One of the biggest social issues in Japan is the increasingly low marriage rates among young people and the low birth rates, which lead to an aging and eventually shrinking (萎缩) population. Most young Japanese women simply don’t seem interested in having many children.

      Now what began in Japan is happening globally. As David Brooks wrote, birth rates are becoming lower in much of the world, from Iran－1，7 births per woman－to Russian, where low birth rates connected with high death rates mean the population is already shrinking. And this includes the US, which has long had higher birth rates than most developed nations. Aging countries will face the burden of caring for large elderly populations without a larger resource of young workers.

     It’s true that global aging is going to present some major challenges. Who will take care of the elderly? Will an older world be less active and slower to change and adapt? It’s all true. Sometimes I worry about a coming generational war over resources, just as I worry about how Iwill take care of my own parents in their old age, just as I worry about who might take care of me.

But here’s the thing: an older world may have less pressure on the environment. As we all know, the environment is the real victim of overpopulation.

     So maybe a world that grows slower and grows older will put less pressure on the environment, and buy us a few more years to ensure our energy use, along with our birth rates, reaches a sustainable (可持续的) level. After all, we’re supposed to get smarter as we get older. Hopefully that holds true for the planet as well.

 A store that sells husbands has just opened in Ottawa where a woman may go to choose a husband from many men.

   The store consisted of 6 floors and the men increase in positive attributes（品质，特点）as the shopper goes up the flights. There is, however, a catch（陷阱）. As you open the door to any floor you may choose a man from that floor, but if you go up a floor, you cannot go back down except to exit the building.

  So a woman goes to the shopping center to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1— These men have jobs. The woman reads the sign and says to herself, “Well, that’s better than my last boyfriend, but I wonder what’s further up?”

  So up she goes. The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 — These men have jobs and love kids. The woman remarks to herself, “That’s great, but I wonder what’s further up?”

  And up she goes again. The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 — These men have jobs, love kids and are extremely good-looking. “Hmm, better.” 

  The fourth floor sign reads: Floor 4 — These men have jobs, love kids, are extremely good-looking and help with the housework. “Wow!” exclaims the woman, “Very tempting. But, there must be more, further up!”

  And again she heads up another flight. The fifth floor sign reads: Floor 5 —These men have jobs, love kids, are extremely good-looking, help with the housework and have a strong romantic character. “ Oh, mercy me! But just think…what must be awaiting me further on?”

  So up to the sixth floor she goes. The sixth floor sign reads: Floor 6 –You are visitor 3, 456, 789,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. Thank you for shopping Husband Mart and have a nice day.

There are TV game shows that give people the chance to become millionaires. When asked the

Question “What would you do with a million dollars?” most people give similar answers: “Quit my job,” “Buy my dream house,” or “Go traveling.” Twenty years ago, it was possible to realize these dreams. However, things are not so easy today.                   

In many countries, the cost of living is higher than ever. One of the main reasons is demand.

Over the last twenty years, for example, housing prices in many cities have increased. The main reason is that the population has become large in certain areas, but there is a smaller supply of available housing there for sale or rent.    Apartments in many city centers are also more expensive now than in the past. In the recent past,

people often moved from a city center to the suburbs in order to escape overcrowding and noise. Today, people want to be closer to their workplace, and many are now moving back into the city center because many modem apartments in the city center have indoor swimming pools or movie theaters that allow people to relax or exercise without leaving their building.

In order to live well after you stop working, you should begin saving for retirement early.

Experts suggest that after you retire, you will need 75 percent to 80 percent of your salary to live on every month. And older people now also have to spend more on health care because they live longer.

With increased demand for housing, higher living cost, and longer life expectancy, a million

may not be enough to live on. To be able to retire early, travel the world, and build your dream

home, you may have to appear on that game show and win more than once!

Spring is coming, and it is time for those about to graduate to look for jobs. Competition is tough, so job seekers must carefully consider their personal choices. Whatever we are wearing, our family and friends may accept us, but the workplace may not.

A high school newspaper editor said it is unfair for companies to discourage visible tattoos (纹身), nose rings, or certain dress styles. It is true you can’t judge a book by its cover, yet people do “cover” themselves in order to convey certain messages. What we wear, including tattoos and nose rings, is an expression of who we are. Just as people convey messages about themselves with their appearances so do companies. Dress standards exist in the business world for a number of reasons, but the main concern is often about what customers accept.

Others may say how to dress is a matter of personal freedom, but for businesses it is more about whether to make or lose money. Most employers do care about the personal appearances of their employees, because those people represent the companies to their customers.

As a hiring manager I am paid to choose the people who would make the best impression on our customers. There are plenty of well-qualified candidates, so it is not wrong to reject someone who might disappoint my customers. Even though I am open-minded, I can’t expect all our customers are.

There is nobody to blame but yourself if your set of choices does not match that of your preferred employer. No company should have to change to satisfy a candidate simply because he or she is unwilling to respect its standards, as long as its standards are legal.

One in four people spend more time communicating online, using sites such as Facebook,  than they do in person,  according to research.

　　People now have 11 different ways of staying in contact with their friends from the comfort of their sofa or bedroom. These include simple email, messenger, text and several forms of social networking from Twitter to Facebook,   said the survey by online casino Yazino.

   It found even when there is time to see people face to face,  like at a weekend, up to 11 percent of all adults still choose to stay indoors and communicate instead.  This could lie in laziness,  the cost of going out or simply not wanting too much personal contact with friends and family.

   Perhaps owing to these reasons,the average online people spends 4. 6 hours a week talking to friends online and only six hours a week talking to people in person, said Yazino. There is even an army of extreme sofalisers (超级宅人)—the three percent who spend a surprising 25 hours or more each week talking to friends via electronic devices. The survey of 2, 000 adults also found 11 percent organize all their social diary on Facebook, Bebo or other network sites.

  Yazino founder Hussein Chahine said:  “Communication is constantly developing.  Some people are as used to seeing their friends’ online avatar as they are their face.”People increasingly prefer quick and frequent appointment with instant updates on news than a long chat, and they are also finding new ways to keep in contact with friends in their comfortable sofa.  

   More than seven in ten (71 per cent) send text messages to their friends and family and 31 per cent use social networking sites while just 27 per cent now use email as their main means of contact.  A further 18 per cent use live chat and instant messaging systems.  

 Britain was once regarded as a society with class distinction. Each class had unique characteristics.

In recent years, many writers have begun to speak the 'decline of class' and 'classless society' in Britain. And in modern day consumer society everyone is considered to be middle class. 

But pronouncing the death of class is too early. A recent wide-ranging society of public opinion found 90 percent of people still placing themselves in particular class; 73 percent agreed that class was still a vital part of British society; and 52 percent thought there were still sharp class differences. Thus, class may not be culturally and politically obvious, yet it remains an important part of British society. Britain seems to have a love of stratification.

One unchanging aspect of a British person's class position is accent. The words a person speaks tell her or his class. A study of British accents during 1970s found that a voice sounding like a BBC newsreader was viewed as the most attractive voice. Most people said this accent sounded 'educated' and 'soft'. The accents placed at the bottom in this study, on the other hand, were regional（地区的）city accents. These accents were seen as 'common' and 'ugly'. However, a similar study of British accents in the US turned these results upside down and placed some regional accents as the most attractive and BBC English as the least. This suggests that British attitudes towards accent have deep roots and are based on class prejudice(偏见).

In recent years, however, young upper middle-class people in London, have begun to adopt some regional accents, in order to hide their class origins. This is an indication of class becoming unnoticed. However, the 1995 pop song 'Common People' puts forward the view that though a middle-class person may 'want to live like common people' they can never appreciate the reality of a working-class life.

In England recently three foreign gentlemen came to a bus stop and waited. about five minutes later, the bus they wanted came along. They were just going to get on when suddenly there was a loud noise behind them. People rushed onto the bus and tried to push them out of the way. Someone shouted at them. The bus conductor came rushing down the stairs to see what all the trouble was about. The three foreigners seemed all at sea and looked embarrassed. No one had told them about the British custom of lining up for a bus that the first person who arrives at the bus stop is the first person to get on the bus.

Learning the language of a country isn’t enough. If you want to have a pleasant visit, find out as much as possible about the manners and customs of your host country. You will probably be surprised just how different they can be from your own. A visitor to India would do well to remember that people there consider it impolite to use the left hand for passing food at table. The left hand is supposed to be used for washing yourself. Also in India, you might see a man shaking his head at another to show that he doesn’t agree. But in many parts of India a shake of the head means agreement. Nodding your head when you are given a drink in Bulgaria will most probably leave you thirsty.

     In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition．Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity．Others say that competition is bad, that it sets one person against another, that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people．

       I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills．For them, playing well and winning are often, life-and-death affairs．In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten．

        However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude．In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition．Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society．Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail．They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success．By not trying, they always have an excuse: "I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try．"What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot．Such a loss would be a measure of their worth． Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves．Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others．Both are afraid of not being valued．Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve（缓解） can we discover a new meaning in competition．

Down-to-earth means being honest, open, and easy to deal with. It is a pleasure to find someone who is down-to-earth. A person who is down-to-earth is easy to talk to. He or she accepts others as equals. A down-to-earth person may be an important member of society, of course, but they do not let their importance go to their heads, and they do not consider themselves to be better than others who are less important. Someone who is filled with self-importance and pride, often without cause, is said to have his nose in the air. There is no way a person with his nose in the air can be down-to-earth.

Americans use another expression that is similar in some way to down-to-earth. The expression is both feet on the ground. Someone with both feet on the ground is a person with a good understanding of reality. He has what is called common sense. He may have dreams but he does not allow them to block his knowledge of what is real. The opposite kind of person is one who has his head in the clouds. A man with his head in the clouds is a dreamer whose mind is not in the world. Sometimes such a dreamer can be brought back to reality; sharp words from the teacher, for example, can usually get a daydreaming student to put both feet back on the ground.

The person who is down-to-earth usually has both feet on the ground. But the opposite is not always true. Someone with both feet on the ground may not be as open and easy to deal with as someone who is down-to-earth.

Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.

“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”

Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.

Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent—child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.

No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”

But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”

Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourages everyone to have a say.

“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”