UNIT 4

PEOPLE’S HOBBIES AND WEAKNESSES

I would like to tell you a story ones somebody told me.

Long ago in the country of China there lived an old woman. Everyone knew her as Lao Lao and she lived in a tiny village in the foothills of the mountain where the Ice Dragon reigned1.

Her greatest pleasure was to sit outside her home surrounded by the children of the village. There she would take a thin sheet of paper and the ssmall pair of scissors that she kept in her front pocket, and while she cut she sang,

Fold it and cut it and turn it around

Open it up and see what you’ve found.

So beautiful were these paper – cuts that the fame of the old woman spread. People from the towns started to climb up the steep2, narrow path to ask Lao Lao for one of her paper -cuts.

They would always find her sitting outside her house, busy wwith her scissors and singing the same song. And the children would watch in amazement3 as she unfolded the piece of paper – what would it be?

A butterfly! A cockerel! A flower!

Lao Lao would watch the children running home, each hholding their own special gift. And as they ran, she would hear them singing,

Fold it and cut it and turn it around

Open it up and see what you’ve found.

1. Reign – karaliavimas, viespatavimas.

2. Steep – status slaitas.

3. Amazement – nustebinimas.