Once upon a time, there lived a kind-hearted king. He loved birds and animals, and had a huge bird sanctuary (禁猎区) in his kingdom. He disliked harming the animals and birds. He did not kill them for meat. One day, the king was sent two beautiful birds by a businessman. The king ordered the trainer to make them feel comfortable in their country.

    One day, the king saw one bird fly very high, very quickly. However, the other bird just sat on the branch (树枝) and didn't move even a step. The trainer said that he had tried everything he could but still failed to make the bird move. Soon, the king announced that he needed someone to make it move and fly.

    A few weeks later, an old man reached the king's palace and assured him that he would make the bird fly like the other one. The king asked the trainer to take the old man to train the bird. The next day, the king went to visit the old man. He was surprised to see the other bird fly like the first one to great height at rapid speed. The king was very happy and sent the old man quite a few gold coins and asked the old man what he had done to make the bird fly in a day. 

    The old man simply replied, "I just cut down the branch of the tree where the bird used to sit on."

    Many of us are like this. We have wings to fly; we know how to fly, and where to fly. Still we sit doing nothing or doing something that makes us inferior (较差的) to others.

    Sometimes I really doubt whether there is love between my parents. Every day they are very busy trying to earn money in order to pay for my brother's education and mine. They don't act in the romantic ways that I read in books or I see on TV. For them, "I love you" is too difficult to say. Even sending flowers to each other on some special days is hardly ever seen.

    One day, my mother was repairing a quilt(被子). I silently sat beside her and looked at her. "Mom, I have a question to ask you," I said. "Yes." she replied, still doing her work.

    "Is there love between you and Dad?" I asked her in a very low voice. My mother stopped her work and looked at me in surprise. She didn't answer at once. Then, she bowed her head and continued to do her work.

    I was afraid that I had hurt her feelings. I felt so embarrassed(尴尬的) that I didn't know what to do. But at last I heard my mother say the following words:

    "Look at this thread(线). Sometimes it appears, but most of the time, it hides in the quilt. The thread really makes the quilt strong and durable. If life is a quilt, then love should be a thread. It can hardly be seen everywhere, but it's really there."

    Once I thought love meant flowers, gifts and sweet kisses. But from the experience, I understand that love is just a thread in the quilt of our life. Love is inside, making life strong and warm.

    I loved my mother's desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it when mother sat doing letters．Looking at the ink bottle, pens and white paper, decided that the act of writing must be the most wonderful thing in the world．

    Years later, during her final illness, Mother kept different things for my sister and brother, "But the desk," she said again, "is for Elizabeth."

    I never saw her get angry, and never saw her cry. I knew she loved me, and she showed it in action. But as a young girl, I wanted heart-to-heart talks between mother and daughter. They never happened and a gulf opened between us. I was" too emotional (易懂感情的) ", but she lived" on the surface (表面) "

    As years went by, I had my own family. I loved my mother and thanked her for our happy family. I wrote to her in careful words and asked her to let me know in any way that she did forgive (原谅) me.

    I posted the letter and waited for her answer. It didn't come It seemed that nothing happened. I couldn't be sure that the letter had even got to her. I only knew that I had written it, and I could stop trying to make her into someone she was not.

Now the present of her desk told me that she was pleased that writing was my chosen work, though she had never been able to. I cleaned the desk carefully and found some papers inside—a photo of my father and a one-paper letter, folded (折叠) and refolded many times.

    Give me an answer, my letter asks, in any way you choose. Mother, you always chose the act that speaks louder than words.

    Can you write the Chinese characters(汉字) "ganga" (embarrassment) correctly? Do you know how to write characters like "tiaozhou"(broom)?

    If you can't, you're not alone. Nowadays, most people are typing into computers instead of writing on paper, We type Chinese characters largely according to their pronunciation. The result is to recognize (认出) characters without remembering how to write them.

    In 2013, China Youth Daily did a survey of 2, 517 people, in which 98.9 percent said they had once forgotten how to write a common Chinese character.

    Compared to adults (成年人), teenagers are better at writing Chinese characters because they spend more time learning and practicing at school. However, the effect of digital technology cannot be ignored, according to He Yu, head of a research team for Chinese teaching at a Beijing high school. " Many students are obsessed (沉迷于) with digital devices such as electronic dictionaries and computers to help with their studies. Too much use of these tools will make students too lazy to think and write." He said.

    Such worries have brought about a popular TV show titled Chinese Spelling Hero, which pays attention to Chinese character writing among teenagers. In April, the Ministry of Education called for better calligraphy (书法) education in schools. Organizations like the China Calligraphers Association are also working to train more teachers in calligraphy.

    Interestingly, calligraphy teachers can't always avoid (避免) the effects of modern technology. Shen Bin is a calligraphy teacher at a primary school in Beijing. She admitted that it's common for teachers like her to forget certain words.

    "The calligraphy class is also a good chance for me to remember how to write." She said.

    There is little rain in deserts. Because deserts are so dry, they have no "quilt" to help stop the soil from going away. As a result, they may get very hot during the day with the sun shining, but don't hold the heat overnight. Many deserts can quickly get cold once the sun goes down. Some deserts can reach temperatures of over 100 degrees F during the day and then drop below freezing (32 degrees F ) during the night.

    The largest hot and dry desert in the world is the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa. The Sahara is a sandy desert with great sand hills. It covers over 3 million square miles of Africa. Other large deserts include the Arabian Desert in the middle East, the Gobi Desert in Northern China and Mongolia, and the Kalahari Desert in Africa.

    Animals that live in the desert are also used to needing little water. Many get all the water they need from the food they eat. Other animals keep water that they can use later. The camel stores up fat in its hump while other animals keep something they need in their tails.

    Only certain types of plants can live in the terrible environment of the desert. You won't see a lot of tall trees in the desert. Most plants have a way to keep water in their leaves, or trunks so they can live a long time without water.

    Now deserts cover around 20% of the world land, but they are growing. This is called desertification and is caused by different reasons including human activities. The Sahara Desert is growing larger and larger each year. What should we do with it?

    The first breath-taking pictures of the Earth taken from space showed it as a solid ball covered by brown land masses and blue-green oceans. We had never seen the Earth from that distance before. To us, it appeared as though the Earth had always looked that way and always would. Scientists now know, however, that the surface of the Earth is not as permanent (永久的) as we had thought.

    Scientists explain that the surface of our planet is always moving. Continents moves about the Earth like huge ships at sea. They float on pieces of the Earth's outer skin. New outer skin is created as melted rock pushed up from below the ocean floor. Old outer skin is destroyed as it rolls down into the hot area and melts again.

    Only since the 1960s have scientists really began to understand that the planet Earth is a great living machine. Some experts have said this new understanding is one of the most important revolutions in scientific thought. The revolution is based on the work of scientists who study the movement of the continents—a science called plate tectonics.

    The modern story of plate tectonics begins with the German scientist Alfred Wegener. Before World War One, Wegener argued that the continents had moved and were still moving. He said the idea first occurred to him when he observed that the coastlines of South America and Africa could fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. He proposed that the two continents might have been one and then split apart.

    Wegener was not the first person to wonder about the shape of the continents. About 500 years ago, explorers thought about it when they made the first maps of Americas. The explorers noted the east coast of North America and South America would fit almost exactly into the west coast of Europe and south Africa. What the explorers did not do, but Wegener did, was to investigate the idea that the continents move.

    The Sixth Time I Went to the Principal's Office

    When I was in the seventh grade, I had problems behaving. My heart was in the right place, but I couldn't always follow the rules. I played many tricks on my schoolmates. Once, I even pulled a girl's hair on the school bus to get her attention. As a result, I was repeatedly sent to the office of the principal (校长).

    Although I hated going there, I did not hate the principal, Mr. Ratcliff.

    Mr. Ratcliff was a kind, elderly man. When he spanked(打屁股) me for putting some ants into a classmate's pencil box, it didn't hurt at all, but it did hurt my feelings. I thought so much of him and moments like that seemed to prove I was hopelessly bad.

    When I got called to Mr. Ratcliff's office for the sixth time, I had no idea what I had done. I felt disappointed as I walked down there. I went into his office, sat down, and looked at the floor. Then he said the last thing I expected to hear:" Kevin, I've heard you've been behaving really well lately. I want you to know how proud I am of you, and I just called you down to my office to give you a peppermint.”

    "Really?" I was surprised.

    "Yes. Now you can take that peppermint and go back to class."

    I carried the peppermint with me as if it was a gold coin. When I got into my classroom, I bragged (吹嘘) to my classmates about my turnaround, excitedly. I wasn't so bad after all.

    Mr. Ratcliff was really kind. He made me realize that I was just a kid who had problems with behavior. He bought some peppermints and took the time to notice me when I got something-anything-right. Mr. Ratcliff gave me some hope by giving me some love. I will just remember him for the rest of my life.

    When HarmonyOS, the Chinese self-developed operating system (操作系统) for Huawei mobile phones, appeared on Aug 9, it quickly became a hot topic on social media. Many believe it not only means the rising power of our country's technology, but also shows respect to classical Chinese culture by naming the system "Hongmeng" in Chinese. 

    "Hongmeng" is a word from the ancient book Zhuangzi. It was used to describe the original state (原始状态) of the universe (宇宙) before the material came into shape. For HarmonyOS, "Hongmeng" shows that the developers want to make a new operating system, different from any other. Besides "Hongmeng", Huawei has also owned many of its products (产品) under the names of legendary creatures from traditional Chinese folk stories, such as "Qilin", a lucky monster and "Kunpeng", an animal that changed from a fish into a large bird. Many Chinese Internet users and media have spoken highly of Huawei's use of these names because they carry Chinese wisdom and ancient people's imagination.

    In fact, Huawei is not alone in using traditional culture or modern business. Ne Zha, the new film, also connects traditional culture with modern elements (元素) successfully. It became the biggest surprise this summer. It tells a different story of Ne Zha-he is a devil (恶魔) born into a loving family and becomes a hero in the end.

    Although Ne Zha's appearance in this film is strange and kind of ugly with scary teeth and heavy dark circles around his eyes, his spirit of trying to control his own life greatly encourages young people to fight for their bright future.

    Indeed, the long history and a large number of classic works have given China a colorful culture. Myths and legends like Nv Wa Repairs the Sky and Hou Yi shoots the Suns are the creative works of imagination. After all, imagination is the beginning of creation.

    Earthquakes happen without warnings(预兆). They can happen at any time of a day, and at any point during the year. But don't worry because most are so weak that they cannot be felt. Only a few big ones hurt people. However, it's important to know what to do when an earthquake is happening.

    Do not go outside. You could get injured from falling glass or parts of buildings. If you are outside, stay away from buildings and power lines.

    Stay under a desk, a table, or other strong furniture. Hold on to it. Or stay in a corner of the building.

    Cover your face and head with your arms and cover your mouth with a towel or clothing. Stay inside until shaking stops and it is safe to go outside.

    Keep away from windows, pictures or advertisements on the wall or the building, and anything else that could fall and hurt you. Most people get injured by falling things during an earthquake, not by the shaking itself.

    Also keep away from a fire. You could fall down and burn yourself on the fire.

    If you are driving when an earthquake happens, stop the car if it's safe. Stay inside your car until the earthquake stops, and don't drive near bridges. Try not to stop by power lines or trees. These could fall and hurt you.