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阅读理解
My great-grandmother, Ethel, came from
England to the United States in 1921. She brought almost nothing with her-just
a few clothes and trinkets(小饰物). But she did bring
some customs from "the old country" that she had learned as she grew
up.
One custom was that if you dropped a glass
or a cup and it broke, you would throw a little salt over your left shoulder.
It was funny that she did that-she wasn't superstitious(迷信的) in other ways. I think that she grew up doing that, so she
continued to do it as a connection to her childhood.
Ethel also taught us a New Year's Day
custom that our family continues to follow today. To celebrate the new year, we
would travel to a friend's house for a quick visit. My great-grandmother always
took a pound of butter with her on our visits. We would enter the friend's
house through the back door. The butter we brought was to give our friend a "gift
of gold" to symbolize hope for prosperity in the new year.
After my great-grandmother died, we still
visited people on the first day of January, but eventually we stopped bringing
the butter. We never did throw salt over our shoulders after breaking a glass
or a cup. Some customs are continued when they cross from one country to
another, but some customs fade away.