1 . My aunt Cindy has her own cake shop. She can make nice cakes for special occasions, such as weddings and birthdays. I spent a week last summer helping her in the shop. Making a nice cake is harder than I thought it would be.

I practised for hours in Aunt Cindy’s shop. I made little colored dots (圆点) on a piece of wax paper (蜡纸). Unluckily, I could not get the dots to be the same shape or size. I decided to take a break from making the dots, so I helped move cakes. However, that was not easy for me, either. I dropped a cake when trying to take it out of the freezer (冰箱) by myself. Luckily one of Aunt Cindy’s assistants (助手) was there. He saved the cake from hitting the floor.     

It takes a whole team to make a huge cake. That’s one of the most important things I learned. Each person on the team has to be great at his or her job. Aunt Cindy designs the cakes on paper, Larry does the mixing and baking, and assistants carve and put frosting on the cakes. Aunt Cindy and Larry do most of the decorating while the assistants help make small parts like flowers and figures. Building a big cake is like playing a team sport. If one person doesn’t do his or her job well, the whole team pays for that.      

Even though I was not much help to my aunt, I’m glad I spent the week in Aunt Cindy’s shop. Designing cakes takes more than just baking skills. It takes art and painting skills too. Now when I see a really nice cake, I don’t think of eating it first. Instead, I look at it and wonder how many hours it took to make.

People say that the real culture of Beijing exists     1    the culture of hutong and siheyuan. The hutongs in Beijing     2     (form) by lanes of siheyuan,     3     is a type of residence (居民区) where houses are purposely built to form squares or rectangles (矩形).

In the mid 20th century, several hutongs in Beijing were torn down to pave the way for the     4       (develop) of the city. However, since then, thanks to     5     (effort) to safeguard (保护) this significant aspect of the Chinese architectural (建筑) culture, many hutongs have been preserved.

Because of the interlacement (交织) of the lanes, every house is connected to the other,       6     (make)it easy for local people     7     (keep) in touch with their neighbors. Therefore, once one enters any of them, one can feel the deep and warm relationships among people, which is     8       (rare) found in this modern world.

Chatting in these lanes     9     (be) a common scene as it is the main way for people to     10       (strong) their relationship. Where there is such a lane, there is a story.