ECEIV-U02_2R-E

Unit 2

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Passage A

Passage B

Passage A Think About It Read About It

Talk About It Write About It

1. Are you eager to hurry back for the family reunion during the Spring Festival? Why?Reference:

Yes. Because the Spring Festival is the most important occasion for family members to get reunited to enjoy the happiness and share sorrows, visit parents and relatives, worship ancestors. And currently it may also be a precious chance for young people who are suffering heavy workload and pressure to slow down the pace and relax themselves.

2. How do you and your parents show love and care to each other?Reference:

My Daddy and Mommy don’t always tell me they love me straightforwardly and passionately, but I can feel their love from everything they prepare and they do for me — everyday food and clothing, money they save for my tuition, the phones they give me, the messages they leave to remind me of the daily needs and cares, and even their frequent nag. As for me, letters and phones are usual means to show my love and care to Daddy and Mommy. On special occasions, say their birthdays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I’ll send them bunches of flowers and little gifts and kiss and hug if I stay with them. And I help Mommy with housework and play chess or do sports with Daddy. That is surely a good way too.

3. Do you want your aging parents to move in to stay with you after you get married? Why or why not?Reference:

Yes. When I was young, it was my parents that fed me up. So it is natural for me to care for them when they become old. If I can live together with them, I think it will be more convenient for me to look after them. If we live together, my parents will enjoy themselves to look after and play with my children. It will be of many advantages both to me and my parents. No. It may arise problems and quarrels between us for the different living habits and ideas. I think the best way is to prepare a nearby apartment for them and so we can look after each other easily and can have each other’s own independent life.

Read About It Language Points Content Awareness

Language Focus

On Growing Old GracefullyEveryone realizes that orphanages and old age pensions are poor substitutes for the home. The feeling is that the home alone can provide anything resembling a satisfactory arrangement for the old and the young. But for the young, it is to be taken for granted that not much need be said, since there is natural paternal affection. “Water flows down wards and not upwards,” the Chinese always say, and therefore the affection for parents and grandparents is something that stands more in need of being taught by culture. A natural man loves his children, but a cultured man loves his parents. In the end, the teaching of love and respect for old people becomes a generally accepted principle, and if we are to believe some of the writers, the desire to have the privilege of serving their pa

rents in their old age actually became a consuming passion.

The greatest regret a Chinese gentleman could have was the eternally lost opportunity of serving his old parents with medicine and soup on their deathbed, or not to be present when they died. For a high official in his fifties or sixties not to be able to invite his parents to come from their native village and stay with his family at the capital, “seeing them to bed every night and greeting them every morning” , was to commit a moral sin of which he should be ashamed and for which he had constantly to offer excuses and explanations to his friends and colleagues. This regret was expressed in two lines by a man who returned too late to his home, when his parents had already died: The tree desires repose, but the wind will not stop;

The son desires to serve, but his parents are already gone.

It seems a linguistic misfortune that hale and hearty old men in America tell people that they are “young,” or are told that they are “young” when really what is meant is that they are healthy. To enjoy health in old age, or to be “old and healthy,” is the greatest of human luck, but to call it “healthy and young” is but to detract from that glamour and impute imperfection to what is really perfect. After all, there is nothing more beautiful in this world than a healthy wise old man, with “ruddy cheeks and white hair,” talking in a soothing voice about life as one who knows it. The Chinese realize this, and have always pictured an old man with “ruddy cheeks and white hair” as the symbol of ultimate earthly happiness. Many Americans must have seen the Chinese pictures of the God of Longevity, with his high forehead, his ruddy face, his white beard — and how he smiles! The picture is so vivid. He runs his fingers through the thin flowing beard coming down to the breast and gently strokes it in peace and contentment, dignified because he is surrounded with respect, self -assured because no one ever questions his wisdom, and kind because he has seen so much of human sorrow. To persons of great vitality we also pay the compliment of saying that “the older they grow, the more vigorous they are.”

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