For us northerners, feather coats are a conventional dress worn by people of all ages in the sub-zero weather. When I was young, there were hardly any feather coats sold in the department stores, though there are an abundant supply of them for us to choose from whether in the physical stores or online shops now. There did exist extravagant mink coats but only the super-rich could afford the luxury. For the most majority of common people, cotton-padded coats were the best choice in winter. In order to keep warm, the elderly would make padded-coats for the younger generation. I have no idea since when Chinese people began their tradition of making padded-coats, but it has become part of Chinese folk culture, which will be passed down for generations to come. In traditional Chinese culture, when a new baby comes to the world, its grandma should sew some cotton-padded coats and trousers as a welcome gift. As a little kid, the most memorable gift from my grandma is a pair of blue rompers and a red padded jacket. The two colors are a perfect match according to traditional folk culture. Dressed in the gear, I looked like a typical country girl, simple but lovely. Grandma lived in the countryside all her life and she got so close to nature that she had accumulated plenty of knowledge about old customs and changes of seasons. In August when the crops were gathered in, grandma would set out to make padded clothes for the family. She would take me to our local department store where I was allowed to choose my favorite cloth patterns. The cotton we used was from our own farm, which saved us much money to make new clothes. In warm afternoons, grandma would gather all her tools and materials including needles and thread, scissors, cloths, and cotton onto her bed and after putting on her presbyopic glasses, she began the sewing work. First, she measured my body and cut out the coat and trousers out of the cloth making sure they fitted me well. Then she put layers of cotton onto the cut-out cloths to make them thick enough to keep warm in winter. Finally, she began to pass the needle through the cloths, back and forth. Being a kid, I especially liked watching my nanny doing the needle work, assuming that nanny was the craftiest artist in our village. While sewing, grandma was used to telling me old stories from her childhood set in her hometown 30 kilometers southwest of where we lived. She talked of how they went hungry in the wartime and how they saved pancakes for soldiers in the front lines. I listened and nodded frequently, though I merely heard half of the story. The padded coat has been my constant companion for the first ten years of my life. Later, when we entered the 1ate 1990s, great changes took places in the Chinese mainland and our economy began to take off. With plenty of money at their disposal, people were better off than ever. By then I had become a 15-year-old girl, an age when vanity would get the better of me. Considering that I may look plump and awkward in that cast-off clothing, I discarded nanny’s cotton-padded coat. Nevertheless, that gear still stays fresh in my memory up to now, reminding me of a time when grandparental love outweighs all material wealth in this world. Thirty five years has passed since my grandma made me my first padded coat. At age 85, grandma still remains a healthy and energetic lady. Seeing my son wearing a similar padded coat made by the same old rough hands, I felt great warmth inside. Wish my grandma would live her full life and be a witness of her great grandson’s wedding ceremony.

I am a deep individual by nature. Perhaps there is a vein of melancholy in my character, which I inherited from my introverted and cranky father. I think and contemplate a lot whether when I am alone or with others. I pay special attention to the most minor details that most people may overlook or think insignificant. I would get emotional and shed tears of joy or grief over a lot of events, like reading a tragic novel, watching football matches and seeing an animal cub suffering from losing its mother. As I grow older, I always wonder why I am such a sensitive woman as to upset myself by worrying about a bunch of meaningless stuff. Once I abhorred myself, reckoning that I would amount to nothing but merely a worthless and unworthy being. However, life and age did teach me a lot of philosophies, one of which is that there is nothing good or bad about one’s temperament. So long as one focuses on his positive aspects and avoids its negative influence, he can enjoy a happy and healthy life. Born with melancholy in my blood, I am always involved in fighting against negative emotions and my battle against the demon goes like this. For the past thirty years of life, I had never related depression to my life, nor had I expected that I would be a victim of it. If I did know something about the mental disease, it should be that the people who are suffering it might be unhappy and lose all their interest in life. It’s not until my baby was born that I had a face-to-face encounter with the horrible disease. According to my doctor, my brain may be lacking in a certain chemical after childbirth, which caused melancholy and extreme anxiety. In that most dark period, I prayed genuinely again and again to the Mighty God that the demon would be gone soon and never return to plague my any longer. It lasted about a month and then it’s gone forever. After that, I made a deep reflection on my life and my way of thinking, which helps transform me in a number of ways. In some sense, depression is just a common disease. It may cure one of his fatal defects in his character and help him grow to be a better person. There is nothing to fear if you happen to get caught in a whirlpool of despair. Just be brave and you can conquer everything! Above all, I become more tough and stronger than ever. Once I always regarded myself as a crying baby, resigning myself to fate whenever something unpleasant arose. Nevertheless, the big blow helps exercise my willpower, making me a woman of steel. In this world, nothing can crush me but myself. Even a ruin will give off holy light with support of a mighty heart. Then I learned always to be grateful to nice people around and everything I possess. During my baby-blue period, it’s my family members and friends who encouraged me and helped me out of the dark shadow. And here I should also express my heart-felt gratitude to my loyal doctor who provided me with warm counseling whenever I needed help. Certainly, I am more grateful to my son, who brought much pleasure to my life, whose appearance switched my role from an ordinary woman to a loving mother. A mother is expected to make more sacrifice and shoulder more responsibilities, which acts as a lighthouse that illuminates my way ahead. Next, I learned to let things go. Once I was too stubborn and intolerant of others’ opinions or criticisms. Now I have learned to accept people and things as they really are and let nature take its course rather than myself being a dictator. Thus, I feel light-hearted and never bring trouble to myself if it doesn’t come to me. Finally, I stopped pushing myself too hard. Once I was a tireless doer and therefore I always imposed piles of tasks on myself until I got crumbled under great pressure. Looking back, it’s really silly of me to spur myself into spinning like a gyro, which not only drained my energy, but also did great harm to my health. Now I have learned to slow down my pace and set aside enough time to admire tiny things in life, such as enjoying a sunset, observing birds perching in window-sill, or just sitting down idling. Whenever I set my mind at rest, I feel more relaxed and content with my present life. Life is unpredictable. At one time or another, we all may meet with misfortunes and disasters. Or rather, everyone has days when they feel dejected or down. Disease or hardship itself is not horrible at all. What we should do is to despise them and make them our slaves. We human beings are the final winner of every unfair play in the arena of life.

I am a person with rich affection. Since I was a young baby, I have already displayed strong emotions and sentiments towards people and things around, such as love, abhorrence, sorrow, compassion and fear. Of all those common human feelings, the one that cast a dark shadow rather than rays of beautiful sunshine on my mind was my inborn phobia to the unknown world, and it haunted my whole infancy like a demon. In my tender years of ignorance, I feared darkness, loneliness, horses, thunder and lightning, eccentric old lady and many many other unfathomable things. As a young kid, I couldn’t comprehend the world and its mystery, nor could I effectively convey my fears and panic to adults. Therefore, my delicate soul got inflicted and suffered a great deal. As I grew older, I took science and psychology classes at school and swam heartily in the boundless oceans of world literature; the demon dwelling in my mind was finally driven out by the powerful knowledge. Psychologically, my babyish phobia is but part of growing process that every human being has to go through in his infancy before he steps into the kaleidoscopic world and comes to perceive its sophistication. However, even in my days of leisure and joy, afterwards, my undesired devil would return, reawakening my illogical but funny childhood experiences. When I was a toddler, the feeling that overwhelmed me most was loneliness. You know, babies have an instinctive tendency to seek for comfort when insecurity is felt. When left alone for long, I would always get seized by an inexplicable panic fear that all furniture and objects in our house were scary monsters which were to pounce on me at any moment with their grim face and sharp claws. Caught up in my imaginary fear, I would drop my toys and dash outside for my mother who was cooking meals in our shabby outdoor kitchen. Clinging firmly to the edge of her garment, I breathed a sigh of relief, my tension eased off with company, then succeeded by what seemed like a sense of victory after a narrow escape. Pictures were another thing that may trigger my weird imagination. Thanks to my artistic father, the inner walls of our house were covered with paintings of all styles and themes. Fascinated by their rich color and marvelous patterns, I would stand in front of those paintings for a long long time, trying to fathom their connotation. Pictures are of still and inanimate existence, which inspired in me a melancholy feeling of loneliness and complexity. I am now surprised that I should have experienced that dark human emotion at such a tender age. Perhaps I was born with depression. Like any other kid, I am afraid of darkness. Night in the countryside is rather dark and quiet, especially when there is no moon or stars; I was even terrified of my own shadow. In my short stay with my grandparents, we seldom went outside after night fell. There was hardly any illumination in the streets except the dim household lights. Our toilet was in a seclusive corner sheltered by thick green bushes and vines. Thereby, it’s a real adventure for me to go outside to pee in the evening, for I always had an illusion that some frightening monsters or sinister robbers were lurking somewhere in the bushes, even though I was quite aware that all my fears were groundless. Interestingly, those who were stealthily watching me over were crickets singing vigorously in the grass or sparrows that hadn’t closed their eyes on the branches. Eccentric people are also a bluff to me. My grandma is an excellent storyteller who has ever told of dozens of stories about white-haired girl and noseless clay man who would appear at night and take disobedient kids away. I always took everything my grandma said seriously and tried to behave myself in case I might be miserably carried away by some old and ugly witch. It turned out that the tragedy had never happened to me even if I was mischievous, but I did meet a white-haired lady who was my great grandma at the age of 93. It’s interesting that adults always intimidate small kids into obedience by conjuring up stories of witches. Ghosts, tombs and cemetery were also common topics that may trigger fear and dread in adults, let alone children. In the countryside, farmers usually bury the dead near their own fields. As far back as I could remember, there was a deserted graveyard on the west side of our village, which was a playground for children then. A couple of tombstones, erected or slanting, were sprawled across the wasteland; some of them were very large inscribed with the dead’s names and their life stories in fine calligraphy. Between the tombs, crab grass grew and spread like crazy interspersed with tiny nameless flowers of all colors. The graveyard held countless mysteries for children to explore in the daytime. Once, after a rainstorm, part of the slope collapsed due to the loosening soil, revealing a big black hole. A bold boy climbed in and pulled out a horrible skull. He threw it on the ground to impress but it accidentally rolled towards where girls were gathering, which sent them running and screaming for help. The scene had haunted me for nearly a year until I could hold it no more but tell every detail about my nightmare to my father, who laughed loudly, sharing with me his own experience of skulls. To my great amusement, in his time boys kicked skulls back and forth like a football in the same graveyard! How interesting! Fear and panic are not entirely negative emotions. They stimulate my curiosity and drive me to explore and learn more about the unknown world. In my serious exploration for the truth and knowledge, they transformed me into a man of reason and bravery.

Logically or illogically, there is always some reason or a particular event that may contribute to the forming of a hobby. According to this seemingly reasonable theory, my preference for English writing has a long story to tell. In the first place, I do believe that God may play a part in shaping a human being. Some people were born with a unique ability or skill that assists him to outperform others in certain tasks. Perhaps I belong to those few lucky ones who are bestowed with more gift and wisdom. I have displayed amazing writing skills even when I was a first grader in my primary school. While marking my diary, my Chinese teacher was amazed at my choice of words and complex sentence patterns, insisting that parts of my article was lifting from somewhere else, which made me both frustrated and flattered. That’s when I first discovered my special gift in writing. Strictly speaking, it’s my father who guides me to embark onto the road of reading and writing. I was born into a scholarly family. In our old house, besides books, newspapers, and pictorials within my easy reach, what impressed me most were bundles of old books neatly arranged on the beams of our rooftop. It’s said that part of those books were passed down from older generations. On sunny days, I would pick up a book at my convenience and seat myself on a comfortable chair, assuming the posture of my father, thumbing through pages of colorful pictures. What a crazy little reader! As I attended school, I found that I had little interest in science. My poor logic thinking and reasoning ability convinced me that my brain is not programmed for science. Thereby, I dismissed my dream of being an engineer but concentrated all my attention on subjects of arts, determined that I would make a good arts student in the future. Throughout all my school years, I have been reading widely and profusely, assimilating and making notes about beautiful paragraphs and enlightening thoughts and ideas, all of which laid a solid foundation for my later writing. Meanwhile, I had tried to put down my thoughts and feelings, but not very frequently. It’s not until I took my first job in my hometown that I began to take my magical pen to fulfill my fervent passion for English writing. As I repeatedly stated above, my extensive reading with its depth and width, opens a door to a more magical world where I can weave whatever story I like without any limitation of time and space. First, writing is a powerful way of dealing creatively and usefully with my mood. It helps me sort out my thoughts and makes my life more beautiful. Whenever I am upset or in a bad mood, I would sit down in front of my desk, staring at a pad of blank paper, thinking long and hard. After moments of adjustment, I would take up my pen and then thoughts and ideas gushed out naturally from my mind, spilling over onto my notebook as my pen moved elegantly across the paper. I put down whatever pours out of my mind and meantime by contemplating and judging the day’s happenings, I gained a better perception of people and things. At the end of the article, I always feel as if I got totally enlightened by my own persuasion. Second, writing, like its twin sister reading brings me endless pleasure. Whenever novel ideas strike, I would take out my notebook and make a preliminary sketch. I am a person of fewer words, but whenever I sit down with my notebook, words and sentences would come naturally from my finger tips. Compared with Chinese writing, I experience a quite different feeling to record my life in this beautiful language, which gives me much pleasure in capturing ideas, choosing words and expression and organizing paragraphs logically and appropriately. It also gives me a great sense of fulfillment after my elaborately-conceived article is completed and posted online for sharing. Over the years, it has gradually become part of my daily routine. When I am in the right mood, ideas and inspirations will spill out, welling up like fountain. I will spend the whole day writing and perfecting until I am satisfied. Addiction sometimes is not a bad thing. Third, writing provides me with something to focus on when I am confronted with tough challenges or unpleasant happenings. Helpless or powerless, I would retreat myself to my den, spending several hours on end in my small space, reading and writing, tracing back to the simplicity and tranquility of my soul that had long lost into the clamorous society. Pushing all troubles and stress away, my brain plays more actively and merrily, as if regaining my babyhood calm and peace. As a result, my spiritual journey prepares me well for my work and life. English writing has become my soul mate. For years, it has accompanied me through all my turns and twists with its powerful healing effects. When I am happy, I write; when I am sad, I write. When I am not writing, I would be reading; when I am not reading, I would be contemplating life and its philosophy. In spite of my efforts, I am still not much pleased with my writing skills. There is still a long way ahead before I reach the rim of my dreamland. Half way on the road, I will keep up my good work and charge all the way forward until I hit the final success.

Love is an unfathomable thing. It can be capricious and volatile like active gases in the air. We may chance upon it in the least unexpected situations; or we may lose it instantly while we are passionately in love. Love is an unknown quantity, which may vary with one’s vision, state of mind, sentiments, external influences or it’s simply a matter of instant decision. Thus, it’s advisable that we should adopt an open and frank attitude to our relationships in case we may get into a dead end. When the other half insists on leaving, there is no need to clutch at him arms and beg him to stay. In that case, just be magnanimous and let him or her go; the world won’t end if you broke up. The following strategies may help you get through a failed love with great ease. The first step is to make a self-reflection. Instead of bashing the other half bitterly and tearfully, let’s review our own words and deeds and get to know our own faults. Do I have some manners that are offensive to him? Am I a confident girl in front of him? Is there any misunderstanding that made him turn me off? Nobody is perfect. Even if the relationship is hopelessly incurable, rather than blame fate or other people, we may as well convert our sorrow into strength and take the opportunity to transform ourselves into a better person. It’s awful experiences rather than favorable circumstances that make us grow. In some sense, a failed love can open a brighter door to a more exciting world. Without experiencing something painful, life may be incomplete. Next, make a general judgment about that person objectively and fairly. If her is merely a playboy flirting with you for temporary pleasure, give him a hard lesson by confronting him and declaring to him that you have the least interest in a dishonest man with him affected pretensions and then make a clean-cut with him. However, if the person is a honest guy and it is some other factors, like character incompatibly, life habits, or diverged career paths that caused your splitting up, then be sensible enough to take a forgive-and-forget approach and still keep in touch by regarding him as a common friend if necessary. After all, where there is a friend, there is a way. Just as the saying goes that it’s better to convert an enemy into a friend. Sometimes, we may learn to shut all our senses to the things happened to us. Closing your eyes, you will get the whole world. Then you may ask what if you still falsely clinged to that person when he has stepped out of your life? Now I will tell you that nobody is irreplaceable in this world and that with a bit of courage, you are sure to walk out of the shadow and move on to the future. The quickest way of forgetting a person is to make a list of the flaws he possesses, such as his ugly eyebrows, his disgusting way of speaking, or his lack of compassion for the vulnerable groups. These shortcomings can make very good reasons for you to let him go. What’s the use of allowing his ugly image lingering in your mind? Then smash the presents he sent you and tear up all your photos and diaries you kept and throw them into dustbin. Whether beautiful or ugly, those reminders belong to the past which are bound to go with the wind, disappearing into the ether. Then you will heave a long sigh that you finally kicked that worthless bustard out of your mind. It is in tears and sorrows that you struck on a great faith that a girl should learn to love herself before she begins a relationship with other men. Eventually, your anger and indignity may get appeased, and you may set out to plan another date. Don’t lose heart. There are always some nice guys out there meant for you. The road to happiness is strewn with setbacks. Even if you failed half a dozen times, you must stand tall and keep your chin up, believing that you are the most proud princess in the world. Some day when you look back, each painful experience may serve as a rich treasure that you harvested and accumulated into your life palace. Eventually, you will meet your Prince Charming at the time when you have perceived what real love is and got well prepared for it.

As a popular saying goes, memories and experiences are a great treasure of human life. They lead people to examine the past and look ahead with new perspective. If I am asked where my most precious memory springs from and what significance it has on my life, the first thing that comes into my mind is the small river that is flowing across my village, its sweet water nurturing hundreds of folks and their livestock and crops along. Though it’s nearly ten years since I last visited the lovely river, the beautiful image of its water gurgling and shimmering in the sun has long photographed itself on my mind. Like an old friend, it kept me company through changes of seasons as well as times of ups and downs, especially when I was in adversary or got caught up in life-changing tragedies, the river, transcending time and space, was flowing all the way into my broken heart, singing a song about the good old days, soothing and healing my scarred soul. The water is moving, so is my life. For years, the gurgling water has emerged into my vein, making itself an indispensable part of my existence. The small river flows from east to west and it lies to the west of my village, and it’s surrounded by farms and cottages on its north bank and a primary school and a big orchard on its south bank. It’s where villagers draw water to irrigate their crops and water their cows and horses and it also acts as a natural fishing ground which provides entertainment and with its fish, shrimps, and clams adds variety to the villagers’ dinner table. In all aspects, the small river links closely with people’s life quality; it’s the lifeblood of the villagers’ existence in that era of lower productivity. When spring comes, everything in nature comes to life and the small river is also awakening from its deep sleep. When the sun rises, rays of warm sunshine slanting across its icy surface, the thick ice begins to thaw away, and the water takes on a color of light green; tiny creatures in the river are fermenting and thriving. By midday, the smooth surface is glinting with patterns of blue sky and reflections of tall trees and low bungalows on both banks. Nameless wild flowers and weeds outgrow the wide slope, with flocks of sheep and cows grazing serenely across the vast fields. Farmers say it’s harmless for the herd to tread and graze on the wheat seedlings. On the contrary, they grow better if greeted by sheep and cows. Summer is the best season to have closer access to the small river. As the sun casts blazing flames onto the earth, with cicadas chirping vigorously and noisily among leaves and the villagers sweating profusely on their farm, the river is a cool place to seek shade and rest. They can sit under the canopy of big trees, drinking tea or listening to the radio or leisurely casting a fishing-line into the water to try luck. When I was a kid, I had ever made simple fishing gear with long ropes, glass jars, and earthworms as baits, but to my dismay, I had never pulled out any fish with my poor equipment. The river is crystal clear and not deep, so it also serves as a nice swimming pool. However, in that era, not many people were fond of swimming. Kids were only allowed to dabble in the shallow beach, throwing pebbles across the still surface to create ripples or simply spending the whole afternoon catching small shrimps, snails, and clams concealed under the shallow water. We never felt tired occupied with so much fun and pleasure. The river in autumn is calm and quiet. It takes on a color of light yellow when the harvest season comes. As the autumn wind blows, the withered leaves and stems left their mother plants, flying and floating until they reluctantly fall onto the water surface, making it a river of yellow, red, and brown, which signifies the ending of the luxuriance of summer and the beginning of winter. In the old times, the air was fresh and the environment was not yet polluted. The small river was part of the nature. It’s not a difficult thing for nature and human activities coexist harmoniously. Winter is a wonderful season for skating. The winter in my hometown is extremely cold; the vast plain is frozen all over, icy and lifeless. In the coldest month, thick ice crusts the river, the thickest part reaching over ten centimeters, which provides a natural skating rink for skating lovers. At that time, we didn’t have warm clothes, but we were all brave warriors who braved the coldness to participate in winter sports with great passion and enthusiasm. Children, big or small, chased each other on the thick ice, teasing and laughing until the sun rose above the mid sky, conveying its warmth and heat to the earth, which made it dangerous to slide on. Time flies pretty fast. Two decades has passed since I last skated on the frozen brook. Now with the modernization of agriculture and the changes of people’s way of life, that clear river has disappeared from my village; what is replaced in its place is a dirty marshland with household rubbish strewn all over. There is no fish or any living creature out there and no sheep or cows roaming and grazing by the riverside. It pains me to see the desolate sight. Does our economic take-off bring out such a terrible scene? While science and technology bring much convenience and affluence, we humans have also lost a lot of valuable things, such as beautiful environment and simplicity of folkways. The young and dynamic river that had been appreciated and worshipped by its people is gone, what is left in my heart is the nostalgic feeling for a bygone time and place—a place called home.

Situated in the midland of Shandong Province, my hometown Yanzhou is a rather small administrative unit affiliated to Jining, a medium-sized prefecture-level city. Due to its tiny territory, there are hardly any well-known scenic spots or any of the world’s top 500 enterprises to help boost its international fame or economic power. It has remained a quiet and peaceful town for centuries. In terms of its climate, my city has a distinctive season division and it’s said to be one of the few cities nationwide that have no mountains within its boundary. Therefore, it’s far from a tourist resort. In traditional beliefs, it’s universally held that every city has its unique temperament and characteristics, whether being open, vigorous, sophisticated or being reserved, composed and simple. The nature of my city can best be interpreted in its winter time, a season of both dynamics and statics combined. On the one hand, as winter sets in, my city becomes more lonely and desolate, with its streets, lanes, squares and parks empty and silent, practically deprived of all its ever noisy crowds and flowing vitality. The lowest temperature in winter can drop down to as low as minus 15 degrees centigrade. Except for those working people who have to regularly commute to and from workplaces, idle residents would rather stay at home to keep warm if they have nothing pressing to deal with. The heating system in my city is super nice, which lasted four months, starting from 15th, Nov to 15th Mar the following year. The agreeable indoor temperature creates a cozy atmosphere for households to enjoy a luxurious life. The elderly are accustomed to lounging on the sofa, playing chess or reading newspapers wearing their old-fashioned presbyopic glasses or simply attending to their pets or flowers; young couples can spend more honeymoon-like time gossiping about their favorite stars and big-shot or cooking meals together; free from school work, children can fully indulge themselves in drawing cartoons or playing computer games if they are allowed some personal space. People of small cities share very strong family reunion values. In classical literary works, home is usually described as the warmest place where an injured soul can regain peace and quiet. Home means parents, love and sense of belonging, irrespective of your nationality, race, religion, family background or social status. It’s a pleasant feeling for a family to gather around the dinner table with appetizing aroma rising up above the steaming hot dishes, talking and laughing, while the snowflakes whirling up outside. In the morning hours before daybreak, which comes much later than in other seasons, the sky hang like a dark dome, little by little, minute by minute, the dark curtain lifted up, then it turns into whiter and brighter. All sounds are hushed; a profound silence prevails over all. Once or twice, you may hear a slight crack of twigs broken off by the wind or the occasional twittering of early birds, which signifies that another day of biting cold is with us. At this time of the year, people become more sluggish and inactive. They would talk less and excise less but sleep and rest more. Just like squirrels and bears, they consciously or subconsciously choose to respite for a while to recuperate and build up strength for the spring revival. On the other hand, winter is also a season of great clamor and excitement. That is when the Spring Festival is drawing nearer. Spring Festival is a special occasion for family reunion and bliss, which witnesses long queues of returning passengers, shopping carnivals, family and friends gatherings and parties, loud music for promotion, the incessant bursts of fireworks, and people’s cheerful chatting and laughing. Walking on the streets decorated with lanterns and festoons, the ear-piercing honking from vehicles, live melody blaring out from loudspeakers, and the buoyant babbling of the crowd produced a hilarious symphony of festive carols. As the New Year is closing in, every family set about their annual routine of the clean-up and preparation for the family reunion dinner. Nearly all family members have a part to play in the big campaign, with men cleaning up rooms, wives doing loads of laundry, grandmas chopping meat stuffing and making dumplings and children acting as worthy assistants for adults. Chinese New Year is a dynamic festival when the whole country get moving and acting in similar ways. For a small city, people attach more significance to traditions and customs. We bustle around, going about our daily businesses, but we are happy and contented in spite of coldness and fatigue. The true meaning of life lies in problems of livelihood rather than great fame and achievements. Winter in my city is a beautiful picture of quietness and activities. You can experience a different kind of lifestyle, slow, serene and unadorned. Welcome to our small city to enjoy its tranquility and hospitality of its people.

The other day, I came across an interesting article in the life column of a newspaper. The title isn’t eye-catching at all, but the fresh idea it conveys makes a dramatic impression on my mind. The article begins with a story of a couple who sold their house in the big city to start a bed and breakfast for visitors on a mountain known for colorful sunset. The following part explores the benefits of this simple way of life and the hidden reasons that people yearn for the simple lifestyle. The notion itself gives modern-day people plenty food for thought. In the era of high efficiency and fast rhythm, a lot of people are rethinking their machinelike life and figuring out what they really want and need. They tend to abandon their fast-paced style and adopt a more casual attitude to life. Simple living ranges from cutting down on weeknight activities to renting apartments, living closer to work and commuting less, avoiding shopping malls and entertainment venues, buying recycled furniture and shoes and taking a cut in pay to work at a more pleasurable job. Briefly, simplicity is about conscious living and creating the life we want. It means that we may live within a limited budget and enjoy whatever a lifestyle our heart desires, for example, by making a hobby your career, getting close to nature and spending more time with kids around the clock. The less stuff we buy, the less money goes out of the door and the less money we have to earn. Is it a feasible way of life? In my light, I would rather not choose this semi-reclusive lifestyle. As long as one can balance perfectly between his job and amateur life, he will be a happy person. I always take my job as my secondary hobby, if I am not very much keen on it. After all, it provides me with a stable salary to keep my household running. By interacting with my students, I gain a lot of pleasure and I can always retain a curious nature as well as a young mind. After work, proper organization counts. On weekends or holidays off, I actually possess plenty of time to allocate to things like reading, gyms, shopping, a small trip or a candlelit dinner with my kids. By alternating my job and social life, I can always enjoy a full and colorful life without any boredom. How could an enthusiastic person complain about things like fatigue or exhaustion? Life lies in movement; humans should progress ceaselessly towards higher goals rather than stay where they were. Next, it’s a bit absurd to separate oneself from the mainstream of the society. If one hides himself in his house for a week and completely shut his ears, he would make himself a fool when spoken to again. The world is constantly changing. Your non-conformist ways may probably get you into trouble. What’s more, even if you are willing to act to your liking, your kids need a socially humanistic environment to grow and learn to adapt to the fast-changing society. If isolated, how could he establish his realm in the world? In some sense, simplicity means inactivity and passiveness. As adults, we should set a good example for little ones. They should be taught to be aggressive rather than recessive. If everybody follows his inclination, our society would retain stagnant or even retreat into a primitive state. That’s too terrible. Finally, youth is a time for devotion and exploration. As backbone forces of the society, we should keep our enterprising spirit and improve our social adaptation in order to better transform our planet and benefit our future generations. AS an old saying goes like this, it’s never too old to learn. Now we can believe that it’s never too old to struggle. Instead of suspending our body and soul, let’s make concerted efforts to keep forging ahead until the last minute of our life.

For a professional teacher, part of my job is to design teaching programs, prepare lessons, and grade papers and tests. There is never a moment when I could separate myself from dealings with papers, pens, files, staplers, and other stationery. Over the years, they have become my right-hand assistants that make my work go smoothly and efficiently. Without doubt, years of schooling and teaching life combined has transformed me into a typical intellectual who has no other hobbies other than reading and writing. Even when I go out shopping or just for a walk, my attention would be involuntarily arrested by some stationer’s that leaps to my eye. Then I would step inside and take a leisurely stroll between racks of collections of office supplies, checking and picking my favorites. In most cases, I could always be fortunate enough to chance upon some novel gadgets, like a fancy ballpoint pen or a lovely pencil sharpener. Believe it or not, I have kept a whole set of exquisite notebooks with themes of cute animal cubs as well as several drawers of writing material reserve. You can find whatever stationery you need in my study. There are mainly two reasons for my queer hobby. For one thing, collection itself is an art in my eye. If you have a preference for a particular article, it’s a treasure for you. For another, there is great practical use in keeping office materials. When I am badly in need of something, I can always put on hands on some. I couldn’t imagine what my life will be like without their company. In my humble opinion, it’s a shameful thing if a family failed to provide a guest with a pen and a sheet of paper to write some information on if he asks for that. Stationery is part of a family culture, without which, the family might be regarded as a vulgar hominids lacking in proper manners. Tracing back to my origin, I was born into an intellectual family. My father, a retired civil servant, was originally a middle school teacher. On my four-year-old birthday, he brought home an exquisite small wooden box filled with colored chalk as my birthday present. It’s the little box that had opened my mind to a more exciting outside world. From that day on, I began to use the magical chalk to paint my fantasy world, our walls being the natural canvas which were thickly covered with graffiti of stick figures like rabbits, ducklings, puppies, small kids and all sorts of lines and patterns. After decades of rain and snow, those doodling and scrawling still remained, witnessing my growing process as well as changes of circumstances. Two years later, when I began my primary school, I was introduced to a new type of writing tool, pencils. In my Chinese lessons, I was taught to write Chinese characters stroke by stroke. At that time, I had to get my pencil frequently sharpened to ensure a fluent writing. One of the advantages of writing with a pencil is that if I misspell some character, I could use an eraser to rub out the pencil marks. It’s especially suitable for pupils under the age of 10 who are more liable to make mistakes. Pencils and erasers became the most remarkable symbols of my childhood memory. With those dumb but helpful friends, I wrote, corrected and learned, building the foundation of infinite knowledge brick by brick. For a pupil, picking and purchasing stationery is the most exciting part of school life. On weekends, I always pestered my father to select the most fashionable pencils, pencil-cases, rulers and school bags and our classroom became the exhibition hall where varieties of stationery were displayed. However, I was never a jealous girl to keep up with the Joneses. When I was in the third grade, pencils seemed to become out of fashion because of its limitations. Students were recommended to write with the pen, a more advanced writing tool that makes writing more formal and smooth. Naturally, pencils exited from our life; instead, we took up a more powerful weapon to record our growth and represent our beautiful vision. Compared with pencils, pens are a more wonderful tool with which we can write elegant Chinese characters. In a special sense, it’s a nice substitute of the ancient Chinese writing brushes that represent the true spirit of Chinese characters. With pen and ink, we began to adapt ourselves to the standardized writing style of the adult world. Because it’s impossible to obliterate the misspelled character, we had to be extremely cautious not to ruin the whole page. Meanwhile, many of the fine qualities are developed in the process of pen writing. The artistic activity helps shape students into a glorious personality which combines patience with calmness, perseverance with strength. That’s what makes us Chinese stand out on the world stage. Later, with the advent of computer technology and the big data era, more convenient writing instruments are invented. We gradually abandoned the traditional pens and pencils and turn to other more convenient tools like ballpoint pens, sign pens and highlighter pens. All these writing tools are products of human civilization. In this fast-paced world, everything is changing and dying. New inventions come up and propel us to move on to a more convenient future. They are the ascending ladder of human progress.

In the famous British playwright Shakespeare’s drama, the heroes Romeo and Juliet remain forever young and charming even after over 400 years of harsh weather and changes of events. For centuries, our impression of them seemed forever freeze-framed in their youth, but regretfully, they never enjoyed a long and full life as the ordinary people did. After all, they are noble characters in world literature and can be immortal as time goes by. For us flesh and blood, longevity is everything that all human beings have been wishing for ever since ancient times. Who doesn’t want a long and prosperous life with a successful career and a big family of children and grandchildren? All men are born equal, but the way that each individual leaves the world varies. Whatever our achievements or social status, every one of us has to finally bid goodbye to the world one way or the other at the call of God’s will, willingly or unwillingly. Even if we face the same destination, one thing is certain that a consummate life is more worthwhile. If one closed his eyes with the last breath on his deathbed, peaceful and content, it’s not difficult to conclude that he must have lived to be a ripe old age. According to local folklore, the man must have been blessed by God and he would be admitted into heaven where honest and God-fearing souls are leading their happy afterlife. A good many people do believe that there is another life after this one. And they wish that their lifetime could be doubled or even tripled and that they would experience more and thus leave the world with a more fulfilled life. However, not all people share the beautiful but stupid illusion; others would rather let the nature take its course while making the best of our way. In my opinion, there is no such thing as eternity. It doesn’t make any sense to have a lengthened life span against our Creator. Since birth, we have been predestined by God to live a certain number of decades on the earth, why bother to expect more? Life is a process; one lifetime is enough for us to enjoy our precious but limited life. Like a beautiful butterfly emerges in its full splendor from its cocoon, human beings should also go through the same process of birth, sickness, old age and death. From cradle to cemetery, the law of nature reigns and judges; nobody can evade or resist it. Immortality is merely an unrealistic vision. There is tremendous distance between imagination and reality. However glorious our wishes are, they are a bubble under the sun which will vanish into the air soon. Therefore, leave it. Life is only for once; there is no rehearsal or replay. Whether it is complete or defective, we should seize every minute and live each day to the full. Life itself is not a circle, but a line. There is no turning back. From infancy, adolescence and youth to middle age and advanced years, each stage presents us with different tasks and challenges, during which time we would experience varied emotions like happiness, joy, anger and sadness. Whether sweet or bitter, they are part of our experience which makes us unique human beings. When we are seated on a rocking chair, too old to move an inch, there is no need for us to look back, sorrowfully repenting of our sins or coming out with a thousand assumptions. Let all happenings be gone. If there does exist some regret, I would rather accept it as God’s will rather than tearfully mourn my irrevocable scar. Another reason why I reject a second life is that I hate reliving the same growing pains and troubles that make my soul suffer. Life is not easy; the world is an unknown quantity. We can’t predict what we will meet with the next moment, a blessing or a curse? Flowers have its best season; human beings have its prime time. What’s the use of repeating the same tough stuff or trying making up for our remorse and regrets? All things in nature are supposed to be imperfect. A good horse will never turn around to graze on an old pasture. So drop your foolish idea. More ridiculously, being immortal is more of a wishful thinking than a great idea when it comes to the earth and population issue. What our earth will be like if everybody lives well past his advanced age? I’m afraid that there will not be enough space for us to put our feet on, let alone abundant natural resources and nursing homes provided that keep our society going. For the benefit of our offspring and our common planet, I would opt for a ripe old age and then leave the world for good.