According to the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, for every 19 years there will be seven leap months. There are some traditions during leap month in China, which are different in different places.

In some part of Central China’s Henan Province, daughters will prepare wild goose-shaped pastries for their parents before the leap month comes, wishing for happiness and luck. In some parts of East China’s Shandong Province, the married daughters will send fish made by dough to their parents, which means “wealth”. And they will also send dough-made toads to wish their parents good health.

People living near Wuyi Mountain in East China’s Fujian Province have the tradition of drinking tea during the leap month, and only women can attend. Women in the village take turns holding the tea party, and they drink tea while talking to one another.

Just like other festivals, a get-together dinner is very important among the traditions of the leap month. When leap month comes, parents will invite the married daughter to return home and have dinner together, wishing for happiness and good luck.

Life can sometimes feel like it’s uncontrollably toward disasters—just like the feeling you get when you’re lost control of your moving car. It’s the feeling of complete helplessness and panic. While we may be feeling overwhelmed with everything going on in our lives right now, there are still some steps we can take to control our lives again.

The first thing we need to do is to accept. When we’re feeling overwhelmed, it only means we are living, breathing humans. Life is like a roller coaster ride with its ups, downs, twists and turns. It’s also like the change of the seasons. Sometimes we forget this.

When we accept it, no matter how much we try, we may not be able to control our reality. But we can change our expectations to match our reality. This may mean changing our goals and tasks. Changing may feel like failure and giving up at the moment, but this ability is a chance to create success in the long term. Working with reality rather than against it can give us the ability to think and hope.

Sometimes, when we’re feeling overwhelmed, we may pay no attention to the things we manage to complete. However, celebrating our small wins creates space for gratitude in our hearts. Celebrating wins (whatever size) allows us to clearly see the progress we are making.

Feeling overwhelmed may be a part of life, but if we just step back a bit, we can see the ups and downs of our roller coaster ride are just called LIFE!

You’re out enjoying the city when you find a group of people on the sidewalk. They are standing around some street dancers. The dancers are young, and they’re wearing backward baseball caps, baggy pants, and sports shoes.

As the music plays, the dancers take turns showing off their movements. They slide their feet back and forth before they drop to the ground. Then, they spin around on their heads and backs. Sometimes, they even stop their bodies for a short time in the middle of a move.

The dance they perform is break dancing. The young break dancers move with lots of speed, power, and energy. You can see that they have a great deal of talent. You can also see their love for break dancing. It’s really cool to watch.

Break dancing is a form of dance full of energy. It mainly has four kinds of movements. They are toprock, footwork, power move, and freeze. Also, the music that is used has clear drum breaks.

Breaking got its start in New York City in the early 1970s. Young people fell in love with it, and thanks to TV, movies, and newspapers, the dance quickly got popular in many different cultures. By 2010, there were independent competitions around the world.

The rise of breaking isn’t over yet. In 2024, it will enter the world stage as an official sport at the Paris Olympics. There, 16 male and 16 female break dancers will go head-to-head for the gold. This is great news for breaking and break dancers everywhere!

①Researchers have used high technology to learn about a famous painting by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. The painting is called Girl with a Pearl Earring. Vermeer was considered as one of the greatest art masters during the Dutch Golden Age of painting in the 1600s.

②The researchers’ tests have found out important information about how Vermeer did the painting. He began making the work with brown and black paints on a piece of cloth. Then, he drew the girl’s outline in black before working from the green background to the foreground.

③A careful examination even showed where some of the paints came from. The white came from the Peak District in northern England. The blue was made from a valuable stone found in Afghanistan. The red was made from insects living in Mexico and South America.

④Abbie Vandivere was leader of the research project. She expressed surprise that Vermeer used so much blue in the painting, noting, “The blue paint was more valuable than gold in the 17th century.” Vermeer, however, did not travel around the world to get the paints. He most probably bought them in his hometown of Delft.

⑤The research findings do not just show information about Vermeer’s paints, but also tell us about Dutch and world trade in the seventeenth century. Sadly, the researchers failed to find out if the girl ever existed.

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