when my father said something that ________ me. “Are you my daughter or my sister?” My heart broke as I stared at him.

The doctor told us my father had Alzheimers (阿尔茨海默病). It was a big ________ for me. I was facing a battle on two fronts, emotional and physical, and I was ________for it. The disease didn’t take him away suddenly. Instead, it slowly ________him. It made me sad to watch my father hide his _______ to read the clock.

As the disease continued to progress, his behaviors became ________. We had to face another painful truth — we could no longer provide my father with the level of ________to keep him safe at home. He ________ to move to a skilled nursing facility.

Babies are born helpless; parents keep on ________. Children grow up and learn that relationships are reciprocal (相互的). However, the parent-child relationship isn’t ________. The parents remain the giver, and the children remain the taker. That is the natural order of the world — ________the child becomes the parents’ caregiver.

When a(n)________appears, we can do something to change the fact.________my father is alive and taken good care of in the nursing home. If he can ________ the illness, then I can make it. I will give him everything he deserves to have as a great father. And we will be _______with a bright future by doing our best.