I was born and raised in England in a culture where privacy and "keeping yourself to yourself" were valued traditions. Speaking to strangers was not encouraged. People were most hospitable and friendly—but only when they had been introduced to new people.

   However, I have been lucky enough to spend some time in both Italy and the US, where I found traditions of hospitality and politeness to be very different.

   I experienced Italian hospitality firsthand on a crowded railway carriage travelling, one afternoon, from Genoa to Florence. Sinking gratefully into an empty seat, I was berated (斥责) in rapid Italian by a gentleman who was returning to this seat it had not been "spare" after all. I apologized in English, and got up to allow him back into the seat. The gentleman obviously had no understanding of the English language, but he, too, realized my genuine mistake. He smiled and gestured for me to remain in the seat, and he himself remained standing in the corridor for the remainder of the journey. The other occupants of the carriage smiled and nodded at me and made me feel quite welcome among them. I feel that if this had been in England, a foreigner who made a mistake would not always be so kindly treated.

   Transport also featured in the differences I noticed between English and American culture. I flew to New York on a plane with mainly English passengers. We sat together in near silence. Nobody spoke to me nor, as I expected, to anyone else they did not know. They felt it was not polite to intrude on someone else's privacy. However, when I travelled across the United States, whether by plane or Greyhound bus, I was never short of conversation. Conversation was going on all around me and whoever sat next to me was happy to introduce themselves and ask me about myself. They obviously felt it would have been rude not to speak to another person, whether they were strangers or not.

(1) Which country is the author from? (no more than 5 words)

(2) When were the people in the author's motherland most hospitable and friendly? (no more than 10 words)

(3) How did the Italian travelers treat the author when he made a mistake by sitting in an empty seat which belonged to one of them? (no more than 10 words)

(4) How do you understand the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?(no more than 10 words)

(5) If you find by chance your parents often read your diary secretly, how do you deal with the issue? (no more than 20 words)