1 . What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? The question occurred to me with the photos in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world that staged public celebrations for International Pillow Fight Day. Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own sacrificial cushions, strangers struck heavily each other in playful feather from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?
As a cultural sign, the pillow is deceptively soft. Since at least the 16th Century, the humble pillow has been given unexpected meanings. The Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu tells a famous story about a wise man who meets a depressed young scholar at an inn and offers him a magic pillow filled with the most vivid dreams of a seemingly more fulfilling life. When the young man awakens to discover that his happy 50-year dream has in fact come and gone in the short space of an afternoon’s nap, our impression of the pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror.
Subsequent writers have likewise seized upon the pillow. When the 19th-Century English novelist Charlotte Bronte poetically observed “a ruffled (不平的) mind makes a restless pillow”, she didn’t just change the expected order of the adjectives and nouns, but instead she made unclear the boundaries between mind and matter — the thing resting and the thing rested upon.
It’s a trick perhaps Bronte learned from the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who once insisted that “ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness confront each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.
With the words of Tang. Bronte, and Montaigne, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Like a ritual of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries: an emptying of the world’s collective mind. Rather than a launch-pad for weightless rest, the pillow is a symbol of heavy thought: an anchor that drags the world’s soul down — one that must be lightened.
1. The example of Tang Xianzu is used to illustrate that ________.| A．pillows give people satisfactory dreams |
| B．dreams are always wonderful while the real world is cruel |
| C．people’s impression of pillows changes from wonder to terror |
| D．pillows symbolically convey the meaning in contrast to their soft appearance |
| A．wrote poems about pillows |
| B．regarded pillows as reflections of our minds |
| C．shared the same viewpoint as Tang Xianzu on pillows |
| D．was likely to have been influenced by the thoughts of the Renaissance |
| A．pillows give us comfort |
| B．pillows make people more intelligent |
| C．people with too many thoughts have less inner peace |
| D．people can easily fall asleep when they know nothing |
| A．Because it is a ritual release. |
| B．Because it makes life delightful. |
| C．Because it comforts restless minds. |
| D．Because it contains a profound meaning of life. |
Food as Communication
We usually understand when someone speaks or writes to us, and many gestures (手势) and facial expressions have meaning, too. But have you ever considered what and how we eat as a form of communication? In many cultures, people sit together and share food at mealtimes, which is a common tradition that can promote unity and trust. Food can also play an important role in a family or culture’s celebrations. The foods we eat—and when and how we eat them—are often unique to a particular culture or may even differ between areas within one country.
In most cultures, bread represents delicious food. It is also one of the most commonly shared foods in the world. Sharing bread is a common symbol of companionship and togetherness. In fact, the word companion comes from the Latin roots com- (together) and panis (bread). Many cultures also celebrate birthdays and marriages with decorated cakes that are cut and shared among the guests. Early forms of cake were simply a kind of bread, so this tradition has its roots in the custom of sharing bread.
There are foods like bread in other cultures. In Greece, people share a special cake called vasilopita. A coin is baked into the cake, which stands for success in the New Year for the person who receives it. Most of the foods eaten during the Chinese New Year have significance. Sometimes this is based on their shape; for example, long noodles symbolize long life. The symbolism can also be based on the sound of the word in Chinese; for example, people give out oranges because the word for “orange” sounds like the word for “wealth”. In many cultures, round foods such as grapes, bread, and moon cakes are eaten at welcome celebrations to symbolize family unity.
Food is essential for life, so it is not surprising that it is such an important part of different cultures around the world. The food people eat during celebrations may have a long history and can symbolize many things, but sharing food is one custom that almost all humans have in common.
1. Why does the author regard eating food as a form of communication?①
2. How do people celebrate birthdays and marriages in many cultures?
②
3. What does the author mainly talk about in Paragraph 3?
③
4. Many of the food traditions mentioned in the passage are very old. Why are they still important today?
④
3 . Sometimes it’s hard to let go. For many British people, that can apply to institutions and objects that represent their country’s past-age-old castles, splendid homes… and red phone boxes.
Beaten first by the march of technology and lately by the terrible weather in junkyards (废品场), the phone boxes representative of an age are now making something of a comeback. Adapted in imaginative ways, many have reappeared on city streets and village greens housing tiny cafes, cellphone repair shops or even defibrillator machines (除颤器).
The original iron boxes with the round roofs first appeared in 1926. They were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Battersea Power Station in London. After becoming an important part of many British streets, the phone boxes began disappearing in the 1980s, with the rise of the mobile phone sending most of them away to the junkyards.
About that time, Tony Inglis’ engineering and transport company got the job to remove phone boxes from the streets and sell them out. But Inglis ended up buying hundreds of them himself, with the idea of repairing and selling them. He said that he had heard the calls to preserve the boxes and had seen how some of them were listed as historic buildings.
As Inglis and, later other businessmen, got to work, repurposed phone boxes began reappearing in cities and villages as people found new uses for them. Today, they are once again a familiar sight, playing roles that are often just as important for the community as their original purpose.
In rural areas, where ambulances can take a relatively long time to arrive, the phone boxes have taken on a lifesaving role. Local organizations can adopt them for l pound, and install defibrillators to help in emergencies.
Others also looked at the phone boxes and saw business opportunities. LoveFone, a company that advocates repairing cellphones rather than abandoning them, opened a mini workshop in a London phone box in 2016.
The tiny shops made economic sense, according to Robert Kerr, a founder of LoveFone. He said that one of the boxes generated around $13,500 in revenue a month and cost only about $400 to rent.
Inglis said phone boxes called to mind an age when things were built to last. “I like what they are to people, and I enjoy bringing things back,” he said.
1. The phone boxes are making a comeback ______.| A．to form a beautiful sight of the city |
| B．to improve telecommunications services |
| C．to remind people of a historical period |
| D．to meet the requirement of green economy |
| A．They were not well-designed. | B．They provided bad services. |
| C．They had too short a history. | D．They lost to new technologies. |
| A．their new appearance and lower prices | B．the push of the local organizations |
| C．their changed roles and functions | D．the big funding of the businessmen |
Globalization has brought different cultures together in a way unimaginable one hundred years ago. Today, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Africans, Anglos, and Hispanics may all work in the same offices, attend the same schools or live in the same neighborhoods.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
—Thomas Jefferson, American President
One falsehood spoils a thousand truths.
—African proverb
Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest.
—Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher
A sacrifice is written off by a lie and the merit of devotion by an act of cheat.
—Hindu saying
We don’t wish to imply all cultures are the same. Cultural diversity is real, and people from different cultures view many situations in different ways. However, historically, different cultures seem to share many common values. They are justice, courage, patience, generosity, equality, mercy and kindness, respect for the elders, and many more. Lying and stealing appear to be wrong no matter where you go. Perhaps some cultures make room for extenuating (情有可原) circumstances more than others; perhaps cultures apply these virtues in different ways; and when values disagree, different cultures may place different levels of importance on them.
To us, it seems as if there is some sort of code of right and wrong that everyone everywhere seems to understand, regardless of culture. It is almost as if, behind all of the diversity, one finds a common understanding—a human culture, if you will—that goes beyond racial, social, and political boundaries.
| A．All people seem to agree that we should tell the truth. |
| B．Each value supports many more quotes from different cultures. |
| C．As cultures rub shoulders with each other, many differences stand out. |
| D．We want to show, however, that there is more to these cultures than diversity. |
| E．These quotes from four separate cultures all support the same value—honesty. |
| F．It is almost as if, despite all our differences, we are all still the same—we are just people. |
| G．In other words, one culture may lean more toward justice and another culture more toward mercy. |
5 . New York's iconic, blue-green statue of liberty wasn't always green. When the statue was gifted to the US from France in 1885, she was actually a shiny copper color. A new video reveals the chemical reactions involving oxygen and even air pollution that led to her color change from copper to liberty green. The statue of liberty was a gift from France to the US as a way of commemorating the US's fight for independence, as well as their own aspiration for democracy.
A video, published by the American Chemical Society, explains that the 305-foot (93 meter) statue was built over nine years in sections of copper skin on top of an iron skeleton.
In her first few decades in the Big Apple, the statue slowly turned from that shiny copper color to a dull brown and the, finally, to the blue-green, or as they'd say back in France, 'verdigris' we see today,' said the video's narrator.
When it changed color, some officials suggested restoring her back to her original color, but after the public protested against this decision, she was left the way she is. The statue's color change was as a result of oxidation reactions between copper and the air. But it was more than one reaction - the color change is due to about 30 years worth of different reactions leading to a mixture of greenish minerals.
Oxidation reactions happen when an atom loses an electron to another atom.
In the case of the statue of liberty, her color change was bound to happen due to oxygen in the atmosphere that is 'hungry' for electrons. On top of this, elements of New York City's polluted air added to the color change too.
The first chemical reaction of the color change involved copper giving up electrons to electron-hungry oxygen in the atmosphere. This led to a mineral called cuprite - which is pinkish red.
Then, cuprite loses even more electrons to oxygen, forming a new mineral（矿物质） called tenorite, which is blackish in color. The black color of tenorite explains why the statue got darker over time, forming a dark brown color.
Then, further chemical reactions occurred when sulfur（硫） in the atmosphere reacts with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide. Sulfur comes from natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, but also from man-made emissions from boats, cars, airplanes and factories. When sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere reacts with water, it produces sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid forms green minerals with copper oxides, so the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere made the state green over time.
Added to that, chloride from the sea spray surrounding Ellis Island where the statue is located made the statue even greener.
The statue stayed this way for over 100 years because the exposed copper is now oxidized and stable, but the statue wouldn't be the same anywhere else.
1. What is statue of liberty like at present? .| A．copper |
| B．pinkish red |
| C．blackish |
| D．verdigris |
| A．Washington DC |
| B．New York |
| C．Los Angeles |
| D．Chicago |
| A．4 |
| B．5 |
| C．6 |
| D．7 |
| A．oxidation reactions between copper and the air |
| B．the surrounding sea spray |
| C．emissions from traffic vehicles |
| D．the sunshine from nature |
6 . Current Culture: Is Common Culture Alive?
The digitizing and globalizing world is changing the working of culture. As some see it, cities and nations are losing their common culture and their general spirit: people can no longer count on those around them valuing any of the same music or films. Others argue that a common culture is not dying so much as changing forms: it is less and less attached to a particular area and ever more linked to global networks.
The facts lead to the change that anyone can become a cultural producer today, that the culture is increasingly available everywhere you want it, and whenever you want it, not just in the two months after the movie or book came out. Cultural possibilities have multiplied as a result, but the change also means fewer cultural moments. It is easy to find the change in terms of loss of diversity of society. So what will it mean if globalization turns us into one wide world culture?
For the enthusiasts of these changes, culture is not about popular artists or books, but centers on platforms like Google and Wikipedia, where every variety of culture brings about the exchange of knowledge and ideas, and makes connections across boundaries. It is perhaps debatable whether two people who have participated in such websites, but in totally different corners of them, have had a cultural experience in common. In fact, these platforms become very successful with a large crowd of people, who build things together, share information, and forward articles back and forth.
There are still more questions. What does it mean for the future of countries that culture now goes beyond the limits of the nation? Is there anything to defend and preserve in the passing cultural world, or is that merely to favor pen over printing press, horse over automobile?
Up to now a growing quantity of culture has been globally spreading and developing. More individuals (个人) than ever have the chances to be makers of culture, even if that means more to choose from and fewer standards to be reached in common. What it means is this strange feeling: that of being more connected than ever, with one-click access to so much of the cultural harvest around the world, and yet, of being starved for having similar interests and opinions with others, concerned only with ourselves.
1. In Paragraph 1 the author indicates ______.| A．the missing of common culture |
| B．the cultural diversity among people |
| C．the disadvantage in the digitizing society |
| D．the double standard of cultural evaluation |
| A．people feel satisfied with the current culture |
| B．enthusiasts look for current culture from famous artists |
| C．disappearance of common culture is a problem to be solved |
| D．common culture may exit into websites that connect the world |
| A．agreement with common culture | B．individuals as cultural producers |
| C．popular artists and books available | D．a reduction in development of culture |
| A．Uninterested. | B．Approving. | C．Uncertain. | D．Critical. |
7 . The aggressive spread of market economics and communication technologies—often under the control of Western multinational companies—brings new challenges to local cultures and values in non-Western societies. Sometimes it seems as if a tidal wave of the worst Western culture is creeping across the globe like a giant strawberry milkshake spill oat and over the planet, with a flavor that is distinctly sweet, sickly and apparently homogeneous (同质的).
For some, especially the young, change may mean escape from oppressive traditions. It may also bring new opportunities for cultures to be combined in creative ways. However, there is genuine cause for concern about the rate at which cultures are being worn away in such a globalized world.
Perhaps by far the most important far-reaching effect of cultural globalization is the commercialization of culture, which has a disturbing impact on local people’s existing values. They are increasingly bombarded with new images, new music, new clothes and new values. The familiar and old are to be abandoned. While there was cultural change long before globalization, there is a danger that much will be lost simply because it is not valued by global markets. In West Africa for example, traditional values have been overtaken by Coca-Cola culture which the local people don’t yet have the values to deal with successfully.
Another common aspect of the globalized culture is that it pursues (追求) the same “one size fits all” American ideal. The result of this cultural process of homogenization is that a large section of the world’s population dreams of living like Cosby & Co. or like the characters in any other stereotype American soap opera. In addition, the dream of living a better life causes thousands of people to move to already overcrowded cities whose population has boomed by millions within the last decades. The majority of these new immigrants end up in slums leading to poverty, pollution and misery.
Such gradual aggression against people’s existing values and cultures has a destructive impact on their sense of who they are, what they want and what they respect. It attacks spiritual values and faith traditions. The accumulative (累积的) effect in non-Western societies is a crisis of cultural confidence, combined with the increased economic uncertainty and crime which global integration (一体化) may bring. This creates real problems for social stability» whether it is at the level of nation, community or family.
In conclusion, cultural globalization, or worldwide McDonaldization, destroys diversity and displaces the opportunity to sustain decent life through a mixture of many different cultures. It is more a consequence of power concentration in the global media and manufacturing companies than the people’s own wish to abandon their cultural identity and diversity.
1. It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that ______.| A．non-Western societies willingly accept economic globalization |
| B．Western culture unites the world、economies and technologies |
| C．the booming of Western culture destroys non-Western societies |
| D．despite its appeal, westernization shows an unpleasant uniformity |
| A．McDonald receives more criticism abroad than at home. |
| B．Many Africans dream of a middle class American lifestyle. |
| C．Chinese food wins great approval in the United Kingdom. |
| D．Some western young people fancy a visit to African countries, |
| A．Cautious. | B．Critical. |
| C．Positive. | D．Neutral. |
| A．cultural diversity in globalization |
| B．challenges to non-Western cultures |
| C．drawbacks of cultural globalization |
| D．disappearance of non-Western cultures |
