1 . As an immigrant from China, my mother loves Chinese culture deeply. She _________ Chinese food every night. She prefers to do it herself at home because she thinks the local restaurants aren’t authentic. _________, strangely enough, she likes to take my son to Panda Express to have _________ with her friends who are also from China. She is even _________ to point it out whenever they are at a food court.

Why is American Chinese food not _________ among some Chinese Americans? How is American Chinese food not better than _________ Chinese food? I can’t _________ that it’s not as good as authentic Chinese food. In fact, authentic Chinese food really tastes better while American Chinese food _________ to have food with its own taste — they are right for different persons. It’s important to _________ American Chinese food from authentic Chinese food. They are not the same __________ and have their own characteristics. So they should be treated __________. That’s why my mother thinks that Panda Express is not very authentic, but can still __________ it. Actually, American Chinese food is often created by Chinese immigrants according to their own preferences. As people from various countries have differences in their __________, it is changing.

My mother has a deep feeling for authentic Chinese food and restaurants, so I decide to open a restaurant where she and other immigrants can feel the __________ of Chinese family dinner. My son says he’ll learn Chinese cooking skills from me, which, I think, should be __________ from age to age. Likewise, I’ll also pass on the Chinese food culture to the world.

2 . During my stay at the University of Michigan, one of the senior professors asked me to join a seminar on culture and emotion. In a general________of self-introductions, I introduced myself in a(n)________Dutch way as one of those who are “interested in culture and emotion”. The professor supplemented (补充) my self-introduction to________American standards, saying I was one of the world’s experts on the________. In response, I looked down in________, and thought that “expert” was a big word.

When I lived in North Carolina, my new friends came over to ________. Conversations were full of interest and energy, and there was a lot of ________. At the end of the evening, when my guests left, they thanked me for the dinner. My heart________, because I was born and raised in the Netherlands, where “thanking for dinner” means the relationship is ________. Emotions are different enough to feel out of________when you move from one culture to another. The professor at the University of Michigan meant to make me feel________, but instead made me uncomfortable. My friends meant to show ________, but they made me think they were distancing themselves from me.

We think about emotions as feelings deep inside us, but in________, our emotions happen in interactions with others. In my own culture, it was hard to observe the________emotions of others, but I was able to see them when I moved to the US—a different________from where I was raised.

3 . In some parts of Central China’s Henan province, daughters will _______ wild goose-shaped cakes for their parents before the leap month (闰月) comes, wishing for auspiciousness. There is a _______ surrounding the tradition.

Long ago, there was a girl living at the southern foot of the Songshan Mountain in Henan, who was very _______. In a year which had a leap month, the married girl _______ of her parents, who never had enough food to eat and might suffer from hunger due to the _______ month. So, she collected some leftover millet (小米) and headed toward her parents’ home. On the mountainous road, she _______ fell down and when she woke up, the millet was already _______ up by birds. Seeing this and thinking of her parents, she cried loudly and slowly fell asleep again.

Then she heard some weak voice and woke up again, seeing a couple of wild geese were staying in her bag and not willing to leave, so she took them with her. When she arrived at her parents’ home, the village was _______ famine and plague, and her parents were on the verge of _______. She hurriedly boiled the wild geese and fed them to her parents, and her parents recovered soon. She then gave the leftover food to the neighbors and the ________ miraculously disappeared the next day.

After that, before each leap month, daughters began to visit their ________ and bring gifts. As wild goose is a ________ bird, people use dough to make wild goose-shaped cakes in ________ of the actual bird for their parents, wishing them healthy and hoping to banish any plagues.

In some parts of East China’s Shandong province, the married daughters will send dough-made fish and toad to their parents, which ________ “wealth” and “health” respectively. ________, it is said that the dough fish is for a mother and the dough toad is for a father.