Lisa stood next to her tall silent grandfather and watched her parents drive off, leaving her behind. She looked up at her grandfather. He looked down at her. His skin was a little darker than hers. His hair was black and white, as if it couldn’t decide which color it should be.

“You don’t talk much, Grandpa,” Lisa said.

“You don’t visit much, Lisa,” her grandfather replied.

They stood looking at each other. “Come with me, Lisa,” said Grandpa. He started walking without looking back.

Lisa followed him to a large storehouse.

Lisa remembered her last visit to Grandpa’s. She had played hide-and-seek with her brother Jack in the storehouse. But now Jack needed an operation. Lisa had to stay here alone for a few days.

“You coming?” Grandpa’s voice sounded muffled. His words were coming from inside the storehouse.

Lisa went inside. The storehouse was full of all kinds of things. She could see him in the far corner. Lisa walked over and stood next to him. He pointed to a small wooden box with “Lisa” painted on it in bright green letters.

“Yours,” he said.

Lisa bent down and opened it. In it were some old things—a bright blue feather, a tiny V-shape leaf and some dolls. She looked up at Grandpa, with tears in her eyes.

“The box stays here, but it belonged to you. No one else.” Then he closed his eyes and smiled. His smile reminded Lisa of her father. Grandpa no longer seemed strange and silent.

“I may be so overcapitalized （过剩）,” Lisa answered, carefully pronouncing the familiar word.

Grandpa laughed out loud. “How did that eight-year-old brain of yours find its way around a big word like ‘overcapitalized’?”

“It’s my dad’s favourite word,” Lisa replied.

Grandpa looked down at Lisa and smiled. His smile again reminded Lisa of her father. Without thinking, she reached up and took Grandpa’s hand. Lisa’s hand felt small and safe inside her grandfather’s.

“I might need more than one visit to my box,” Lisa said seriously.

“I expect,” Grandpa said.

Language shows the environment where we live. We name the things around. Usually, the important things own many specific names, while the less important things only have some general names. So in one culture, people may have a large vocabulary to describe a certain object, while in another culture, such vocabulary is small.

For instance, the Chinese have many words for “rice” and for “family members”. The British use many different expressions for “rain”. Kids growing up on a farm may be able to offer ten different words for plow, a farming tool.

In some cultures, there is an amazingly large vocabulary to describe a certain thing. Eskimos have about 100 words for snow. For them, snow is so important to life that each of its forms and conditions has to own a name. They divide snow into four main categories, such as snow lying on the ground, snow floating in the sky, snow piling up, and snow piles. These different kinds of snow will tell them different weather conditions. It’s the same with the Arabians, whose life depends much on camels. In the Arabic language, according to camels’ appearance, characters, drinking behaviours, and the roles they play, there are hundreds of different words for the camel and all of its parts. Snow and camel are far less important in English-speaking cultures, and the single words “snow” and “camel” can usually satisfy their needs. When the needs become more specific, however, they can make up longer phrases to meet the needs: “corn snow”, “flying snow”, “big camel”, “funny camel”, etc.

As we can see, there is a 4 between the words and the ideas of that culture. So it’s not hard to understand that each culture passes on its ideas and thoughts through word.

My music lesson last week
51． (be) amazing! We’ve got a Chinese exchange student at our school, and he joined
52． (we) in the band practice. He had an amazing instrument from China. I can’t remember what it
53． (name), but it has two strings, and is a bit like a violin. It sounded amazing! Do you know what it could be?

I also want
54． (know) why Chinese music always sounds so
55． (relax) and calm to me. Do you have any recommendations for different types of Chinese music I can listen to? The school holidays
56． (come) soon. Perhaps, over the holidays, I can learn a lot
57． (much) about Chinese music.

I
58． (start) lessons in Physics and Chemistry already. I’m
59． (real) excited because I love these
60． (subject).

I look forward to hearing back from you!

Sandy

When Helen was little, Saturday night was her family game night. After supper, the whole family would play Chinese chess in the sitting room. As a c
61．, Helen loved to watch cartoons. But no matter how many times she asked to watch them, her parents would r
62． her. They said that playing Chinese chess would help exercise her brain. Still Helen wasn’t w
63． to play it with them sometimes. Helen didn’t realize how w
64． her parents were until she entered high school. The games that her parents taught her when she was a little girl turned out to be very useful l
65． in her life.

The Chinese have a long tradition of art, and painting is one of the major art forms. It is still popular nowadays.

Figure painting

Starting from the Han dynasty, artists made people as the main subject of their painting. These paintings are called figure paintings.

Gu Kaizhi(345—409) became famous for his figure paintings during the Jin dynasty. He used fine brushes to outline the people in black. Then he filled them with colour. This detailed, realistic style of painting was known as gongbi. The use of gongbi style resulted in more lifelike figure paintings.

Wu Daozi(680—759)was known as the Sage of Painting for his unique painting style. He was very good at painting human figures and created special techniques for painting clothes that seemed to flow with the light wind.

Landscape painting

Between the Tang and Song dynasties, landscape painting became popular. Artists did ink wash painting with a brush and ink. Many landscape painters were scholar artists. They liked to express themselves through painting. Instead of painting what they saw, they painted the landscapes from their imagination. They also added poems to their paintings.

Modern Chinese painters have inherited（继承）the long tradition of Chinese painting and brought this form of art to the world. Zhang Daqian (1899—1983) is regarded as “the Picasso of China” and Wu Guanzhong (1919—2010) was the first Chinese painter whose works were shown at the British Museum.

去年暑假，我市一名小学生给钟南山院士写了一封信，表达了对钟爷爷的感激之情、敬重之意和美好祝福。不久，钟南山院士给他回了一封既暖心又励志的信。请你写一篇90词左右的英语短文，叙述这件事，并谈谈自己的感想。