Mom: The store on Second Road is selling old furniture this weekend. We need a chair for your desk.
Wei: How much is it? I saved two thousand dollars from my summer job.
Mom: Look at this paper.
| SECOND ROAD FURNITURE |
|---|
| Item: Wooden Chair |
| Old price: 1,200 |
| This weekend: 800 |
| Free if you buy a desk |
Wei: We already have a desk, so I will just take the chair.
Mom: Then bring your wallet. The store closes at six, and it is on the way back from the temple.
Welcome to the Reading Room. Walk up to the second floor and turn left.
Students may move a chair, but the couch and the long desk must stay where they are. If you need a quiet position, the seats near the window are best.
Please do not leave anything, not even a pencil case, on the carpet. Anything left after six will be put in the cabinet near the toilet, and you will have to wait until Monday to get it back.
Dear Aunt Mary,
Thank you for the box you sent from Canada. The spoons arrived without a single mark on them, and Mother has already put them in the kitchen cabinet. She says they are too nice to use every day.
I have one question. Inside the box there was a small round thing with numbers on it, like a dial. Nobody here knows what it is for. Could you tell me how to use it? I have a photo, but I do not want to send a big photo if your line is slow.
We are all well. Father hurt his neck last month, but he can walk again now. Please come and stay with us when you visit Taiwan.
Sincerely, Amy
Look around your living room. The chair you sit on may have started as a tree in Australia, and the carpet under your feet may have come from a small town far away.
A hundred years ago, most families in Taiwan used furniture made in their own village. A bed or a bookcase was built by a person whose name everyone knew, and it was made to last for three or four families.
Today a chair costs less, but it often lasts only a few years. Some people now buy old furniture and fix it. They say that an old desk with a mark on it holds something a new one cannot: the story of the people who used it before.