A Letter to the Editor of a Newspaper

　　June 20th, 2004

　　Dear Mr. / Miss Editor,

　　I am a student from Tsinghua University and I am writing to you about my experience of buying a dictionary and my complaint about the service of a bookstore.

　　It was about a month ago. I went to a bookstore nearby the university to buy an English dictionary. It was only after I paid for the dictionary and returned to school that I found some pages were missing. But when I went back to the bookstore to tell them about the matter, they said that I should have checked the dictionary before I left the store. According to them, it was my fault and they hold no responsibility for the whole matter.

　　What I want to say is that sincerity and enthusiasm are vital to the survival of service industries in such a market economy featured by fierce competition. It was quite easy for them to change the dictionary for me but they refused to do so. They will lose all customers if they persist in doing so. I hope that this letter can draw the attention of the whole society and that the problem can be solved as soon as possible.

　　Best regards.

　　Yours sincerely

　　Li Mingsincerity [sin'seriti] n. 诚实，真实，诚心诚意

　　enthusiasm [in'θju:ziæzəm] n. 热情，热心;热衷的事物

　　vital ['vaitl] adj. 至关重要的，生死攸关的，有活力的，致命的

　　survival [sə'vaivəl] n. 生存，幸存者

　　fault [fɔ:lt] n. 缺点，过失，故障，毛病，过错，[地]断层

　　sincerely [sin'siəli] adv. 真诚地，真心地

　　competition [kɔmpi'tiʃən] n. 比赛，竞争，竞赛