Question

Answer the questions

What does friendship mean? There is no definite answer. Friendship is also necessary in daily life. When you are happy, friendship is just like adding flowers on the brocade (圖案); when you are sad, friendship is a dose (一劑) of consolation (安慰); if you are in trouble, friends will surround you and remove the barriers for you; if you have a hard nut to crack, you can turn to friends for help. A man without friends is an angel without wings, whose life will suffer in the long tolerance of loneliness and depression. We have much to share with our friends in life, perplexity (困惑), excitement and bitterness.

America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while – then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

Americans are ready to receive us foreigner at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily activities. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.

For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

1.What can we share with friends in our daily life?

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2.What will Americans do even after a long break?

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3.The idea about friendship is the same as ours, isn’t it? Where do the Americans express their welcome?

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4.How will we probably be treated when we arrive in America to visit an American friend?

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5.What does the underlined words “generous with our time” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

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6.A suitable title for this passage would probably be “________________”.

Answer 1