Start of Summer or “lixia” is the seventh of 24 solar terms on the Chinese lunar calendar,    1    (mark) the beginning of summer. This year it happens on May 6. When it arrives，the temperature rises    2     (obvious), and summer heat arrives. There is also    3    increase in thunderstorms, and crops enter their peak season for growth.

It means a lot for Chinese farmers,    4    still carry out their agricultural activities since ancient times    5     (base) on the change of solar terms. The temperature conditions are most suitable    6    planting early rice around lixia. It’s also the busiest season for tea farmers    7    ( pick) tea leaves, otherwise they over-matures(成熟).

There are a    8    (various) of customs to celebrate the occasion, such as eating eggs. People believed a round egg symbolized a happy life and eating eggs on the day of lixia was a prayer for a     9     (health) body. They put leftover tea into boiled water together with eggs and the original “tea egg”    10    (create). Later people improved cooking methods and added spices(香料) to the eggs to make them taste delicious. Today tea eggs have become a traditional snack in China.

The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the major Chinese holidays. It     1     (fall) on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month and is a     2     (tradition) festival of the Chinese nation. In Zigui County, Hubei Province, the Dragon Boat Festival has long been as     3     (equal) important as the Spring Festival. Zigui is the hometown of Qu Yuan, a great Chinese poet and politician in ancient China     4     (know) for his love for the country and classic poems. And each local custom of Dragon Boat Festival reflects local people’s respect for him.

Realgar (雄黄) wine     5     (believe) to be useful in driving away negativity, so it’s ordinary in Zigui that an elderly family member dabs (轻茶) the wine on a child’s ear, nose, forehead and feet,     6     (hope) to protect the child from snakes and insects.

In Zigui, zongzi is an important food for the Dragon Boat Festival. Unlike those in other places, Zigui’s zongzi must be made into a shape with sharp edges and corners,     7     special form represents Qu’s great spirit.

Zigui has a custom of holding a poetry     8     (compete) in honor of its well-known poet citizen. Today, there are more than 1,000 members in two dozen poetry societies in Zigui, making it     9     unique cultural tradition in Qu’s hometown.

The Zigui Dragon Boat Festival reflects Chinese people’s respect for their ancestors (祖先) and also the desire     10     a better life.

Ramie (苎麻), the main clothing material for Chinese people since ancient times, is also known as   “Chinese grass” in the world. The ramie output in China accounts for more than 90%     1     of the world. The linen (亚麻布) woven with ramie is     2    (consequence) called “Grass Cloth (夏布)”. Since ramie raw material has a thick gum and is irregular in texture, each step of procedure is purely manual. In that case, the weavers should complete more than a dozen steps     3     they finish making the clothes.

Rongchang, located in Chongqing, China, is considered as “Hometown of Grass Cloth”. Right now, in the spacious exhibition hall     4    (place) ancient pure wooden looms (织布机), along with many grass cloth products, all looking so dazzling     5     the eyes.

In old times, on a farmhouse engaged in the production of grass cloth, you could always see a busy scene     6     workers rinsed (清洗) the thin fibers between the ramie skin and the straw, and got the ramie silk as the raw material of grass cloth. Today, only some farmers in Rongchang are making grass cloth, most of them     7    (work) in family-run workshops.

Huang Xiuying,     8     only seventh-generation inheritor of the family business, has carried out bold     9     (innovate), integrating the aesthetics of the times, and using popular art design and cultural packaging     10    (give) grass cloth more sense of the times.