新時(shí)代送禮準(zhǔn)則

新時(shí)代送禮準(zhǔn)則

盲目重復(fù)的禮物往往造成資源的浪費(fèi)，而人們也記不住是誰給自己送了香燭、香水和衣服，當(dāng)拋開送禮的目的性之后，新時(shí)代的最佳禮物是讓人大快朵頤的美食。

測(cè)試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識(shí)：

newbie網(wǎng)絡(luò)新手；新兵['nju?b?]

metric公制的；米制的['metr?k]

staggering驚人的['stæɡ?r??]

tchotchke小玩意['t??t?k?]

netsuke懸錘；墜子['netsk?]

appease使平息[?'pi?z]

reciprocity相互作用[,res?'pr?s?t?]

chronicle編年史，年代記['kr?n?k(?)l]

antelope羚羊['ænt?l??p]

carnivorous食肉的[kɑ?'n?v(?)r?s]

Mangoes, and the changing rules of buying presents（765 words）

By Nilanjana Roy

I used to love everything about presents — until I read the Global Candle Market Report 2017. Like every newbie to this fiercely competitive, hygge-fuelled world, I was blown away by the figures. Candle-makers, including new entrants from China, produced 1,676,540 metric tons of candles in 2016, which is a lot of money to spend on scented wax.

For a moment, picture the world lit up in flaming candles, the US and the UK burning a little more brightly and fragrantly than the rest. It won't be very long before we've blanketed Planet Earth in scents ranging from Baked Goods to Floral, Spicy, Oriental Tea, Apple Blossom and Log Fire.

Those who buy scented candles, and I confess my own complicity, don't see themselves as part of these staggering numbers, the billion pounds of wax poured into the industry. You buy candles, or any other gift, in the hope of adding something bright, and new, even individual, to your life, even though you're only one of thousands or millions buying Tuberose Rouge Red for the home.

But this business of buying and receiving gifts, this chain of objects representing practically every shade of human need from affection to lust, guilt to bribery, and concern to love, is such a tangle. Many of my friends rebel against the cycle of gift-giving, for reasons varying from environmental — never give presents that will end up in landfill — to a kind of modern fatigue, a wearing of things in themselves.

One friend simply refuses to give or receive tchotchkes, arguing that we all have too much stuff; another gives only her own (brilliant) photographs and artworks. A third, also an artist, prefers not to be given art or ceramics because she has no room for more art, thereby eschewing the secondary gifting economy created by talented people who give their own creations or their children's art as gifts. Some of these are breathtaking — I will treasure a hand-carved netsuke piece, for instance, or something beautiful chosen by a friend on their travels.

Many hand out IOUs for services instead of gifts, though few of us would be demanding enough to cash those in. Food, from salamis and cheeses to Kachampuli Coorg vinegar or special spice mixes, remains universally popular. There's much to be said for the pleasure of the thoughtfully selected, unusual gift that happens to be exactly what you wanted — though gifting an experience (a trip to Paris, skydiving sessions, a meeting with a favourite performer) might even be more memorable.

Are we over-gifting? Under-gifting? How many scented candles circulate from giver to recipient and back again, never to be unwrapped? According to research by the Dutch financial institution ING in 2016, one in seven Europeans were unhappy with gifts they had received. About 25 per cent of those surveyed across 14 countries reported that they had re-gifted their presents, while 14 per cent sold them. Millennials tended to throw away unwanted gifts. Perhaps you should give only what establishes trust, or creates welcome surprise, though this is utopian — much of gift-giving is driven by the impulse to flatter, to bribe or to appease a guilty conscience.

Old manuscripts — Indian, Chinese and medieval Italian — are a reminder that gift-giving has always been a complicated business, pocked with cultural pitfalls, often trapping givers into an endless cycle of reciprocity. A classic dilemma: what to give the man or woman who already had an empire at their disposal?

The Emperor Jahangir's Tuzuk-e-Jahangiri, his personal memoir, pauses often to chronicle gifts received, exchanged and re-gifted. Jahangir's interest in the natural world created opportunities for those eager to please the emperor — they sent him turkeys, a rare dodo, a female antelope who beguiled him greatly, a zebra that he generously passed on to the Shah of Iran, the favoured elephant Futeh that was bestowed on a fortunate writer.

As for me: one of the few recipes I can claim to make well is Jacques Pépin's simple but glorious duck liver pâté. Carnivorous friends get pâté; vegetarian friends get mangoes, and the reaction confirms my belief that people remember what they eat far more than what they wear.

You might sometimes forget who gave you silver bracelets or neckties or perfume, but you always remember a honey-fleshed Dussehri mango, and the rich, melting flavour of pâté spread on slices of baguette. As presents, mangoes leave only a good taste in the mouth — no one in their right mind would return or regift a plump Alphonso. Nilanjana Roy is the author of ‘The Wildings’ and ‘The Hundred Names of Darkness’ and lives in Delhi.

@nilanjanaroy