America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon. They don’t feel hurt. If the same two people meet again, even years later, they ①pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand. Friendships between us develop more slowly but may become ②lifelong feelings, extending(延伸) deeply into both families.

There is another difficult point for us to understand. Although Americans treat friends warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to them if it requires a great deal of time. But in China, we are usually generous(慷慨) with our _______. We, as hosts, will appear at an airport even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off from our work to act as guides to our friends. It is opposite in America. Americans cannot manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily plans. They will probably expect the visitors to get themselves from the airport to the hotels. And they expect the visitors will phone them from there and the visitors can have a short rest. ③Once the visitors arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real.

For Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to restaurants. Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. ④ accept their hospitality(好客) at home and enjoy your visit in America.

Birthday traditions are different around the world.

In the United States, children often celebrate a birthday with a party. They give presents and serve cakes and ice cream.

Children in Korea celebrate in a different way. They eat seaweed (海带) soup and rice cakes. Koreans serve seaweed soup because it is healthy. Guests to the birthday party may wear traditional clothes called Hanbok.

At a birthday party in Canada, children look for a coin in the cake. When children play party games, the child who finds the coin goes first.

It’s said that Germans were the first people to have birthday parties for children. Parents place a wooden birthday wreath (花环) with candles on the table. They light a tall candle—the “life” candle in the middle, every year until their child becomes 12 years old.