NIKKI WEBSTER
We'll Be One
Written by Phil Turcio & Kylieann Hewitt

Verse 1
I am a child who has a dream.
A dream to be strong;
to stand for where I'm from.

Now I can see all the world around me,
holding me close
in this world where we belong,
and I know in my heart we'll be flying
for I believe the day has come

Chorus:
when we'll all raise our hands together
and hope that this day brings peace to all.
We can walk side by side forever
to follow our dreams
and hope that this means
We'll be one

Verse 2
I will remember forever
this day we say goodbye
to the heroes by our side,
and as the flame burns so brightly around us
shining a light
as it journeys on tonight.

So let's all raise our hands together
and hope that this day brings peace to all.
We can walk side by side forever
to follow our dreams
and hope that this means
We'll be one.

I can't believe the end has come
with friendships just begun,
where nations joined to be a better world;
so let's reach up to the stars
together we'll give hope and joy
to all the world.

Chorus:
So let's all raise our hands together,
So let's all raise our hands together,
and hope that this day brings peace to all.
We can walk side by side forever
to follow our dreams
and hope that this means
We'll be one;
and hope that this means
We'll be one.

OF WHAT USE is a college training? We who have had it seldom hear the question raised might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand. A certain amount of

meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which I myself can give: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect,

the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should help you to know a good man when you see him. This is as true of women's as of

men's colleges; but that it is neither a joke nor a one-sided abstraction I shall now endeavor to show.

What talk do we commonly hear about the contrast between college education and the education which business or technical or professional schools confer? The

college education is called higher because it is supposed to be so general and so disinterested. At the schools you get a relatively narrow practical skill,

you are told, whereas the colleges give you the more liberal culture, the broader outlook, the historical perspective, the philosophic atmosphere, or

something which phrases of that sort try to express. You are made into an efficient instrument for doing a definite thing, you hear, at the schools; but,

apart from that, you may remain a crude and smoky kind of petroleum, incapable of spreading light. The universities and colleges, on the other hand, although

they may leave you less efficient for this or that practical task, suffuse your whole mentality with something more important than skill. They redeem you,

make you well-bred; they make good company of you mentally. If they find you with a naturally boorish or caddish mind, they cannot leave you so, as a

technical school may leave you. This, at least, is pretended; this is what we hear among college-trained people when they compare their education with every

other sort. Now, exactly how much does this signify?

It is certain, to begin with, that the narrowest trade or professional training does something more for a man than to make a skilful practical tool of him?

?t makes him also a judge of other men's skill. Whether his trade be pleading at the bar or surgery or plastering or plumbing, it develops a critical sense

in him for that sort of occupation. He understands the difference between second-rate and first-rate work in his whole branch of industry; he gets to know a

good job in his own line as soon as he sees it; and getting to know this in his own line, he gets a faint sense of what good work may mean anyhow, that may,

if circumstances favor, spread into his judgments elsewhere. Sound work, clean work, finished work; feeble work, slack work, sham work??hese words express

an identical contrast in many different departments of activity. In so far forth, then, even the humblest manual trade may beget in one a certain small

degree of power to judge of good work generally.

Now, what is supposed to be the line of us who have the higher college training? Is there any broader line??ince our education claims primarily not to be

narrow??n which we also are made good judges between what is first-rate and what is second-rate only? What is especially taught in the colleges has long

been known by the name of the humanities, and these are often identified with Greek and Latin. But it is only as literatures, not as languages, that Greek

and Latin have any general humanity-value; so that in a broad sense the humanities mean literature primarily, and in a still broader sense the study of

masterpieces in almost any field of human endeavor. Literature keeps the primacy; for it not only consists of masterpieces but is largely about masterpieces,

being little more than an appreciative chronicle of human master-strokes, so far as it takes the form of criticism and history. You can give humanistic value

to almost anything by reaching it historically. Geology, economics, mechanics, are humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of

the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being. Not taught thus, literature remains grammar, art a catalogue, history a list of dates, and natural

science a sheet of formulas and weights and measures.

The sifting of human creations! ??othing less than this is what we ought to mean by the humanities. Essentially this means biography; what our colleges

should teach is, therefore, biographical history, that not of politics merely, but of anything and everything so far as human efforts and conquests are

factors that have played their part. Studying in this way, we learn what types of activity have stood the test of time; we acquire standards of the excellent

and durable. All our arts and sciences and institutions are but so many quests of perfection on the part of men; and when we see how diverse the types of

excellence may be, how various the tests, how flexible the adaptations, we gain a richer sense of what the terms better and worse may signify in general. Our

critical sensibilities grow both more acute and less fanatical. We sympathize with men's mistakes even in the act of penetrating them; we feel the pathos of

lost causes and misguided epochs even while we applaud what overcame them.

Such words are vague and such ideas are inadequate, but their meaning is unmistakable. What the colleges??eaching humanities by examples which may be

special, but which must be typical and pregnant??hould at least try to give us, is a general sense of what, under various disguises, superiority has always

signified and may still signify. The feeling for a good human job anywhere, the admiration of the really admirable the disesteem of what is cheap and trashy

and impermanent??his is what we call the critical sense, the sense for ideal values. It is the better part of what men know as wisdom. Some of us are wise

in this way naturally and by genius; some of us never become so. But to have spent one's youth at college, in contact with the choice and rare and precious,

and yet still to be a blind prig or vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and

labeled and forced on us by others, this indeed should be accounted the very calamity and shipwreck of a higher education.

The sense for human superiority ought, then, to be considered our line, as boring subways is the engineer's line and the surgeon's is appendicitis. Our

colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for the better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities, and a disgust for cheapjacks. We ought

to smell, as it were, the difference of quality in men and their proposals when we enter the world of affairs about us. Expertness in this might well atone

for some of our ignorance of dynamos. The best claim we can make for the higher education, the best single phrase in which we can tell what it ought to do

for us, is then, exactly what I said: it should enable us to know a good man when we see him.

That the phrase is anything but an empty epigram follows, from the fact that if you ask in what line it is most important that a democracy like ours should

have its sons and daughters skilful, you see that it is this line more than any other. The people in their wisdom??his is the kind of wisdom most needed by

the people. Democracy is on its trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal. Abounding about us are pessimistic prophets. Fickleness and violence

used to be, but are no longer, the vices which they charge to democracy. What its critics now affirm is that its preferences are inveterately for the

inferior. So it was in the beginning, they say, and so it will be world without end. Vulgarity enthroned and institutionalized, elbowing everything superior

from the highway, this, they tell us, is our irremediable destiny; and picture-papers of European continent are already drawing Uncle Sam with hog instead of

the eagle for his heraldic emblem. The privileged aristocracies of the foretime, with all their iniquities, did at least preserve some taste for higher human

quality and honor certain forms of refinement by their enduring traditions. But when democracy is sovereign, its doubters say, nobility will form a sort of

invisible church, and sincerity and refinement, stripped of honor, precedence, and favor, will have to vegetate on sufferance in private corners. They will

have no general influence. They will be harmless eccentricities.

Now, who can be absolutely certain that this may not be the career of democracy? Nothing future is quite secure; states enough have inwardly rotted??nd

democracy as a whole may undergo self-poisoning. But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of religion, and we are bound not to admit its failure. Faiths

and utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, and no one with a spark of reason in him will sit down fatalistically before the croaker's picture. The

best of us are filled with the contrary vision of a democracy stumbling through every error till its institutions glow with justice and its customs shine

with beauty. Our better men shall show the way and we shall follow them; so we are brought round again to the mission of the higher education in helping us

to know the better kind of man whenever we see him.

The notion that a people can run itself and its affairs anonymously is now well known to be the silliest of absurdities. Mankind does nothing save through

initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small, and imitation by the rest of us??hese are the sole factors active in human progress. Individuals of

genius show the way, and set the patterns, which common people then adopt and follow. The rivalry of the patterns is the history of the world. Our democratic

problem thus is statable in ultra-simple terms: Who are the kind of men from whom our majorities shall take their cue? Whom shall they treat as rightful

leaders? We and our leaders are the x and the y of the equation here; all other historic circumstances, be they economical, political, or intellectual, are

only the background of occasion on which the living drama works itself out between us.

In this very simple way does the value of our educated class define itself. We more than others should be able to divine the worthier and better leaders. The

terms here are monstrously simplified, of course, but such a bird's-eye view lets us immediately take our bearings. In our democracy, where everything else

is so shifting, we alumni and alumnae of the colleges are the only permanent presence that corresponds to the aristocracy in older countries. We have

continuous traditions, as they have; our motto, too, is noblesse oblige; and, unlike them, we stand for ideal interests solely, for we have corporate

selfishness and wield no powers of corruption. We ought to have our own class-consciousness. Les intellectuels! What prouder club-name could there be than

this one, used ironically by the party of red blood, the party of every stupid prejudice and passion, during the anti-Dreyfus craze, to satirize the men in

France who still retained some critical sense and judgment! Critical sense, it has to be confessed, is not an exciting term, hardly a banner to carry in

processions. Affections for old habit, currents of self-interest, and gales of passion are the forces that keep the human ship moving; and the pressure of

the judicious pilot's hand upon the tiller is relatively insignificant energy. But the affections, passions and interests are shifting, successive, and

distraught; they blow in alternation while the Pilot's hand is steadfast. He knows the compass, and, with all the leeways lie is obliged to tack toward, he

always makes some headway. A small force if it never lets up will accumulate effects more considerable than those of much greater forces if these work

inconsistently. The ceaseless whisper of the more permanent Ideals, the steady tug of truth and justice, give them but time, must warp the world in their

direction.

This bird's-eye view of the general steering function of the college-bred amid the driftings of democracy ought to help us to a wider vision of what our

colleges themselves should aim at. If we are to be the yeast-cake for democracy's dough, if we are to make it rise with culture's preferences, we must see to

it that culture spreads broad sails. We must shake the old double reefs out of the canvas into the wind and sunshine, and let in every modern subject, sure

that any subject will prove humanistic, if its setting be kept only wide enough.

Stevenson says somewhere to his reader: You think you are just making this bargain, but you are really laying down a link in the policy of mankind. Well,

your technical school should enable you to make your bargain splendidly; but Your College Should Show You just the place of that kind of bargain pretty poor

place, possibly the whole policy of mankind. That is the kind of liberal outlook, of perspective, of atmosphere, which should surround every subject as a

college deals with it.

We of the colleges must eradicate a curious notion which numbers of good people have about such ancient seats of learning as Harvard. To many ignorant

outsiders, that name suggests little more than a kind of sterilized conceit and incapacity for being pleased. In Edith Wyatt's exquisite book of Chicago

sketches called Every One his Own Way there is a couple who stand for culture in the sense of exclusiveness: Richard Elliot and his feminine counterpart??

eeble caricatures of mankind, unable to know any good thing when they see it, incapable of enjoyment unless a printed label gives them leave. Possibly this

type of culture may exist near Cambridge and Boston, there may be specimens there, for priggishness is just like painter's colic or any other trade-disease.

But every good college makes its students immune against this malady, of which the microbe haunts the neighborhood printed pages. It does so by its general

tone being too hearty for the microbe's life. Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdain under all misleading wrappings it

pounces unerringly upon the human core. If a college, through the inferior human influences that have grown regnant there, fails to catch the robuster tone,

its failure is colossal, for its social function stops: democracy gives it a wide berth, turns toward it a deaf ear.

Tone, to be sure, is a terribly vague word to use, but there is no other, and this whole meditation is over questions of tone. By their tone are all things

human either lost or saved. If democracy is to be saved it must catch the higher, healthier tone. If we are to impress it with our preferences, we ourselves

must use the proper tone, which we, in turn, must have caught from our own teachers. It all reverts in the end to the action of innumerable imitative

individuals upon each other and to the question of whose tone has the highest spreading power. As a class, we college graduates should look to it that ours

has spreading power. It ought to have the highest spreading power.

In our essential function of indicating the better men, we now have formidable competitors outside. McClure's Magazine, the American Magazine, Collier's

Weekly, and, in its fashion, the World's Work, constitute together a real popular university along this very line. It would be a pity if any future historian

were to have to write words like these: By the middle of the twentieth century the higher institutions of learning had lost all influence over public opinion

in the United States. But the mission of raising the tone of democracy, which they had proved themselves so lamentably unfitted to exert, was assumed with

rare enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary skill and success by a new educational power; and for the clarification of their human sympathies and

elevation of their human preferences, the people at large acquired the habit of resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain private literary adventures,

commonly designated in the market by the affectionate name of ten-cent magazines.

Must not we of the colleges see to it that no historian shall ever say anything like this? Vague as the phrase of knowing a good man when you see him may be,

diffuse and indefinite as one must leave its application, is there any other formula that describes so well the result at which our institutions ought to

aim? If they do that, they do the best thing conceivable. If they fail to do it, they fail in very deed. It surely is a fine synthetic formula. If our

faculty and graduates could once collectively come to realize it as the great underlying purpose toward which they have always been more or less obscurely

groping, a great clearness would be shed over many of their problems; and, as for their influence in the midst of our social system, it would embark upon a

new career of strength.

May 18, 2007

World trade is essential to promoting global economic growth, development, freedom, and prosperity. During World Trade Week, we underscore our commitment to free and fair trade and acknowledge the benefits of open markets for our citizens and for people around the globe.

Trade creates wealth and opportunities, and United States engagement in the global economy has contributed to rising living standards throughout our country. Businesses that participate in international trade are more productive, have higher employment growth, and pay greater wages. Advancing free trade on a level playing field helps ensure that America benefits from the international market.

My Administration is committed to reducing barriers to trade, strengthening our strategic partnerships, and promoting economic growth throughout the world. At the beginning of my Administration, America had free trade agreements with three countries. Today, we have free trade agreements in force with 14 countries, creating benefits for American businesses, workers, and consumers. These trade agreements are particularly important for small and medium-sized companies to help them identify and take full advantage of new trade opportunities.

The United States continues to work with other nations in the World Trade Organization to complete the Doha Development Round, which has the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty. I have also called upon the Congress to extend Trade Promotion Authority so we can complete the Doha Round and continue to negotiate robust trade agreements. By working to expand trade, we open new markets for American products and services and help build free economies that can raise the standard of living for families.

NOW, THEREFORE I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 20 through May 26, 2007, as World Trade Week. I encourage all Americans to observe this week with events, trade shows, and educational programs that celebrate the benefits of trade to our Nation and the global economy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

Modern times are difficult for lovers (see my post here)-perhaps more so than in most previous eras. These difficulties stem from the nature of our emotional system and the prevailing norms in modern society. Since emotions are generated when we perceive a significant change in our situation, emotional intensity decreases as familiarity increases.

The above view concerning the comeback of love in modern society can be encapsulated in the following declaration that a lover might express: "Darling, although the chances of you remaining my lover are lower than in previous eras, the chances of us staying together while still being in love are greater. And I would not exchange this era with any of the previous ones. Security is good, but a loving relationship is even better."

Celebration of Mid-autumn festival has a long history. In ancient times, the emperors had the tradition of worshiping the Sun in spring, and the Moon in autumn. The word "Mid-Autumn" first appeared in the famous ancient book "Zhou Li" (The Zhou Rituals, a book telling the rituals in the Zhou Dynasty). However, it was not until the early Tang Dynasty that the day was officially celebrated as a traditional festival. It became a established festival during the Song Dynasty, and has become as popular as the Spring Festival since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Celebrations have continued ever since and more customs for marking this occasion have been formed.

There are several explanations on when and where the festival began and some of the most convincing versions are as follows:

Version One: Nanjing and Mid-autumn Festival

A much-told story about the beginning of the Mid-autumn Festival celebration comes from Niuzhu (a place in ancient Nanjing). As early as 1,600 years ago, Nanjing which was called Jianye served as capital of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. On a Mid-autumn night when Xie Shangyue, the governor of Niuzhu, was boating on a river he met Yuan Hong, a poor, frustrated but gifted scholar who had to earn his living by renting boats. Admiring his ability, Xie made friend with him and Yuan had a rise to fame with the help of Xie. Later on, having heard of the story, many refined scholars from all over the country followed suit to boat in the river, climb up the towers, and watch the moon. Famous poets like Li Bai and Ou Yangzhan were all touched by the story, and then wrote numbers of poems about it. Because of this, the tradition of watching the moon on Mid-Autumn Festival gradually came into being.

Version Two: Season and Climate

The Mid-Autumn day is the very moment of rice maturity. And at that day farmers will worship the local God of land, whose birthday is exactly on that day. Mid-Autumn day is possibly an old tradition of telling the coming of autumn. In terms of the seasons in a year, the Mid-Autumn day can be named as "Harvest Day", when the crops sowed in the spring can be reaped. Since ancient times, people would drink, dance, and sing on that day, celebrating the harvest. This scene can be found in the Books of Odes (the earliest collection of poems in ancient China).

According to the previous descriptions, the ancient emperors had the tradition of worshiping the moon, yet the day was initially on the day of Autumn Equinox, and not on the Mid-Autumn day. However, the Autumn Equinox is not a fixed day and there may or may not be a full moon on that day. Therefore, the day for worshipping the moon was accepted as a convention on the Mid-Autumn day, when the moon is in its fullest.

Meanwhile, it's proven by scientific research that the inclination of the earth and the sun will gradually increase in autumn, thus the cool air up in the sky will fade away while the northwest wind is still very weak. In this way, the moisture is removed and the air in the sky would become pure and clean. So the moon would appear to be relatively fuller and bigger. And this would be the best time to appreciate the beauty of the moon.

Version Three: Moon Cake

The tradition of eating moon-cakes on this festival has a long history in China, yet there are different versions of statements about its origin.

The most common version is that during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, Taizong ordered his ablest general Li Jing to go for a battle against the Turkic clan in north ancient China to suppress their frequent invasions. The 15th day of the 8th month was exactly the day for the general's triumphant return. In order to celebrate his victory, fireworks were set off and music was played in and out of Chang'an City (the capital of the Tang dynasty), and citizens were happily enjoying a riotous night together with warriors. At that time, a business man, coming from the Tubo Kingdom (the ancient name for Tibet), presented Taizong with a kind of round cakes to celebrate Tang's victory.

Taizong gladly received the magnificently-decorated boxes and took the multi-colored round cakes out of the boxes and handed them out to his officials and generals. From then on, the tradition of eating round moon-cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival was formed.

One of the legends behind this festival tells the story of a plain girl named Wuyan, who was from Qi; an ancient nation in China. Wuyan was chosen for the Emperor's palace because of her outstanding morality but she never attracted the attention of the Emperor due to her appearance.

However, as a youngster Wuyan had worshipped the Moon and this gave her special powers so that on the night of the 15th of August, when she met the emperor in the moonlight, he saw her as beautiful and fell in love with her immediately. Wuyan later married the Emperor and became the queen of Qi, and from this moment on the tradition of worshipping the Moon on the 15th of August began.

However, young Chinese ladies also worship the Moon for another reason - in the hope that they can become as beautiful as Chang'e, a girl who, according to Chinese legend, lives in the moon.

Top Chinese state and military leader Hu Jintao on Thursday inspected the country's defense forces which will also stage a massive parade in

Beijing in celebration of the 60th founding anniversary of New China.

A black open-roof Red Flag limousine carried Hu, state president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, eastward along Chang'an Avenue

from the iconic Tian'anmen Square shortly after the celebration started at 10 am.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and militia, together with ranks of camouflaged tanks and missiles, stood along the newly widened boulevard and

waited to be inspected. The whole procession stretches some three kilometers.

"Greetings, comrades!" Hu, wearing a high-collared Mao suit, saluted troops through a microphone.

"Greetings, leader!" Loudly replied the soldiers in brand new uniforms. Hu then said "Comrades, you are working hard!" And the troops replied: "We

serve the people!"

Hu's inspection of the troops, the first in the past decade, preluded a full-dress National Day military parade involving about 8,000 military

personnel.

Fourteen phalanxes on feet are composed of the army, navy, air force and the Second Artillery Force of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the

People's Armed Police Force and reserved force.

PLA's young and mysterious Special Forces made their debut for the inspection.

A total of 30 phalanxes in wheeled transport displayed more than 50 types of new weapon systems manufactured by China on its own, including the

newest model of intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

Other cutting-edge weaponry included China's new generation of tanks, sophisticated radar, airborne early warning and control aircraft, unmanned

aerial vehicles and satellite communication devices.

All the weapons are made in China. More than 150 jet-fighters, bombers, helicopters and other aircraft in 12 echelons will fly over the square,

packed with some 200,000 people.

The parade, the 14th since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, is set to showcase China's newest weaponry and enhanced defense

strength.

Xi'an, once the capital of eleven Chinese dynasties, is famous throughout the world for life-sized terra-cotta warriors and horses. They have won fame as one of the greatest archaeological finds of this century. Back in 1974, while digging a well to fight drought, some farmers from Lintong county, about thirty kilometers east of Xi'an, unearthed some brown pottery fragments, which led to the great discovery of the executed terra-cotta legions as an exterior section of the mausoleum, of Qin Shi Huang or First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty (255-210B. C.)
Details of Qin Shi Huang's tomb can be traced in The Historical Records (compiled by Sima Qian) and legends about it have been widespread. However, for technical reasons, the major part of the tomb remains unexcavated today with its mound still standing 76 meters high against the slopes of Mt. Lishan and facing the Huishui River.

After 20 years of careful excavation three underground vaults officially opened to the public in 1979, 1989, and 1994 respectively, displaying thousands of terra-cotta warriors, horses and chariots, all arranged in battle formations.

Vault 1, built with earth and timber, measures 210 meters long, 60 meters wide and 4.6 to 6.5 meters high. In this area of 12, 600 square meters, six thousand life-sized warriors and horses of terra-cotta were found in rectangular battle formation. The troops were of a fairly uniform height of 1.8 meters. They wear helmets and armor and carry real bows and arrows, swords, lances, javelins and crossbows in their hands. Each chariot, made of wood, is drawn by a team of four horses, 1. 5 meters in height. Three rows of infantrymen make up the vanguard of the formation, and these are followed by the main body of the army, 38 rows of troops. There are also flank columns and rearguards. The array breathes the power of Qin Shi Huang's army.

Vault 2 is approximately one half vault I in size, housing nearly a thousand pottery warriors. Compared with Vault 1, these warriors are of a larger variety and arranged in more complex battle array. Unlike Vault 1, the war chariots and infantrymen are arranged separately in four square formations which are linked to one another in a polygon. Again, however, the warriors carry real weapons. The projecting part of the polygon consists of archers, either standing or kneeling, with crossbows or handbows and quivers and so appears to be the vanguard of the phalanx.

The archers are followed by a unit of cavalrymen to the left and one of chariots to the right, forming the two wings of the phalanx. Infantrymen and war chariots bring up the rear. Each chariot drawn by four horses has1l driver and two assistants, one on either side. The charioteers are armored and carry spears, swords and crossbows, Indicating that they could engage in long-range battles, short-range fighting and hand-to-hand combat. All the cavalrymen carry crossbows, a sign that shooting on horseback was a common practice in the army at that time.

From among the chariots a robust and unusually tall figure at 1. 95 meters has been unearthed. His armor is interlinked and overlapped with finer metal pieces than that of the common soldiers, and he is believed to be a high-ranking commander of the 1egion.

Vault 3 is a modest building more resembling a gallery. It has 69 pottery warriors with defensive weapons and a wooden chariot pulled by four magnificent horses. The structure of the gallery and the line-up of the soldiers suggest that this was likely the headquarters of the troops of Vault 1 and 2.

However, the commander is missing. Many archaeologists believe that since the underground army represents the emperor's garrison under his direct command, no marshal was necessary.

Altogether ten thousand pieces of actual weaponry have been unearthed from the three vaults, including arrow-heads, swords, spears and halberds. Two long-handled swords dug out recently are still sharp and gleaming despite their burial for more than two thousand years. Some bronze arrow-heads from Vault 2 are 41 cm in length and 100 grams in weight. They are the biggest bronze weapons excavated in China. Important to the study of Qin technology was the discovery of bronze arrow-heads and swords treated with a preservative that has prevented erosion for 22 centuries. Chemical analysis revealed the sword to have been cast of an alloy of copper, tin and various other elements, including nickel, magnesium, and cobalt. The arrow-heads which contain 7.71 percent lead are considered by archaeologists to be the world's most poisonous.

Experts expect future discoveries to unearth even more amazing art treasures. But they warn that it may require the efforts of one or two generations to recover the entire tomb complex of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

The three vaults are well preserved in three modern constructions, each with an arched dome and a corridor along the side of the vault so that visitors may overlook the restored figures of warriors, horses and chariots in their original formations. Vault 2 is equipped with devices for regulating temperature, lighting and air humidity.

Facing this audience on the stage, I have the exciting feeling of participating in the march of history, for what we are facing today is more than

a mere competition or contest. It is an assembly of some of China's most talented and motivated people, representatives of a younger generation

that are preparing themselves for the coming of a new century.
    I'm grateful that I've been given this opportunity, at such a historic moment, to stand here as a spokesman of my generation and to take a

serious look back at the past 15 years, a crucial period for every one of us and for this nation as well.
    Though it is only within my power to tell about my personal experience, and only a tiny fragment of it at that, it still represents, I

believe, the root of a spirit which has been essential to me and to all the people bred by the past 15 years.
    In my elementary years, there was a little girl in the class who worked very hard but somehow could never do satisfactorily in her lessons.
    The teacher asked me to help her, and it was obvious that she expected a lot from me. but as a young boy, restless, thoughtless, I always

tried to evade her so as to get more time to enjoy myself.
    One day before the final exam, she came up to me and said, "Could you please explain this to me? I want very much to do better this time. " I

started explaining, and finished in a hurry. Pretending not to notice her still confused eyes, I ran off quickly. Nat surprisingly, she again did

very badly in the exam. And two months later, at the beginning of the new semester, word came of her death of blood cancer. No one ever knew about

the little task I failed to fulfill, but I couldn't forgive myself. I simply couldn't forget her eyes, which seem to be asking, "Why didn't you do

a little more to help me, when it was so easy for you? Why didn't you understand a little better the trust placed in you, so that I would not have

to leave this world in such pain and regret?"
   I was about eight or nine years old at that time, but in a way it was the very starting point of my life, for I began to understand the word

"responsibility" and to learn to always do my duties faithfully and devotedly, for the implications of that sacred word has dawned on me: the

mutual need and trust of people, the co-operation and inter-reliance which are the very foundation of human society.
    Later in my life, I continued to experience many failures. But never again did I feel that regret which struck me at the death of the girl,

for it makes my heart satisfied to think that I have always done everything in my power to fulfill my responsibilities as best I can.
    As I grew up, changed and improved by this incident and many other similar ones, I began to perceive the changes taking place around me and to

find that society, in a way, was in its formative years like myself. New buildings, new commodities and new fashions appear every day.
    New ideas, new information, new technologies. People can talk with each other from any corner of the earth in a matter of seconds. Society is

becoming more competitive.
    Words like individuality and creativity are getting more emphasis and more people are rewarded for their hard work and efforts. Such is the

era in which this generation ,grows and matures.
     Such is the era in which this generation will take over the nation from our fathers and learn to run it. Yet in the meantime, many problems

still exist.
    We learn that crimes take place in broad daylight with crowds of people looking on and not assisting. We hear that there are still about 1

million children in this country who can't even afford to go to elementary schools while enormous sums of money are being squandered away on

dinner parties and luxury cars.
   We buy shoddy medicines, or merely worthless junk in the name of medicines, that aggravate, rather than alleviate our diseases since money,

many people believe, is the most important thing in the world that must be made, even at the expense of morality and responsibility.
    Such an era, therefore, determines that we are a generation with a keener sense of competition and efficiency and a greater readiness to think

critically and act creatively.
   Such an era, furthermore, demands, that we are a generation with a clear perception of our historical responsibility and an aggressive will to

take action and solve the problems. History has long been preparing these qualities in this generation and it is now calling us forward to give

testimony to our patriotism and heroism towards this nation and all humanity.
   Standing here now, I think of the past 15 years of my life as an ordinary student. Probably I'll be an ordinary man for the rest of my life.

But this doesn't discourage me any, for I know that with my sense of responsibility and devoted efforts to always strive, for the best, it's going

to be a meaningful and worthwhile life that I will be living.
   Standing here now, I think of the past 15 years of this nation, which has achieved greatness that inspired millions of people of my age, most

of whom will not attain fame or prestige and only a few of whom will be remembered by posterity. But that doesn't discourage us any, because we

know that the world watches, the world listens, the world is waiting to see where this nation will be heading in a time of rich opportunities and

fierce competition.
   I can't ever forget that little girl in my class who couldn't had the same opportunities as any of us here to enjoy a wonderful life today and

a hopeful world tomorrow.
   It is the sacred responsibility of this generation to face up to the challenges of the new century and to devote our sweat and blood, our

wisdom and passion, to the historic cause of making this nation a greater and happier land for every one of us.
   We are not going to evade that responsibility. We are going to let people down. And people, far and near, will hear of us. Frost will be

brought to their backbones and tears to their eyes when our stories are told and retold, So let us go forth, my fellow members of this luckily

chosen generation, and meet the new century in victory and glory.

Madam President and Members of the General Assembly:
When Secretary General Hammarskjold’s invitation to address this General Assembly reached me in Bermuda, I was just beginning a series of conferences with the Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of Great Britain and of France. Our subject was some of the problems that beset our world.
During the remainder of the Bermuda Conference, I had constantly in mind that ahead of me lay a great honor. That honor is mine today, as I stand here, privileged to address the General Assembly of the United Nations.
At the same time that I appreciate the distinction of addressing you, I have a sense of exhilaration as I look upon this Assembly. Never before in history has so much hope for so many people been gathered together in a single organization. Your deliberations and decisions during these somber years have already realized part of those hopes.
But the great tests and the great accomplishments still lie ahead. And in the confident expectation of those accomplishments, I would use the office which, for the time being, I hold, to assure you that the Government of the United States will remain steadfast in its support of this body. This we shall do in the conviction that you will provide a great share of the wisdom, of the courage, and the faith which can bring to this world lasting peace for all nations, and happiness and well-being for all men.
Clearly, it would not be fitting for me to take this occasion to present to you a unilateral American report on Bermuda. Nevertheless, I assure you that in our deliberations on that lovely island we sought to invoke those same great concepts of universal peace and human dignity which are so cleanly etched in your Charter. Neither would it be a measure of this great opportunity merely to recite, however hopefully, pious platitudes.
I therefore decided that this occasion warranted my saying to you some of the things that have been on the minds and hearts of my legislative and executive associates, and on mine, for a great many months -- thoughts I had originally planned to say primarily to the American people.
I know that the American people share my deep belief that if a danger exists in the world, it is a danger shared by all; and equally, that if hope exists in the mind of one nation, that hope should be shared by all.
Finally, if there is to be advanced any proposal designed to ease even by the smallest measure the tensions of today’s world, what more appropriate audience could there be than the members of the General Assembly of the United Nations. I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new, one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development, of the utmost significance to everyone of us. Clearly, if the peoples of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must be armed with the significant facts of today’s existence.
My recital of atomic danger and power is necessarily stated in United States terms, for these are the only incontrovertible facts that I know. I need hardly point out to this Assembly, however, that this subject is global, not merely national in character.
On July 16, 1945, the United States set off the world’s first atomic explosion.
Since that date in 1945, the United States of America has conducted forty-two test explosions. Atomic bombs today are more than twenty-five times as powerful as the weapons with which the atomic age dawned, while hydrogen weapons are in the ranges of millions of tons of TNT equivalent.
Today, the United States stockpile of atomic weapons, which, of course, increases daily, exceeds by many times the total [explosive] equivalent of the total of all bombs and all shells that came from every plane and every gun in every theatre of war in all the years of World War II.
A single air group, whether afloat or land based, can now deliver to any reachable target a destructive cargo exceeding in power all the bombs that fell on Britain in all of World War II. In size and variety, the development of atomic weapons has been no less remarkable. The development has been such that atomic weapons have virtually achieved conventional status within our armed services.
In the United States, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps are all capable of putting this weapon to military use. But the dread secret and the fearful engines of atomic might are not ours alone.
In the first place, the secret is possessed by our friends and allies, Great Britain and Canada, whose scientific genius made a tremendous contribution to our original discoveries and the designs of atomic bombs.
The secret is also known by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union has informed us that, over recent years, it has devoted extensive resources to atomic weapons. During this period the Soviet Union has exploded a series of atomic devices, including at least one involving thermo-nuclear reactions. If at one time the Unites States possessed what might have been called a monopoly of atomic power, that monopoly ceased to exist several years ago.
Therefore, although our earlier start has permitted us to accumulate what is today a great quantitative advantage, the atomic realities of today comprehend two facts of even greater significance.
First, the knowledge now possessed by several nations will eventually be shared by others, possibly all others.
Second, even a vast superiority in numbers of weapons, and a consequent capability of devastating retaliation, is no preventive, of itself, against the fearful material damage and toll of human lives that would be inflicted by surprise aggression. The free world, at least dimly aware of these facts, has naturally embarked on a large program of warning and defense systems. That program will be accelerated and expanded. But let no one think that the expenditure of vast sums for weapons and systems of defense can guarantee absolute safety for the cities and citizens of any nation. The awful arithmetic of the atomic bomb does not permit of any such easy solution. Even against the most powerful defense, an aggressor in possession of the effective minimum number of atomic bombs for a surprise attack could probably place a sufficient number of his bombs on the chosen targets to cause hideous damage.
Should such an atomic attack be launched against the United States, our reactions would be swift and resolute. But for me to say that the defense capabilities of the United States are such that they could inflict terrible losses upon an aggressor, for me to say that the retaliation capabilities of the Unites States are so great that such an aggressor’s land would be laid waste, all this, while fact, is not the true expression of the purpose and the hope of the United States.
To pause there would be to confirm the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world. To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed, the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to use generation from generation, and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery toward decency, and right, and justice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation.
Could anyone wish his name to be coupled by history with such human degradation and destruction? Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the “great destroyers,” but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build.
It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreements, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life.
So my country’s purpose is to help us to move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men everywhere, can move forward towards peace and happiness and well-being.
In this quest, I know that we must not lack patience. I know that in a world divided, such as ours today, salvation cannot be attained by one dramatic act.  I know that many steps will have to be taken over many months before the world can look at itself one day and truly realize that a new climate of mutually peaceful confidence is abroad in the world. But I know, above all else, that we must start to take these steps now.
The United States and its allies, Great Britain and France, have, over the past months, tried to take some of these steps. Let no one say that we shun the conference table. On the record has long stood the request of the United States, Great Britain, and France to negotiate with the Soviet Union the problems of a divided Germany. On that record has long stood the request of the same three nations to negotiate an Austrian peace treaty. On the same record still stands the request of the United Nations to negotiate the problems of Korea.
Most recently we have received from the Soviet Union what is in effect an expression of willingness to hold a four-Power meeting. Along with our allies, Great Britain and France, we were pleased to see that his note did not contain the unacceptable pre-conditions previously put forward. As you already know from our joint Bermuda communiqué, the United States, Great Britain, and France have agreed promptly to meet with the Soviet Union.
The Government of the United States approaches this conference with hopeful sincerity. We will bend every effort of our minds to the single purpose of emerging from that conference with tangible results towards peace, the only true way of lessening international tension. We never have, we never will, propose or suggest that the Soviet Union surrender what is rightly theirs. We will never say that the people of the Russia are an enemy with whom we have no desire ever to deal or mingle in friendly and fruitful relationship.
On the contrary, we hope that this coming conference may initiate a relationship with the Soviet Union which will eventually bring about a free intermingling of the peoples of the East and of the West -- the one sure, human way of developing the understanding required for confident and peaceful relations.
Instead of the discontent which is now settling upon Eastern Germany, occupied Austria, and the countries of Eastern Europe, we seek a harmonious family of free European nations, with none a threat to the other, and least of all a threat to the peoples of the Russia. Beyond the turmoil and strife and misery of Asia, we seek peaceful opportunity for these peoples to develop their natural resources and to elevate their lives.
These are not idle words or shallow visions. Behind them lies a story of nations lately come to independence, not as a result of war, but through free grant or peaceful negotiation. There is a record already written of assistance gladly given by nations of the West to needy peoples and to those suffering the temporary effects of famine, drought, and natural disaster. These are deeds of peace. They speak more loudly than promises or protestations of peaceful intent.
But I do not wish to rest either upon the reiteration of past proposals or the restatement of past deeds. The gravity of the time is such that every new avenue of peace, no matter how dimly discernible, should be explored. There is at least one new avenue of peace which has not yet been well explored -- an avenue now laid out by the General Assembly of the Unites Nations.
In its resolution of November 18, 1953 this General Assembly suggested -- and I quote -- “that the Disarmament Commission study the desirability of establishing a sub-committee consisting of representatives of the Powers principally involved, which should seek in private an acceptable solution and report such a solution to the General Assembly and to the Security Council not later than September 1, of 1954.”
The United States, heeding the suggestion of the General Assembly of the United Nations, is instantly prepared to meet privately with such other countries as may be “principally involved,” to seek “an acceptable solution” to the atomic armaments race which overshadows not only the peace, but the very life of the world. We shall carry into these private or diplomatic talks a new conception.
The United States would seek more than the mere reduction or elimination of atomic materials for military purposes. It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.
The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind. The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future. That capability, already proved, is here, now, today. Who can doubt, if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material with which to test and develop their ideas, that this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient, and economic usage?
To hasten the day when fear of the atom will begin to disappear from the minds of people and the governments of the East and West, there are certain steps that can be taken now. I therefore make the following proposals:
The governments principally involved, to the extent permitted by elementary prudence, to begin now and continue to make joint contributions from their stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials to an international atomic energy agency. We would expect that such an agency would be set up under the aegis of the United Nations.
The ratios of contributions, the procedures, and other details would properly be within the scope of the “private conversations” I have referred to earlier.
The United States is prepared to undertake these explorations in good faith. Any partner of the United States acting in the same good faith will find the United States a not unreasonable or ungenerous associate.
Undoubtedly, initial and early contributions to this plan would be small in quantity. However, the proposal has the great virtue that it can be undertaken without the irritations and mutual suspicions incident to any attempt to set up a completely acceptable system of world-wide inspection and control.
The atomic energy agency could be made responsible for the impounding, storage, and protection of the contributed fissionable and other materials. The ingenuity of our scientists will provide special safe conditions under which such a bank of fissionable material can be made essentially immune to surprise seizure.
The more important responsibility of this atomic energy agency would be to devise methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind. Experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful activities. A special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world. Thus the contributing Powers would be dedicating some of their strength to serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind.
The United States would be more than willing -- it would be proud to take up with others “principally involved” the development of plans whereby such peaceful use of atomic energy would be expedited.
Of those “principally involved” the Soviet Union must, of course, be one. I would be prepared to submit to the Congress of the United States, and with every expectation of approval, any such plan that would, first, encourage world-wide investigation into the most effective peacetime uses of fissionable material, and with the certainty that they [the investigators] had all the material needed for the conduct of all experiments that were appropriate; second, begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world’s atomic stockpiles; third, allow all peoples of all nations to see that, in this enlightened age, the great Powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first rather than in building up the armaments of war; fourth, open up a new channel for peaceful discussion and initiate at least a new approach to the many difficult problems that must be solved in both private and public conversations, if the world is to shake off the inertia imposed by fear and is to make positive progress toward peace.
Against the dark background of the atomic bomb, the United States does not wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace.
The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions. In this Assembly, in the capitals and military headquarters of the world, in the hearts of men everywhere, be they governed or governors, may be the decisions which will lead this world out of fear and into peace.
To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you, and therefore before the world, its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma -- to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.
I again thank the delegates for the great honor they have done me in inviting me to appear before them and in listening to me so courteously.

Middle-age is a crucial period and middle-aged women are facing even more dangers. Youth is still lingering on there, but it can't stand any

carelessness or negligence. Staying youth can be likened to climbing a steep hill, while negligence will lead to decrepitude overnight. Those who

feed on their youth will have to opt otherwise at this stage.

This is a time full of temptations, alluring girls and glamourous women pop up everywhere, making the discomposed men confused and disoriented,

leaving behind more and more broken-up families and abandoned wives, thereby leading the middle-aged to the heartfelt realization that women

cannot afford to grow old.

Beauty parlors are being opened one after another and the cosmetics market is getting more and more prosperous in order to keep the youthful face

of women forever fresh.. Proper facial care, hair-dressing or aerobics are all necessary for women, but they are only superficial and can not last

long. They can in no way do the cosmetic make-ups round-the-clock.. What will become of them after removing the cosmetics from their face?

Women need to refine their mind and to make themselves more intellectually prepared ? They need the sense of security too. We may well say that

men's youth lies in their career while women's youth relies on their state of mind and cultivation Because of the rise of Yin and the decline of

Yang, we can see many capable women devising and calculating with all their might. They used to be very beautiful, and are now still charming, but

they are middle-aged after all. How long can they still preserve their diminishing youth?

What are those women after? Money? But will they be happy if they have to count the money with their skinny shriveled hands after they have

successfully become wealthy old ladies?

Maybe they are seeking for spacious houses and limousines. But these are just tools to serve us, just like a motorcycle is for us to ride on, not

for us to carry on our shoulders. Is it still worth the price if their pursuit has become a burden or a pressure that calls for the sacrifice of

their youth?

Or maybe they need the money for their children to study abroad. But studying abroad is not the ambition of everyone. As we always say that

children have their own luck, we shouldn't choose the same way for them to grow up. Doing business or going in for politics, working at civilian

posts or as military officials are different choices for different children. Some even want to become chess players and it is such a wonderful

career that after becoming successful, they can make playing chess a rewarding profession.. Why should we try our best to send our children abroad

where there are so many uncertainties? What's the point of the sacrifice of our precious youth to send our children to somewhere that may be

heaven, or hell?

We should be moderate at seeking wealth, for there is no limit for it. A billionaire eats no more than three meals a day and sleeps in one bed at

night while a family living on a meager salary can be very happy and healthy. We may feel sometimes that the luxurious Beijing Roast Duck is no

more delicious than the simple pancakes with shallots. Only when they keep a peaceful heart can they face both favors and humiliations with

composure.

What do the middle-aged women need in order to maintain their youth and doomed decrepitude? Fine qualities and good manners, confidence and

calmness. Don't do too much extra work, don't tire yourselves out, and never try anything beyond your capacity and energy.

What's more, they need security and friendship. No matter how strong a man is, he needs support; no matter how independent a woman is, she needs

backing. The flowery girls may care about nothing but amusement, and they may not consider even the reliability and capability of a man. Middle-

aged women, however, are much more practical, and they have to face the loyalty and creativity of a man. What they are seeking is the most loyal,

the most responsible, the most powerful, the most reliable and the most trustworthy love which is nearly eternal and unchangeable. Any kind of

strike may wear away their youth which is once gone never to return.

Middle-aged women must keep a clear head instead of doing things out of willfulness. They should be able to judge who is sincere and who is

hypocritical. Once they choose the hypocritical instead of the sincere out of carelessness, tragedy will definitely fall on them. In fact, one

whim may decide whether they will live in heaven or stay in hell.

All women have one weak point—they are easily enchanted by men's flattery. There're numerous sweet-tongued men, but loyal ones are hard to find.

They may use sweet words to flatter you or they may be soft-spoken and submissive, but that is when they are weak and in need of help. As soon as

the situation is different, they may change immediately. We always think the weak is the reliable, but this is misleading. The weak may be

pitiable, but not always reliable. Reliability doesn't mean being weak or strong, but depends on whether one can master himself. If someone, when

absent from home, does what he dares not do at home, then how can he be regarded as a trustworthy man?

The middle-aged women, with the exception of those who work at special posts, needn't fight too hard. Instead, they should encourage men to temper

themselves in this world. Studying with ease, working with ease, living with ease and facing everything with ease are what middle-aged women

should try to do. Ease is the symbol of ever-lasting youth and also the glamour of all middle-aged women.

May all kindhearted women enjoy an easy life and ever-lasting youth!

Mother Nature is an exquisite and complex life-system. It's charm appears in the trees, stream, soil, insects, moss and fungus, all the things on the earth in different shapes, which are interdependent. When you get close to nature, please remember, each tree, stone and species of animals here has lived harmoniously for hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. When we pass away, they will continue to live. They are the real masters, while we are just the passer-by. However, the conduct we unconsciously do, such as picking, lumbering, tramping and abusing can probably destroy the balance of their life. Therefore, we must reduce our bad influence as much as possible. While you are enjoying the nature, do not forget please, the beauty of the lives also needs to be concerned with and to be protected.
Each life on the earth has a long and touching evolutionary story. From the origin, the lives of the human being are equal to those of others; they both are the composing parts of Mother Nature. Nevertheless, for some inexplicable reasons, the human becomes the spirits of all creatures. Of course, it is the result of the evolution, but still we should be grateful to all our companions in nature for the opportunity they offer.
In spite of this, humans cannot live without earth. They live on the earth, drink the sweet water, and enjoy the sunshine, the air, the sky, the fruit; the grains utilize the energy and so on. In a word, the human being cannot live without nature, and Mother Nature makes us grow stronger.
I do not like the word "Pet", but preferring the word "Animal" instead. I have been loving animal since I was just a little boy. When thinking of the "Pet Fashion", I always feel much annoyed. For the animals will be given a shackle and lose their liberty if they become someone's pets. Their natural attribution can be deprived, too.
Up to now, relying on their scientific power, the human have opened up too much and over developed nature, in order to fill up their growing appetites of wealth. They destroy the balance of nature, however, they don't realize, their own development and existence will be threatened. Therefore, our sights should be focused on nature and we should try to develop the concept of "keeping human and nature in unity".
We should lay emphasis on our education with consider cultural and natural emotion. To use the vivid example to wake up the conscience in people's hearts.
To love nature is to love our mankind. As the new generation who enter the new century, we should make efforts to love and respect nature, to treat it well and protect it. At last, we have the night to enjoy it.

A folk culture  is a small isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race with a strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals. Order is maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family and interpersonal. Relationships are strong. Tradition is paramount, and change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little division of labor into specialized duties.

 Rather, each person is expected to perform a great variety of tasks, though duties may differ between the sexes. Most goods are handmade and subsistence economy prevails. Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures as are social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo America is the Amish, a German American farming sect that largely renounces the products and labor saving devices of  the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse drawn buggies still serve as a local transportation device and the faithful are not permitted to own automobiles.

The Amish’s central religious concept of Demut  “humility”, clearly reflects the weakness of individualism and social class so typical of folk cultures and there is a corresponding strength of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry outside their sect. The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal mechanism for maintaining order.

By contrast a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group often highly individualistic and a pronounced many specialized professions. Secular institutions of control such as the police and army take the place of religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based economy prevails. Because of these contrasts, “popular” may be viewed as clearly different from “folk”. The popular is replacing the folk in industrialized countries and in many developing nations. Folk-made objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time saving to use or leads more prestige to the owner.

Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate
West Berlin, Germany
June 12, 1987

 President Ronald Reagon:

Thank you very much.

Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the world at the City Hall. Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn, to Berlin. And today I, myself, make my second visit to your city.

We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because it's our duty to speak, in this place, of freedom. But I must confess, we're drawn here by other things as well: by the feeling of history in this city, more than 500 years older than our own nation; by the beauty of the Grunewald and the Tiergarten; most of all, by your courage and determination. Perhaps the composer Paul Lincke understood something about American presidents. You see, like so many presidents before me, I come here today because wherever I go, whatever I do: Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin. [I still have a suitcase in Berlin.]

Our gathering today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America. I understand that it is being seen and heard as well in the East. To those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a special word: Although I cannot be with you, I address my remarks to you just as surely as to those standing here before me. For I join you, as I join your fellow countrymen in the West, in this firm, this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin. [There is only one Berlin.]

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.

President von Weizsacker has said, "The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed." Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a message of hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph.

In this season of spring in 1945, the people of Berlin emerged from their air-raid shelters to find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the people of the United States reached out to help. And in 1947 Secretary of State--as you've been told--George Marshall announced the creation of what would become known as the Marshall Plan. Speaking precisely 40 years ago this month, he said: "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."

In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display commemorating this 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt-out, gutted structure that was being rebuilt. I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember seeing signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the city. The sign read simply: "The Marshall Plan is helping here to strengthen the free world." A strong, free world in the West, that dream became real. Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France, Belgium--virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth; the European Community was founded.

In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty--that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.

Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany--busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. Where a city's culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today there's abundance--food, clothing, automobiles--the wonderful goods of the Ku'damm. From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth. The Soviets may have had other plans. But my friends, there were a few things the Soviets didn't count on--Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. [Berliner heart, Berliner humor, yes, and a Berliner Schnauze.]

In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind--too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.

Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this continent-- and I pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome these burdens. To be sure, we in the West must resist Soviet expansion. So we must maintain defenses of unassailable strength. Yet we seek peace; so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides.

Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets challenged the Western alliance with a grave new threat, hundreds of new and more deadly SS-20 nuclear missiles, capable of striking every capital in Europe. The Western alliance responded by committing itself to a counter-deployment unless the Soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution; namely, the elimination of such weapons on both sides. For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain in earnestness. As the alliance, in turn, prepared to go forward with its counter-deployment, there were difficult days--days of protests like those during my 1982 visit to this city--and the Soviets later walked away from the table.

But through it all, the alliance held firm. And I invite those who protested then-- I invite those who protest today--to mark this fact: Because we remained strong, the Soviets came back to the table. And because we remained strong, today we have within reach the possibility, not merely of limiting the growth of arms, but of eliminating, for the first time, an entire class of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

As I speak, NATO ministers are meeting in Iceland to review the progress of our proposals for eliminating these weapons. At the talks in Geneva, we have also proposed deep cuts in strategic offensive weapons. And the Western allies have likewise made far-reaching proposals to reduce the danger of conventional war and to place a total ban on chemical weapons.

While we pursue these arms reductions, I pledge to you that we will maintain the capacity to deter Soviet aggression at any level at which it might occur. And in cooperation with many of our allies, the United States is pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative--research to base deterrence not on the threat of offensive retaliation, but on defenses that truly defend; on systems, in short, that will not target populations, but shield them. By these means we seek to increase the safety of Europe and all the world. But we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty. When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.

In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking place--a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in computers and telecommunications.

In Europe, only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community of freedom. Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information and innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice: It must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.

Today thus represents a moment of hope. We in the West stand ready to cooperate with the East to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to create a safe, freer world. And surely there is no better place than Berlin, the meeting place of East and West, to make a start. Free people of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the United States stands for the strict observance and full implementation of all parts of the Four Power Agreement of 1971. Let us use this occasion, the 750th anniversary of this city, to usher in a new era, to seek a still fuller, richer life for the Berlin of the future. Together, let us maintain and develop the ties between the Federal Republic and the Western sectors of Berlin, which is permitted by the 1971 agreement.

And I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work to bring the Eastern and Western parts of the city closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all Berlin can enjoy the benefits that come with life in one of the great cities of the world.

To open Berlin still further to all Europe, East and West, let us expand the vital air access to this city, finding ways of making commercial air service to Berlin more convenient, more comfortable, and more economical. We look to the day when West Berlin can become one of the chief aviation hubs in all central Europe.

With our French and British partners, the United States is prepared to help bring international meetings to Berlin. It would be only fitting for Berlin to serve as the site of United Nations meetings, or world conferences on human rights and arms control or other issues that call for international cooperation.

There is no better way to establish hope for the future than to enlighten young minds, and we would be honored to sponsor summer youth exchanges, cultural events, and other programs for young Berliners from the East. Our French and British friends, I'm certain, will do the same. And it's my hope that an authority can be found in East Berlin to sponsor visits from young people of the Western sectors.

One final proposal, one close to my heart: Sport represents a source of enjoyment and ennoblement, and you may have noted that the Republic of Korea--South Korea--has offered to permit certain events of the 1988 Olympics to take place in the North. International sports competitions of all kinds could take place in both parts of this city. And what better way to demonstrate to the world the openness of this city than to offer in some future year to hold the Olympic games here in Berlin, East and West? In these four decades, as I have said, you Berliners have built a great city. You've done so in spite of threats--the Soviet attempts to impose the East-mark, the blockade. Today the city thrives in spite of the challenges implicit in the very presence of this wall. What keeps you here? Certainly there's a great deal to be said for your fortitude, for your defiant courage. But I believe there's something deeper, something that involves Berlin's whole look and feel and way of life--not mere sentiment. No one could live long in Berlin without being completely disabused of illusions. Something instead, that has seen the difficulties of life in Berlin but chose to accept them, that continues to build this good and proud city in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian presence that refuses to release human energies or aspirations. Something that speaks with a powerful voice of affirmation, that says yes to this city, yes to the future, yes to freedom. In a word, I would submit that what keeps you in Berlin is love--love both profound and abiding.

Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere--that sphere that towers over all Berlin--the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

And I would like, before I close, to say one word. I have read, and I have been questioned since I've been here about certain demonstrations against my coming. And I would like to say just one thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they're doing again.

Thank you and God bless you all.

Even though true love is hard to find nowadays, we still can see some true and infatuated boys and girls who readily give up their families, their parents, their studies, their careers and even their lives for love. They love so passionately, crazily and wildly that they hate anyone who is against their love, and may even harm or kill him if he insists on his objection.

Love has magical power that can exploit people's potential abilities, bring people's positive factors into full play, and provide people with the courage to face trials and hardships, to go through life and death, and even to risk universal condemnation. Even in the ancient feudal society, some people were courageous enough to carry on clandestine love affairs. The examples in point were the courageous ones who dared to love the concubines of the emperors or the children of their foes. Love also has miraculous power which can startle the universe and move the gods by attracting the heavenly celestials coming down to earth ( The Love Story of the Cowboy and the Weaving Girl ), and by turning ghosts into human ( Strange Tales of Liao-zhai ). Love can transcend age and generation (Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Madam Song Qingling; Luxun and Xu Guangping). love can show contempt for all conventions and prejudices; love can heal wounds and cure diseases, and love can readjust people's state of mind. Of course, the result would be the opposite once it hurts.

Great men yearn for true love even more than ordinary people. Since the ancient times, so many heroes couldn't help falling into the trap of love that the sex-trap has been regarded as one of the 36 stratagems in military tactics. Fuchai, the king of the Wu State, couldn't be spared of this trap, and Generals Dongzhuo and Lubu fell deeply into it while Xiangyu, the King of the Western Chu State , bid farewell to his beloved concubine in tears. People may have to pay very high price, even their illustrious name for the love they long for even though it may last for only a very short time. Nonetheless no one can tear himself away from love. People often say that their earthly affinity is not yet finished, but in fact it is the love affinity that is the most difficult to finish.

Love is shapeless and priceless. We can blame nobody when captured by it. Love can not be forced, nor can it be pretended. Sympathy is not love, neither is gratitude. Love must be generated from the heart, and expressed in actions. It can not be called love without passions and a deep longing from the bottom of the heart. There's no impassable gulf between family love and fraternal love. Some family love may turn into friendship. At the same time, natural barriers doesn't exist either between fraternal love and amatory love. Some friendship may develop into amatory love. The same is true with amatory love which may change into family love after a long time of mutual grinding and polishing.The closer the relationship, and the higher the expectations are, the more difficult it is to get along with each other. Family love, fraternal love and amatory love are three main human feelings. If handled well, they can bring us extreme happiness, while handled improperly, will bring us great sufferings.

The present society is a world of dazzling money and dwindling human feeling contacts. Most people hold a snobbish attitude. They only make friends with people of wealth and of high social status. Just as Zhen Shiyen said in his expounding of the song “All Good Things Must End” in A Dream of the Red Mansions “While men with gold and silver by the chest, turn beggars scorned by all and dispossessed”. Frankly speaking, however, if we regard money the first thing in whichever one of the three kinds of loves, it will depreciate and even become worthless.

Love can not pretend, nor can it tolerate too much selfish motives. It is reported that an old man in Jiangsu Province left his million Yuan heritage to his young housekeeper instead of his own children, because his own children didn't take care of him while the young housekeeper accompanied him through his last lonely and helpless years.

Love is easily perceivable and perceptible. Flattery words may be cheatable, but true love and false feelings can easily be distinguished. If the people you love only know how to spend your money, you should be careful of them. Everyone can help you spend your money if you give them the chance. Never turn your love into the slave of money.

Love should be selfless, and feelings should be sincere. We shouldn't judge our feelings according to the distance of the relationship. Everyone treasures love and nobody can fool himself or the others. A Chinese saying goes: real heroes yearn even more for true love, and great men cherish tender love for their children.

We are the saint on earth, and should treasure our love, but we should know how much is good and where to stop. Since there's no ever-lasting banquet, nor is there an endless love story, we should take the gains and losses of love with perfect composure. There's fragrant grass in every corner of the earth, and you can always find your love in this world.