Eric was a very honest and hardworking student. He had entered a new school recently, so he had no friends yet. One Monday morning, he was nearly late for school because his family attended a wedding and reached home late the night before. Hurriedly, he even had no time for breakfast.

At school, Eric was starving to death and could not concentrate on anything but wanted the bell to ring so that he could buy something to eat. After a few hours, when the bell rang, Eric quickly opened his schoolbag to find his money, only to find that he had forgotten to take money since he was in such a hurry in the morning. He looked under his books, hoping to find some money but in vain.

Not knowing what to do, he walked out of the classroom and sat on the grassland in front of the canteen. He saw a few of his classmates there, among whom was Henry. He was one of the richest kids in his class, but he was a very rude boy who regarded everyone else as a failure. But Eric was a newcomer, he didn’t know much about Henry.

When he approached Henry and asked whether he could borrow some money for his lunch, Henry laughed at once and said, “I didn’t know you were a loser, maybe a beggar?” Henry laughed out so loud that other kids also made fun of Eric. Embarrassed and angry, Eric said nothing and slowly walked back towards an empty bench.

When he reached the bench, he saw something lying under it. It was a wallet. He picked it up and recognized it belonged to Henry, as he remembered Henry showing it to his friends and telling them that his uncle had bought it for him from the UK. There was quite a lot of money inside for a kid.

An idea appeared in his mind at this moment.

Then Henry said, “Why are you giving it back?”

What spring means to me

Last summer vacation, I traveled to Sanya in Hainan, China. When my dad told me one of the items on the journey would be one of the highest water slides (水上滑梯) in Asia, I asked my dad repeatedly whether I could stay at home. But my dad said that I would love it and we should go together.

Three days later, I was standing in front of that water slide in Atlantics Waterpark. The slide was located in a building. When I looked up at the tens of thousands of stairs leading to the peak of the building, I thought to myself, “If I fall from that place, I will definitely die.”

As we started climbing the stairs, I saw three words on the wall: Leap of Faith. I had never heard of these words, and at that time they reminded me of Road to Death. Five meters, ten meters ... I looked down and thought, “I am going to die today.” Fifteen meters, twenty meters ... I thought about the many things I hadn’t done and asked my dad whether I had life insurance. Twenty-five meters, thirty meters ... and we were finally at the top, ready to jump into the slide. I looked at the three people next to me and thought, “These are the last three people I will see in my life.”

Suddenly, the teenage boy ahead of me stopped in front of the slide and turned around, “Look down there. If we fall into the shark tank, we will be eaten by those hungry sharks.” We all paused and looked down at the shark tank above the slide tunnel. Just then, a younger boy next to me said, “Excuse me, if you don’t want to go now, I will go first.” Then he walked past the teenage boy and me and jumped into the slide, disappearing in an instant.

My father said to me jokingly, “Look, that boy is not even half of your height. Come on, Selina. You can do it.” The teenager turned and stared at me too, “Now, you go first.”

With a deep breath, I stepped closer to the edge of the slide.

A moment later, my father came down.

5 . Inconvenient Truths

If doctors lie, it is surely inexcusable. One of the basic_________ the public have of doctors is honesty. But what would you think if I told you that research has shown that 70 per cent of doctors   _________ to lying to their patients? If I am honest, I have told lies to my patients.

Mrs Walton was in her eighties and _________ to see her husband. She would try to get up to find him, despite being at risk of falling. “He’s on his way, don’t worry,” the nurses would say this to calm her down. I said the same thing to her. But it was a lie. He died two years ago. The truth, if I can use that word, is that it is a _________ to lie sometimes.

Mrs Walton is one of the dementia (痴呆) sufferers, who lose their short-term memory and the memory of_________ events, but hold memories from the distant past. Sufferers are trapped forever in a confusing past that many realize bears little   _________ to the present, but are at a loss to explain. Those with dementia often feel upset, scared and confused that they are in a strange place, _________ by strange people, even when they are in their own homes with their family, because they have gone back to decades ago.

They look at their adult children   _________ and wonder who they could be because they think their children are still little kids. I have had countless families break down in tears, not knowing how to react as their loved one moves further away from them back into their distant past and they are   _________ in the present. And how, as the doctor or nurse caring for these patients, does one manage the anger and outbursts of distress that comes with having no   __________ of your life for the past ten or 20 years? The lies that doctors, nurses and families tell these patients are not big, elaborate lies — they are   __________ comforts intended to calm and allow the subject to be swiftly changed.

__________ with them about this false reality is not heartless or unprofessional — it is actually kind. That’s not to say that lying to patients with dementia__________ is right or defensible. But what kind-hearted person would put another human being through the unimaginable pain of learning, ________ again and again, that they have lost their beloved ones. It would be an unthinkable cruelness.

Sometimes honesty is __________ not the best policy.

6 . Just about 50 years ago, needing money to support my family — my novels weren’t best-sellers — I had the idea of taking the longest train trip imaginable and writing a travel book about it. The trip was improvisational (即兴的). I didn’t have a credit card. I had no idea where I’d be staying nor how long this trip would take. And I’d never written a travel book before. I hoped my trip wouldn’t suffer a lot, though it was obviously a leap in the dark.

I set off with one small bag containing clothes, a map of Asia, a travel guidebook and some travelers’ cheques. I was often inconvenienced, sometimes threatened, now and then disturbed for bribes (贿赂), occasionally laid up with food poisoning — all this vivid detail for my narrative (叙述).

What I repeated in the more than four-month trip was the pleasure of the sleeping car. Writing on board the Khyber Mail to Lahore in Pakistan, “The romance associated with the sleeping car comes from the fact that it is extremely private, combining the best features of a cupboard with forward movement. Whatever drama is being shown in this moving bedroom is heightened by the landscape passing the window...” A train is a carrier that allows residence.

I wrote The Great Railway Bazaar on my return in 1974, and it appeared to good reviews and quick sales. That’s the past. Nothing is the same. All travel is time-related. All such trips are unique and unrepeatable. It’s not just that the steam trains of Asia are gone, but much of the peace and order is gone. Who’d risk an Iranian train now or take a bus through Afghanistan?

But I’ve been surprised by some of the more recent developments in travel. I rode on Chinese trains for a year and wrote Riding the Iron Rooster, but now China has much cleaner and swifter trains and modernized destinations. A traveler today could take the same trip I took in 1986-87 and produce a completely different book.

All travel books are dated. That’s their fault that they’re outdated, and it’s their virtue that they preserve something of the past that would otherwise be lost.

8 . With Christmas approaching, I often reflect upon one particular evening in the early 1960s. Back then, we decided to go carolling (唱圣诞颂歌) to spread the Christmas spirit which might ________ someone else’s life. So we needed to take ________ new members, for whom the only ________ was warmth of spirit.

Soon we discovered that carolling brought various ________. Sometimes we were greeted with open doors and open hearts, while other times, folks remained in the safety and cosiness of their homes, watching ________ through their windows.

One stop on our journey particularly ________ our memory. That night, after a couple of songs, one door swung open. A gentleman, gray haired, tenderly ________we go upstairs to sing for his bedridden wife. He added ________, “She loves music and used to be an opera singer.”

We stepped briskly upward into the couple’s ________ apartment. Books, records, and antique furniture whispered stories to us. I reminded myself not to stare ________ showing disrespect to them.

Sitting beside his wife, the gentleman gave us a ________. Then our voices rose and lingered around their small home. Had our voices been given extra ________ and beauty for this occasion? Perhaps they had.

A smile flickered on the woman’s ________, yet beautiful face. She snuggled her head against her husband’s shoulder and both of them heartily enjoyed our performance. Witnessing such a heartwarming scene, we felt it was a holy night, for we were in the ________ of love that was gentle and mild.

At that moment, we found, and maybe even _______, the Christmas spirit.

9 . One day, a teacher entered his classroom and asked his students to prepare for a fun test. They were filled with anticipation for the exam to begin.

The teacher handed out the exams with the text facing down, as usual. Once he handed them all out, he asked the students to turn over the papers. To everyone's surprise, there were no questions just a black dot (点) or circle in the center of the paper.

The teacher, seeing the expression on everyone's face, said, “I want you to write down what you see on the paper.”

The students got started on the task.

At the end of the class, the teacher took all of the papers; and started reading each of them in front of all the students. All of them described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the center of the paper.

After all had been read, the teacher asked, “Why no one wrote about the white part of the paper?”

Then he added, “I’m not going to grade you on this. I just wanted to give you something to think about. Does the same thing happen in our lives? Do we usually pay attention to the black dots in our life, such as the health problems that worry us, the difficult relationship with family members and the disappointment with friends?”

“Actually, the dark dots are very small when compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds,” he concluded. “Take your eyes away from the black dots in your lives. Enjoy each of your happy moments that life gives you.”