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Xuan paper, known as one of the Four Treasures of the Study, first came into  (exist) in Xuan Prefecture in the Tang dynasty. The traditional skill of making the paper  hand has been passed down through generations. The process takes as many as 18 steps, all of  require a level of delicacy. 

Take papermaking master Zhou Donghong for example. He uses a fine screen to filter (过滤) a mixture of water and fibers. He lifts it up, and it's a sheet of paper. It takes him and his partner only 15 seconds (form) and shape it, but they've devoted (they) to perfecting the skills for decades.

"There are a lot of tricks of filtering the fibers, and timing is the most difficult part of all. We have only one chance to filter the right amount of fibers, and only the proper weight guarantees the paper is too thin nor too thick, and the margin(差额) for error is (extreme) small," said Zhou. With just the right degree of thickness, top quality Xuan paper holds ink and water tightly.

The skill of papermaking,  (recognize) as a national treasure, has also proven to be an international one. We felt  great sense of pride as it was listed as a world intangible cultural heritage(非物质文化遗产) by UNESCO in 2009. Since then, in Jing County, Xuan papermaking  (teach) in schools. 

At the1 of Palo Duro Canyon (峡谷）State Park, I2 a job advertisement hiring park hosts. The position offered a 3 , permanent campsite in the park, and 4 , the hosts served as a link between the park's guests and the rangers (护林人). It was the perfect solution: a rent-free place to reorganize our lives. We entered the park and I made an5 for the following day.

The park was 6 , so it took us some time to find an available site. That evening, as we finished our dinner, my wife saw two large skunks (臭鼠由）walking toward our table. We 7  climbed onto the table and, for the next four hours, waited for them to 8  our camp. 

Having survived that night, we were 9 that everything else would be all right. The next day we met with the people who ran the park. They explained our 10  and gave us a beautiful campsite. 

That evening, 11 , we learned about the canyon 12 . They were strong and cold, rocking our little camping truck violently, and we lay 13  in the dark until the winds died away. 

14  the weeks that followed, we learned to survive in our truck and 15  the little money my wife16  by substitute teaching. Building a successful business and then losing it had left very little time for building another successful 17 . For a time after our business18  I thought I might lose my family as well. 

Living in the tiny 19 with no television, we sat close together reading and talking. One evening, standing under a jeweled sky, I found myself 20  for all the hardships. We had walked the trails and climbed the canyon walls. We had become a family!

How the Elderly Are Treated Around the World

How cultures view and treat their elderly is closely linked to their most prized values and qualities. 

In the US and UK, Protestantism (新教) is at play. Western cultures tend to be youth-centric, stressing qualities like independence. It ties a person's value to his or her ability to work – something that becomes weaker in old age. As their health becomes worse, the elderly in these cultures often move to old people's homes and nursing homes.

In France, parents are protected by law. It is difficult to imagine an Elderly Rights Law being a focus in the laws of many Western cultures. France did, however, pass a similar law in 2004.  One was a group of official statistics showing France had the highest rate of pensioner suicides in Europe, and the other was the aftermath of a heat wave that killed 15,000 people, most of whom were elderly and had been dead for weeks before they were found. 

Native American cultures traditionally accept death as a fact of life. In many Native American areas, elders are respected for their wisdom and life experiences. Within Native American families, it's common for the elders to be expected to pass down their learning to younger members of the family.

The way to care for Chinese elders is changing. Chinese families traditionally view respect for one's elders as the highest virtue, according to the Confucian tradition. Adult children are generally expected to care for their parents in their old age. Nursing homes are beginning to become a more socially acceptable option for elderly care.

A. However, this tradition is beginning to break down due to rising lifetime and an aging population. 

B. In the African-American area, death is seen as an opportunity to celebrate life. 

C. Here's what we can learn from other cultures about treating the elderly.

D. But China faces the unique problem of tending to an increasingly elderly population. 

E. Native American elders pass down their knowledge. 

F. It was only passed following two disturbing events, though. 

G. This relates back to the Protestant work rules. 

Sports accounts for a growing amount of income made on the sales of commercial time by television companies. Many television companies have used sports to attract views from particular sections of the general public, and then they have sold audiences to advertisers. 

An attraction of sports programs for the major U. S. media company is that events are often held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons — the slowest time periods of the week for general television viewing. Sport events are the most popular weekend programs, especially among male viewers who may not watch much television at other times during the week. This means the television networks are able to sell advertising time at relatively high prices during what normally would be dead time for programming. Media corporations also use sports to attract commercial sponsors that might take their advertising dollars elsewhere if television stations did not report certain sports. The people in the advertising departments of major corporations realize that sports attract male viewers. They also realize that most business travelers are men and that many men make family decisions on the purchases of computers, cars and life insurance. 

Golf and tennis are special cases for television programming. These sports attract few viewers, and the ratings(收视率) are unusually low. However, the audience for these sports is attractive to certain advertisers. It is made up of people from the highest income groups in the United States, including many lawyers and business managers. This is why television reporting of golf and tennis is sponsored by companies selling high-priced cars, business and personal computers, and holiday trips. This is also why the networks continue to carry these programs regardless of low ratings. Advertisers are willing to pay high fees to reach high-income consumers and those managers who make decisions to buy thousands of "company cars" and computers. With such viewers, these programs don't need high ratings to stay on the air.

Franz Kafka wrote that "a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us. " I once shared this sentence with a class of seventh graders, and it didn't seem to require any explanation.

We'd just finished John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. "Are you crying?" one girl asked, as she got out of her chair to take a closer look. "I am," I told her, "and the funny thing is I've read it many times. "

But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I've taught kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel's terrible logic—the giving way of dreams to fate (命运).

For the last seven years, I have worked as a reading enrichment teacher, reading classic works of literature with small groups of students from grades six to eight. I originally proposed this idea to my headmaster after learning that a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school—one that often attracts the literary-minded children of Manhattan's upper classes—into a less competitive setting. The daughter of immigrants, with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates. I thought additional "cultural capital" could help students like her develop better in high school, where they would unavoidably meet, perhaps for the first time, students who came from homes lined with bookshelves, whose parents had earned Ph. Ds.

Along with Of Mice and Men, my groups read: Sounder, The Red Pony, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. The students didn't always read from the expected point of view. About The Red Pony, one student said, "it's about being a man, it's about manliness. " I had never before seen the parallels between Scarface and Macbeth, nor had I heard Lady Macbeth's soliloquies (独白) read as raps (说唱), but both made sense; the interpretations were playful, but serious. Once introduced to Steinbeck's writing, one boy went on to read The Grapes of Wrath and told me repeatedly how amazing it was that "all these people hate each other, and they're all white. " His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening. Year after year, former students visited and told me how prepared they had felt in their first year in college as a result of the classes.

Year after year, however, we are increasing the number of practice tests. We are trying to teach students to read increasingly complex texts, not for emotional punch (碰撞) but for text complexity. Yet, we cannot enrich (充实) the minds of our students by testing them on texts that ignore their hearts. We are teaching them that words do not amaze but confuse. We may succeed in raising test scores, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.