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For many of us the home in our hearts is one we remember from childhood. For me it was the real house I ever lived in. The house had a big front yard with a swing(秋千) on it. Mary is my sister. We were both 8 years old at the time, but we weren’t twins. I in was January, and she in December. When it rained, we’d play there with neighborhood kids, tell each other movies we’d been to, and sing rounds like “Row, Row, Row your Boat.” I remember laughing a lot at funny stories. Inside, of course, was the kitchen. I remember Mom putting newspapers on the kitchen table. In that room, I also remember the more pleasing aroma(芳香) of dinner being cooked. They say smell is the strongest sense memory. I can still smell the soup. Whatever the dinner was, the family would always eat it every night in the dining room when Dad was home. After dinner, Mary and I would help with the dishes: I’d wash, and she’d dry. There was a lot of singin g going on, too. In the living room there was the piano. Mom often played “That Old Silver Moon” on it. Both Mary and I were taking piano lessons so there was much practicing. When the piano wasn’t playing, the radio was.

The expression “Home Sweet Home,” to me, is the memory of voices and faces in that place on Thanksgiving and Christmas, of other family members—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the little dog named Inky. It’s not the rooms of that house I think of so much as what went on there. It’s always the people, the singing, laughing, and joking—and occasionally quarreling and crying. Quite often, come to think of it. You go back and look at a house all these years later, and it seems so different now, much smaller than you remember. And you realize that if it’s still there at all, it has to be basically what it was. It’s not the brick, the shape, or size that matters.It’s us who have changed.

65. Are Mary and the writer twins?

66. Does the writer have a small family or a big family?

67. What did the writer usually do after dinner?

68. Why does the house look smaller to the writer now?

69. What’s in the writer’s memory?

D

Christmas is a time for shopping. But I think those of us who live in large cities in Asia would be cheating ourselves if we said this is the only time we are busy shopping. No, from Bangkok to Singapore, from Shanghai to Manila, shopping—especially shopping in large centers—is a year-round activity.

Shopping centers are good. They show Asia’s surprising economic growth, and how far we have come in such a short time. For many of the older generation who can remember a time when everyone lived in villages and there was no running water, the air-conditioned centre means comfort, choice, luxury (豪华) and better times.

Nowadays, it seems our usual activities happen in the centre—it’s where we shop, eat, watch movies, meet our friends or just generally walk around.

Furthermore, we have come to regard shopping centers as important landmarks or tourist attractions. Whole generations of Asians are growing up to think that, besides home and school, the shopping center is the most natural place to be.

My idea about shopping centers is not that they are often big buildings that look quite different from other parts in a city, or that they promote (促进) shopping at a time when our planet can hardly afford it. My main idea about centers is that they don’t really seem to make us happy. The large advertisements outside the stores could make us think that if we only had this pair of jeans, or if we hung out at this café drinking coffee, then we could feel more successful. But once we buy something, we