As an old Chinese saying goes, Spring Festival comes right after Laba Festival, so get ready for a bowl of porridge while looking forward to the long-awaited family get-together.

Today, people across China are celebrating the Laba Festival. It is a traditional Chinese festival. It’s on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month. What does this festival mean to Chinese people? OK, it just tells people to prepare for celebrating the coming New Year’s Day and for wanderers to return home to get together with their family.

Long long ago, Laba Festival was a day of thanks for a good harvest. On this day, people usually eat Laba porridge, a porridge with eight kinds of mixed grains. Many temples today have the tradition of giving out Laba porridge to the public. The sweet, red porridge is believed to bring luck and joy.

The festival is also the day for people to put garlic in vinegar. The garlic turns green, and this Laba garlic will be eaten with dumplings on Chinese New Year’s Day. While in the past, it was used to let people remember to pay back the money they had borrowed, as Laba is near the end of the year and “garlic”(suan, 蒜in Chinese) sounds the same as “calculate”(suan算).

Customs are quite different across the country. People Qianxian, east China’s Anhui Province, will eat the Laba tofu a few days before. In Xining City, northwest China’s Qinghai Province will eat porridge with beef and mutton.

China has achieved great success in the manned (载人的) space program since 2003. On October 15th, 2003, Chinese spaceman Yang Liwei was sent up into space in Shenzhou V. He was the first Chinese who travelled in the space. He travelled around the earth fourteen times in twenty-one hours and twenty-three minutes. His trip to the space was a great success in China’s manned space history. It marked China became the third nation to succeed in manned space flight.

Two years later, Fei Junlong, from Jiangsu province, and Nie Haisheng, from Hubei province, were both sent up into space in Shenzhou VI. On October 17th, the two heroes were safely returned to the earth. On September 25th, 2008, Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng were sent up into space. Zhai made a spacewalk which lasted at least fourteen minutes. It was the first time for a Chinese to walk in the space.

On June 11th, 2013, Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and China’s second spacewoman, Wang Yaping were sent up into space in Shenzhou X and the spaceship connected to the space station Tiangong I.

Do you know which social app is popular with Chinese young people now? “Short videos” are certainly the most popular. A large number of young people use Tik Tok(抖音) and Kuaishou. They think it is fun to share their lives by short videos, while others have other purposes as well.

A 12-year-old user named Elsa has about 2.7 million fans on Tik Tok. The girl has shared her dancing studies on Tik Tok since last July. One of the videos won her about one million fans. “I feel really glad to share happiness with people by short videos,” said Elsa.

To some other young people, they use short videos to have a quick look at the hot programs. “Because I don’t like to spend many hours watching a whole program, I hate waiting for a program to end, and I prefer to watch short videos of wonderful parts of hot programs,” said Wang Zhihao.

However, some young people feel bored with short videos. “Killing time is the main reason for me to watch short videos, and many short videos are almost the same, so I think they are not so useful or interesting. What’s more, I really don’t like the videos about strange and dangerous things,” said Wen Nan, another college student.

Recently, something else has appeared. Some videos are telling people what commodities are worth buying. Some short videos even sell bad commodities, and it’s hard for customers to get their money back. So we should think twice before we want to buy the commodities by short videos.

In classes, your teachers will talk about the topics that you are studying. The information they provide will be important for you to know when you take tests. So you must be able to take good written notes from what your teachers say.

Here are three stages (阶段）of taking notes and what you should do during each stage.

Before class

Review your notes you have taken before you come to class. This will be good for remembering what was covered. Get you ready to understand new information your teacher will provide.

During class

Keep your attention on what your teacher is saying and “the signal words” that tell you what your teacher is going to say and it is important to write in your notes. Examples of signal words are “The most important point.”and “Remember that...” Be sure to include in your notes information that your teacher repeats or writes on the blackboard. Write quickly so that you can include all the important information in your notes. Do this by writing abbreviations such as med for medicine, using symbols such as % for percent, and writing short sentences.

After class

Rewrite your notes to make them more complete and accurate（准确的）by changing abbreviations into whole words, symbols into words, and shortened sentences into longer sentences. Use them to answer your questions. If necessary, ask your teacher for help.

My name is Tim. My father didn’t know how to show love. He went to work every day. He often blamed（责备） me when I had made mistakes.

Once I broke my leg, my mother held me in her arms all the way to the hospital. My father pulled the car right up to the doors of the hospital. He looked really anxious（焦急的）.

When I learned to ride a bike, I asked him not to leave me alone, but he said it was time. I fell and my mother ran to pick me up, but he stopped her. I was mad and I wanted to show him that I could ride it myself.

When I went to college, my mother wrote letters to me. He just sent money and a little note about how great his garden looked now because I wasn’t playing football in it. Whenever I called home, he acted as he wanted to talk but always said, “Wait, Tim. I’ll get your mother.”

When I got married, Mum cried. He just blew his nose loudly and left the room.

All my life he said, “Where are you going? What time are you coming home? “Father’s love is as great as a mountain, people often say. Didn’t I realize his love?