When I was a baby, my parents gave me anything I wanted. Then my dad died when I was two and a half, and I got even more stuff as my mom, friends and family gave me more and more to try to make me feel better. But when I was seven, my world changed.

That was when the real estate market(房地产) crashed. My mom had thought that buying houses was a good idea as a way to invest her money to take care of us. After the crash, I went from the kid who got an iPod when his tooth fell out and who had the coolest house to hang out in, to literally, having nowhere to stay.

After the real estate crash, when I would ask for a new toy, or bike, or even to see a movie my mom would say “maybe for your birthday” or “I’m sorry honey, but we can’t really afford that right now.” I didn’t know it then, but my mom had grown up in a family where money was never a problem, so this change was as big for her as it was for me. My constant requests for toys and video games were not helping my mom, who was to deal with her feelings about our new crisis—our financial situation. But I wasn’t used to hearing “no” so for a year or two I kept asking.

Then something happened that would change my way of thinking forever. My mom had been working really hard all year, just to pay for the necessities, like our water and power bill. When she asked me what I wanted for my birthday I said that I wanted a new video gaming system. I didn’t know that it was expensive. All I knew was that my friends had them and that I wanted one too.

On my birthday, I believed that I would get what I wanted when opening the presents.

From then on, I learned the difference between what I wanted and what I needed.

Every afternoon after school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass, beautiful flowers, and peach trees whose pink pearly blossoms (花) came out in spring, and that in autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat in the trees and sang so sweetly. The children used to play games there, crying and laughing.

“How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.

One day the selfish Giant came back. When he arrived, he saw the children playing in the garden.

“What are you doing here?” he cried loudly, and the children ran away.

“The garden is my own garden,” said the Giant. “I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all around it, and put up a notice board reading, “No Entry!”

The poor children had nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the read was very dusty and full of hard stones, so they did not like it. They used to wander around the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there!” they said to each other.

Then the spring came, and all over the country there were blossoms and birds. Only in the garden of the selfish Giant was it still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. When they saw the notice board, they were so sorry for the children. The only ones who were pleased were the snow and the frost (霜). “Spring has forgotten this garden.” they cried, “so we will live here all year round.” The snow covered up the grass, and the frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the cold north wind to stay with them.

“Why is the spring so late to come?” said the selfish Giant, looking out of the window at his cold white garden. “I hope there will be a change in the weather in the garden.”

One day, from the windows the Giant saw some children enter the garden.

The Giant thought about what had happened and decided to change his attitude (态度) toward the children.

Almost all of my holidays were spent with my grandpa. My grandpa was a retired army officer and the years in the army had made him a very tough person, which helped him a lot in fighting with cancer for a long time. Silver and golden stars on his shoulders and medals on his chest in grandma’s old photo albums reflected the marks of his distinguished service and numerous adventures. Grandpa had fine qualities and was a real personality. He was strict with his family, me included, as well as himself.

In our ancestral house there was a big pond as was common in bygone Bengali homes with lots of trees and bushes. Both my grandparents were fond of our so-called garden. One morning our new neighbor saw my grandpa planting two trees on both sides of our main gate, which still stand tall today. Across the street our new neighbor also got the same kind of tree and planted the trees exactly on both sides of his gate too.

My grandpa didn’t often give enough amount of water to his plants and didn’t always give his full attention to them, while our neighbor gave a lot of water to his plants and looked after them too well. My grandpa’s plants were simple but looked good. But our neighbor’s plants were much fuller and greener.

Normally, during April and May, we have short but violent thunderstorms called “Kalboishakhi”. One late evening during a Kalboishakhi we had showers with strong winds, which continued right throughout that night. Next morning along with my grandparents I came out to inspect the damage to our garden. I saw our neighbor was there in his garden too, but looked upset as his plants were uprooted. But, our plants were not damaged and were standing firm on the ground.