最新twokinds英语读物.docx

1、最新twokinds英语读物培养动手能力 学一门手艺 打发时间 兴趣爱好Two Kinds大学生购买力有限，即决定了要求商品能价廉物美，但更注重的还是在购买过程中对精神文化爱好的追求，满足心理需求。Amy TanMy mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no

2、 money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous. Of course, you can be a prodigy, too, my mother told me when I was nine. You can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky. America was where all my mothers hopes lay. She had come to Sa

3、n Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. Things could get better in so many ways. We didnt immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother though

4、t I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. Wed watch Shirleys old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, Ni kan. You watch. And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while saying Oh, my goodn

5、ess. Ni kan, my mother said, as Shirleys eyes flooded with tears. You already know how. Dont need talent for crying! Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to the beauty training school in the Mission District and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold t

6、he scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair. You look like a Negro Chinese, she lamented, as if I had done this on purpose. The instructor of the beauty trai

7、ning school had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. Peter Pan is very popular these days the instructor assured my mother. I now had bad hair the length of a boys, with curly bangs that hung at a slant two inches above my eyebrows. I liked the haircut, and it made me actually l

8、ook forward to my future fame. 成功秘诀：好市口个性经营In fact, in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, and I tried each one on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtain, waiting to hear the music

9、 that would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity. I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air. In all of my imaginings I was filled with a sense that I would soon beco

10、me perfect: My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk, or to clamor for anything. But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. If you dont hurry up and get me out of here, Im disappearing for good, it warned. And then youll always be no

11、thing. 然而影响我们大学生消费的最主要的因素是我们的生活费还是有限，故也限制了我们一定的购买能力。因此在价格方面要做适当考虑：我们所推出的手工艺制品的价位绝大部分都是在50元以下。一定会适合我们的学生朋友。Every night after dinner my mother and I would sit at the Formica topped kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children that she read in Ripleys

12、 Believe It or Not or Good Housekeeping, Readers digest, or any of a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all,

13、searching for stories about remarkable children. The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even the most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying that the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign ci

14、ties correctly. Whats the capital of Finland?” my mother asked me, looking at the story. All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown. Nairobi! I guessed, saying the most foreign word I could think of. She checked to see if that mig

15、ht be one way to pronounce Helsinki before showing me the answer. The tests got harder - multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London. One nigh

16、t I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember. Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and.thats all I remember, Ma, I said. And after seeing, once again, my mothers disappointed face, something inside me began to die. I hated the te

17、sts, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and I saw only my face staring back - and understood that it would always be this ordinary face - I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high - pitched noises like a c

18、razed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror. And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me - a face I had never seen before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so that I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. She and I were the same. I had

19、new thoughts, willful thoughts - or rather, thoughts filled with lots of wonts. I wont let her change me, I promised myself. I wont be what Im not. So now when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was. I got so bored that I

20、 started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas. The sound was comforting and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon. And the next day I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while

21、 I usually counted only one bellow, maybe two at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope. Two or three months went by without any mention of my being a prodigy. And then one day my mother was watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV. The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out. Every time my m

22、other got halfway up from the sofa to adjust the set, the sound would come back on and Sullivan would be talking. As soon as she sat down, Sullivan would go silent again. She got up - the TV broke into loud piano music. She sat down - silence. Up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud. It was like

23、 a stiff, embraceless dance between her and the TV set. Finally, she stood by the set with her hand on the sound dial. She seemed entranced by the music, a frenzied little piano piece with a mesmerizing quality, which alternated between quick, playful passages and teasing, lilting ones. Ni kan, my m

24、other said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures. Look here. I could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest, like a

25、proper Chinese Child. And she also did a fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded to the floor like petals of a large carnation. In spite of these warning signs, I wasnt worried. Our family had no piano and we couldnt afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet m

26、usic and piano lessons. So I could be generous in my comments when my mother badmouthed the little girl on TV. Play note right, but doesnt sound good! my mother complained No singing sound. What are you picking on her for? I said carelessly. Shes pretty good. Maybe shes not the best, but shes trying

27、 hard. I knew almost immediately that I would be sorry I had said that. Just like you, she said. Not the best. Because you not trying. She gave a little huff as she let go of the sound dial and sat down on the sofa. The little Chinese girl sat down also, to play an encore of Anitras Tanz, by Grieg.

28、I remember the song, because later on I had to learn how to play it. 500元以上 12 24%Three days after watching the Ed Sullivan Show my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice. She had talked to Mr. Chong, who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr.

29、Chong was a retired piano teacher, and my mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I whined, and then kicked my foot a little wh

30、en I couldnt stand it anymore. Why dont you like me the way I am? I cried. Im not a genius! I cant play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldnt go on TV if you paid me a million dollars! My mother slapped me. Who ask you to be genius? she shouted. Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think

31、 I want you to be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you! So ungrateful, I heard her mutter in Chinese, If she had as much talent as she has temper, shed be famous now. Mr. Chong, whom I secretly nicknamed Old Chong, was very strange, always tapping his fingers to the silent music of an invisible orche

32、stra. He looked ancient in my eyes. He had lost most of the h air on the top of his head, and he wore thick glasses and had eyes that always looked tired. But he must have been younger that I though, since he lived with his mother and was not yet married. I met Old Lady Chong once, and that was enough. She had a peculiar smell, like a baby that had done something in its pants, and her fingers felt like a dead persons, like an old peach I once found in the back of the refrigerator: its skin just slid off the flesh when I picked it up. I soon found out why Old Chong had retired from te