More and more people in America are celebrating the Indian holiday Diwali. Diwali is Hindi for “row of lights”. It is the most important holiday in India.
Many people around the world are beginning to celebrate it as well. The United States is one of the places where the festival is becoming more common. Diwali celebrations can now be found at American landmarks like Disneyland in California and New York City’s Times Square. They are also held in many parks and museums.
Neeta Bhasin created the Times Square event. She said Indian immigrants have found great success in America. But, she said, many Americans still do not know much about India. So, she decided to act. “I felt it’s about time that we should take India to mainstream America and show India’s rich culture, heritage, arts and variety to the world,” she said, “and I couldn’t find a better place than Times Square.”
Bhasin came to the United States from India 40 years ago. She is president of ASB Communications, the marketing firm behind Diwali at Times Square. Tens of thousands of people attend the event, now in its fourth year.
In India, Diwali is a five-day harvest festival held just before the Hindu New Year. The exact dates change from year to year but Diwali is always in the fall. Celebrations include lighting oil lamps or candles called “diyas”.
A Diwali celebration will light up Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim this year. Visitors can watch performances of traditional Indian dances and take part in a Bollywood dance party. The event is part of a Festival of Holidays program at the theme park to show cultural traditions from around the world. The program takes place on November 10th through January 7th.
San Antonio, Texas, also holds a Diwali celebration. And it is one of the nation’s largest celebrations, with more than 15,000 people in attendance each year. Visitors can enjoy Indian dance, food and fireworks. Organizers also plan to float hundreds of lighted candles in the San Antonio River, along the city’s famous River Walk.
1. Which is the main symbol in the Indian holiday Diwali?| A．Dances. | B．Lamps. |
| C．Food. | D．Clothes. |
| A．To make the American culture richer. |
| B．To create a new business for the firm. |
| C．To make Indian culture better known in the US. |
| D．To show the achievements of Indian immigrants. |
| A．It is held in autumn in India. |
| B．It lasts five days in America. |
| C．It has been held for 40 years in America. |
| D．It happens from November 10th to January 7th in India. |
| A．Diwali is mainly celebrated in Disney Parks. |
| B．Many American cities compete to hold Diwali. |
| C．Indian Holiday Diwali lights up America, too. |
| D．Diwali has become the most important holiday in India. |
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Stilton Cheese Rolling
May Day is a traditional day for celebrations, but the 2,000 English villagers of Stilton must be the only people in the world who include cheese rolling in their annual plans. Teams of four, dressed in a variety of strange and funny clothes , roll a complete cheese along a 50-metre course. On the way, they must not kick or throw their cheese, or go into their competitors' lane. Competition is fierce and the chief prize is a complete Stilton cheese weighing about four kilos (disappointingly, but understandably the cheeses used in the race are wooden ones). All the competitors are served with beer or port wine, the traditional accompaniment for Stilton cheese.
Fiery Foods Festival—The Hottest Festival on Earth
Every year more than 10,000 people head for the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They come from as far away as Australia, the Caribbean and China, but they all share a common addiction—food that is not just spicy ,but hot enough to make your mouth burn, your head spin and your eyes water. Their destination is the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival which is held over a period of three days every March. You might like to try a chocolate-covered habanero pepper—officially the hottest pepper in the world—or any one of the thousands of products that are on show. But one thing's for sure—if you don't like the feeling of a burning tongue, this festival isn't for you!
La Tomatina—The World's Biggest Food Fight
On the last Wednesday of every August, the Spanish town of Bunol hosts Ea Tomatina—the world's largest food fight. A week-long celebration leads up to an exciting tomato battle as the highlight of the week's events. The early morning sees the arrival of large trucks with tomatoes—official fight-starters get things going by casting tomatoes at the crowd.
The battle lasts little more than half an hour, in which time around 50,000 kilograms of tomatoes have been thrown at anyone or anything that moves, runs, or fights back. Then everyone heads down to the river to make friends again—and for a much-needed wash!
1. Where is the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival held?
| A．In New Mexico. | B．In the Caribbean. |
| C．In Australia. | D．In China. |
| A．three days | B．seven days |
| C．less than three days | D．more than seven days |
| A．The chief prize for the Stilton cheese rolling competition is beer or port wine. |
| B．More than 10,000 Chinese take part in the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival. |
| C．Thousands of spicy foods are on show in the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival. |
| D．An exciting tomato battle takes place at the beginning of La Tomatina. |
【推荐2】Circles can be found everywhere in the natural world, but with no accurate way to measure them they are very mysterious and might never be fully understood. When you take the distance around a circle and divide it by the distance across a circle, you will always get Pi(∏). While Pi is equal to about 3.14 when rounded, it is infinitely long. With the help of computers, mathematicians have been able to calculate Pi out to over a trillion decimal(小数) places. This makes Pi puzzling, even to the most famous mathematicians.
Pi Day is celebrated globally on March 14, since the way we write this date, 3/14, looks just like Pi when rounded. In 2009, U. S. Congress voted to officially make March 14 Pi Day. Certain parts of the world—places where March 14 is written as 14/3—will instead celebrate Pi Approximation Day which takes place on July 22nd because of the result of 22/7.
Pi has appeared in movies, comics, music, and more. “In modern movies, any time the filmmaker wants to create a sense of mystery, the symbol Pi is used,” says Blatner. People also love working to memorize the digits(数位) of Pi and competing against others to see who can remember most. The Guinness World Record for reciting the most digits of Pi is held by Lu Chao of China, who successfully recited Pi to nearly 67,000 decimal places.
Above all, Pi Day is about having fun with the number, according to Blatner. People will celebrate Pi Day by eating pie and throwing pie, and with fun Pi-related games. Princeton, New Jersey holds a series of Pi-related festivities. Events this year include a surprise birthday party for Albert Einstein whose birthday also falls on March 14, and a “Walk a Pi Event” where participants will walk 3.14 miles together. Just like the number itself, the possibilities for Pi Day are truly endless.
1. What makes Pi mysterious?| A．Ways to divide a circle. |
| B．Ways to use it when rounded. |
| C．Inability to write it as an expression. |
| D．Its plentiful decimal places. |
| A．Because it is voted officially. |
| B．Because it was corrected originally. |
| C．Because the division result is approximately equal to Pi. |
| D．Because that day is easier to remember. |
| A．To move more viewers. |
| B．To call for viewers’ attention. |
| C．To make the films more frightening. |
| D．To add something mysterious to the film. |
| A．Lu Chao is the first Chinese to recite Pi. |
| B．Many states in the USA celebrate Pi day on July 22nd. |
| C．There are many different events to celebrate Pi Day in the world. |
| D．Scientists will try their best to figure out the digits of Pi thoroughly. |
【推荐3】It is hard to calculate the number of festivals and holidays around the world because there are simply too many of them! People have all kinds of local festivals, and some international festivals are celebrated in different ways in various countries. Have you ever wondered why people need festivals?
Some of the festivals come from religious beliefs, such as Christmas. It originated among Christians but has now become a public holiday for everyone around the world. However, there are other reasons why we hold festivals. They break up the flow of the year and bind us together as families and communities.
Festivals and holidays are fun escape from our regular schedules. Without holidays our weeks would run together into years of boredom. What is October without children ringing our doorbells asking for candy? What is November without turkey on the table and family around it? The answer is: boring months.
We also celebrate festivals because they are reasons to be reconnected with family and long-lost friends. Many people do not have the freedom to meet families and close friends at any time. Festivals and holidays give us the chance. Furthermore, festivals bring us together as a community. Many people make holidays the times they reach out to other people. The bright hearts decorating department stores in February, the blinking lights hanging on lamp posts in December—these help us feel connected to something larger than ourselves.
In a world where get-togethers and barbecues do not happen as much as they used to in decades past, in a world where no one borrow sugar from his or her neighbor any longer or bakes a cake when someone moves on to the block, festivals tie us together.
Therefore, everyone should make the most of their festival times. Get out and decorate your home at Christmas time. Surprise your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend with a Valentine’s Day gift And definitely have fun at Halloween. Even if you do not enjoy Halloween, I am sure the children in your neighborhood will appreciate your dressing up, putting a graveyard in your front yard and passing out candy!
1. What does the underlined word “originated” (paragraph 2) mean in this article?| A．congratulated | B．celebrated |
| C．came into being | D．invited |
| A．Because people have the chance to meet each other. |
| B．Because department stores and lamp posts are decorated. |
| C．Because we can’t escape from work and fixed schedules. |
| D．Because we feel we are a community. |
| A．People do not go to barbecues nowadays |
| B．We don’t have as strong as a sense of community as we used to. |
| C．Few people give food to neighbors. |
| D．There are fewer social activities we enjoy during festivals. |
