In the town of Lampang in northern Thailand, there is an unusual group of musicians. They play many different kinds of music—from traditional Thai songs to music by Beethoven. Both children and adults love this group. What makes them so popular? Is it their music? Their looks? Yes, it’s both of these things, but it’s also something else: they’re elephants.

These musical elephants are from the Thai Elephant Conservation Center（TECC）in Lampang. The TECC protects elephants. It teaches people to understand and care for these huge, but gentle, animals. And, like many zoos around the world, the TECC encourages elephants to paint.

Richard Lair works with the TECC. He knew that elephants hear better than they see. So he had an idea：if elephants are intelligent and they have good hearing, maybe they can play music. To test his idea, Lair and a friend started the Thai Elephant Orchestra. During a performance, the elephants play a variety of instruments, including the drums and the xylophone. The animals also use their voices and trunks to make sounds.

But can elephants really make music properly? Yes, says Lair. They’re very creative. Humans may encourage the animals to play instruments, but the elephants make their own songs; they don’t just copy their trainers or other people. There are now CDs of the group’s music, which make money for the TECC. And the music these artists create is pretty amazing.

Traditional Chinese culture is catching the world’s eyes. The good traditional Chinese culture is our great treasure. President Xi Jinping says we should have a high of culture confidence. There are so many great works in the course of Chinese history such as Di Zi Gui,Lun Yu,Meng Zi and so on. Xi Jinping and other leaders often borrow some wonderful sentences from them. Dao De Jing is also one of them.

It is widely believed that Lao zi, a famous Chinese philosopher and the founder of Taoism, was the writer of Dao De Jing. There are only 5000 characters in the book, but it is considered as one of the oldest and most important philosophy books of ancient China .It includes two parts, Dao and De.

Dao means "the Way". It doesn’t tell us how to choose the right way, but it really shows that one should act through naturalness and non-action.

Naturalness refers to a natural state of being, an attitude of following the way of nature. Lao Zi thought that everything in the world has its own way of being and developing. Birds fly in the sky; Tigers live in the forest; Fish swim in the water; Flowers bloom and flowers fall. He gave advice to the people who have strong feelings to control the world. He said they should give up the desires （欲望）.

Non-action （无为） does not mean that one should do nothing but passively wait for something to be achieved. What he meant is that human should follow the way of nature and try not to break the rule of nature.

De means“Virtue（德行）”. Lao zi thought the great virtue is like water. And he thinks nothing in the world is weaker than water, yet nothing is stronger than water when it comes. It can nearly destroy everything strong. In ancient China, there is also a saying, water can hold the boat, it can also make the boat turn upside down. Water is a typical （典型的） example of the weak beating the strong.

Of course, there are many other wonderful things we can learn from the book. Today, Dao de Jing still plays a role in the development of Chinese thoughts. It is becoming more and more popular with people around the world.

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