“Class, this is John Evans,” Mrs. Parmele introduced him to us, trying to give him a warm welcome. We saw a boy in old clothes. John looked around and smiled, hoping somebody would smile back. Nobody did. He kept on smiling anyway.

I held my breath, hoping Mrs. Parmele wouldn’t notice the empty desk next to mine. She did, and pointed him in that direction. He looked over at me as he sat down, but I looked away.

By the end of his first week, John was at the bottom of our class’s stair. I told my mother one evening at dinner. “He hardly even knows how to count.”

As I ate lunch with him the next day and listened to him, however, I realized that it is pleasant to be with him. After lunch, I decided that I would be John’s friend.

One night, as Mother came into my bedroom, I said, “Mom, tomorrow is John’s birthday and he’s not going to get anything. Nobody even cares.”

“Don’t worry”, Mom said as she kissed me goodnight. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

I wished John a happy birthday in the morning, and his smile showed me that he was glad I had remembered.

By mid-afternoon I had almost decided that birthdays weren’t that important. Then, as Mrs. Parmele was writing on the blackboard, I heard a familiar voice singing the birthday song.

Moments later, Mother came through the door with a tray of cakes. She was also taking a present in her hand.

Mrs. Parmele joined in. Mother found John looking like a rabbit in car headlights. She put the cakes and the gift on his desk and said, “Happy birthday, John.”

John kindly shared his cakes with the class taking the tray from desk to desk.

John Evans moved away soon and I never heard from him again. But I always remember the happiness in a boy’s eyes, and the taste of the sweetest cake.

Chinese people are now spending more time surfing the net than watching TV, according to results of a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) published Thursday.

The survey, of citizens of five Chinese cities, found that 79 percent of interviewees use the Internet for information, and 55.1 percent to read news on the Internet. About 63 percent of the interviewees use e-mail. The average times spent surfing the net and watching TV were 2.73 hours and 1.29 hours, respectively. Only 10.4 percent reported use the Internet primarily to send and receive email; 65.9 percent read online news; 62.2 quite often play games on-line. More and more people have taken an interest in the entertainment opportunities online. Up to 56.5 percent of interviewees quite often download music, and 53.5 percent get entertainment messages from the Internet.

Yet the survey found that television is still the dominant mass medium. 79 percent of interviewees choose to watch TV to get information, and another 75 percent take newspapers as important as TV.

Five major web sites in the Chinese language, namely Sina, Sohu, Netease, Baidu and Yahoo are still ranked top ones by web users, and those that voted for Sina as the best among them were 30.9 percent. Authorized statistics showed that web users in China have already exceeded 100 million, second to that of the United States.

Sometimes children do not do what their parents tell them to do. When this happens, a parent tries to help the child to do the right thing. When this does not work, the parent usually punishes the child.

There are many things that a parent can do. One thing that people have done is to spank the child. When a parent spanks a child, they will use their hand or a hard object to strike them on their bottom. This is meant to show the child that they have done something wrong.

One parent remembers being spanked when he was a child. His parents used a wooden spoon. When he spanked his own children with his hand, he saw that he put a red mark on his child’s leg. He never did that again.

One problem with spanking is that it teaches the child to hit someone when they do not like what the other person is doing. Another problem with spanking is that the parent is usually angry and can hit the child too hard. Sometimes parents will use spanking for everything and not try other ways to get the child to do the right thing.

Many parents are not sure of what to do instead of spanking. Some people think that their religion tells them that spanking is okay. Some think that the law lets them do it. The courts say that parents have the right to teach their children how to behave.

Other things should be tried before a parent decides to spank a child. Telling the child exactly what is wanted from them can be one thing. Giving a child more than one choice is

another thing that can be tried. Getting down to the child’s level and taking a more child- friendly approach ( 方法 ) can help as well.