Every country tends to accept its own way of life as being the normal one and to praise or criticize others, as they are similar to or different from it. And unfortunately, our picture of the people and the way of life of other countries is often a distorted(扭曲的)one.
Here is a great argument in favor of foreign travel and learning foreign languages. It is only by traveling in a country and getting to know its inhabitants and their language that one can find out what a country and its people are really like. And how different the knowledge one gains this way frequently turns out to be from the second-hand information gathered from other sources! How often we find that the foreigners whom we thought to be such different people from ourselves are not very different at all!
Differences between people do, of course, exist and, one hopes, will always continue to do so. The world will be a dull place indeed when all the different nationalities behave exactly alike, and some people might say that we are rapidly approaching this state of affairs. With the much gather rapidity and ease of travel, there might be some truth in this at least as far as Europe is concerned. However this may be, at least the greater ease of travel today has revealed(显示), to more people than ever before, that the Englishman or Frenchman or German is not some different kind of animals from themselves.
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Jerry was the kind of guy who was always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”
He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry would be there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Several years later, I heard that Jerry was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe with his hand, shaking from nervousness, he forget the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him.
Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma(创伤) center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of special care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments(碎片)of the bullets still in his body.
I saw Jerry about six months later after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied,
“If I were any better, I’d be twins. Do you want to see my scars?” I refused to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.
“The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

每个国家的人都认为自己生活方式最正常，并且，如果其它国家的生活方式与之相似，就赞扬它们，与之不同，则批判它们。但是，恐怕我们脑海中有关其它国家的人和生活方式的画面通常是扭曲的。这为出国旅游和学习外语提供了很大的理由。只有通过在国外旅行并且了解外国人的生活习惯和语言，我们才能知道一个国家及其人民真正是什么样的。并且，通过这种方式获得的知识与从其它渠道得来的二手信息是多么的不同，我们还经常发现，过去我们认为外国人和我们不一样，但其实他们和我们又是多么的相像！

当然，人们之间的差异确实存在，我们也希望这种差异会一直延续下去。当所有不同国家的人民都行为相似时，世界就会变得很无趣。而且一些人可能会说我们正在快速接近这种状态。随着人们的快速聚集和旅行的方便，至少就欧洲而言，这会变成事实。随着现在的旅行越来越便利，这样的人也会越来越多，也许现在的英国人，法国人和德国人就很相像。

杰里是那种非常遇事非常乐观的人。当有人问他是怎样做到这一点时，他会回答：“如果我能做得更好，我就相当于两个人了！”

他是个很独特的经理，因为总有几个服务员跟着他从一家餐馆到另一个餐馆。服务员们跟随他的原因是他的态度。他是一个天生的观察者。如果一位雇员心情不好，他就会倍着他，并告诉他怎样从积极的角度看待事情。

几年之后，我听说杰里曾经被三个持枪歹徒所威胁。当他试图开启保险箱时，由于紧张手一直在颤抖，还忘了密码。最后歹徒们由于惊慌而向他开枪。

幸运的是，杰里很快就被发现，然后快速送往创伤中心。在18个小时的手术和几周特别的看护后，他出院了，但子弹的碎片还留在他的体内。

出事后大约过了6个月，我见到了他。当我问他现在怎么样的时候，他回答：“如果我能做得更好，我就相当于两个人了！你想看看我的伤疤吗？”我拒绝了看他的伤口，但是我问他歹徒行凶时他在想什么。


他回答，“我想的第一件事就是应该把后门关上，然后当我躺在地上时，我知道我有两个选择：一个选择是活着，另一个是死去，我选择活着。”