【推荐1】The Dragon Boat Festival is the day to remember a Chinese national hero, Qu Yuan, who threw himself into the river and died over 2,000 years ago. Old story has said that people, in order to save Qu Yuan, beat drums to drive fish away, and threw zongzi into river to keep the fish from eating his body.

For thousands of years, people have spent the festival by eating zongzi and holding dragon boat races, especially in the southern provinces where there are many rivers and lakes.

The dragon boat races show that many people want to save Qu’s body. Those races are the most exciting part of the festival, with very large crowds of people watching them. The special boats, more than 10 meters long, have colorful “dragon” heads and tails, and each boat carries a team of 20 or 22 players. Every year dragon boat races take place in southeast Asian countries and some western countries, including America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

【推荐2】When you think of Beijing, the beautiful green waters and hills of Beihai Park and the grand and beautiful Forbidden City will come to your mind.

In recent years, groups of modern buildings and specially designed plazas have appeared on Beijing’s streets. Standing in the street, you can feel how Beijing has changed. But foreigners still like to go to the hutongs.

The word hutong comes from the Mongolian language. Hutongs come to Beijing more than 700 years ago. As time passed, the hutongs have remained, and have become an important part of the essence of Beijing.

Many foreigners, when they come to Beijing from their far countries, will go directly to visit the hutongs after setting down. They sit in the courtyards, chatting with the native Beijingers about neighbors and their life. It seems that through their chatting, they can find the true meaning of Chinese family life.

Waving good-bye, they have to leave the hutongs, and say goodbye to the families with whom they have chatted happily. But they don’t feel like leaving. The hutongs have brought great enjoyment to them.

Although every country has it own special cultural background, economic situation and level and feelings are similar. The hutong is a cultural symbol of this city. And the families of the hutongs are also unforgettable.

People in Uganda (乌干达) usually invite guests to enjoy bananas. When the guests come, they usually give each of them a cup of delicious banana juice. After that, they have the banana dishes for dinner. The most popular banana dish is matoke (乌干达蒸香蕉).

The delicious matoke is one of the oldest dishes in the world. It’s said that Kintu brought matoke to the earth. Ugandans think that Kintu was the first man on the earth.

How do Ugandans cook matoke? First, people peel some bananas and place them in banana leaves. Next, they steam (蒸) them for about one hour and then mash (捣碎) them. Finally, they mix them with some sauce (酱), fresh fish or meat to eat. Do you want to enjoy the delicious food?

【推荐2】Are you good at cooking? Do you make these common cooking mistakes(错误)?

★Not reading through the recipe(食谱) before you start cooking

Your party is beginning, and you are preparing for the dinner. If your recipe tells you to “keep it in water for at least 24 hours”, what should you do? So you’d better read the recipe to the end before you start cooking.

★Not tasting food as you cook

If you don’t taste your food when you are cooking, your dinner might not taste as wonderful as you hoped. ①为什么不放个勺子在你旁边呢？ Don’t be afraid to taste, taste, taste. That’s what the top cooks do!

★Overcooking

When you take food out of the pot, it will keep cooking within a short time because of the high temperature. So the meat that you want to have half cooked(半熟) is now fully cooked. It’s the same for vegetables. This is why TV cooks always put cooked vegetables into ice water.

★Using olive oil(橄榄油) to cook everything

②If you plan to cook at a high temperature, don’t use olive oil. It doesn’t taste good and it’s less healthy at a high temperature.

Right now, more than 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuel ( 矿物燃料). Fossil fuel is oil, gas and coal (煤). There are many problems with fossil fuel. One problem is that when fossil fuel is burned, it pollutes the air. Another problem is that we’re running out of it. That’s why we need new energy.

A big source (来源) of energy for many countries is nuclear power (核能). Thirty-one countries use nuclear power now. Nuclear power has some advantages. First of all, we won’t run out of nuclear power. Also, nuclear power does not make the dirty. And if a country has nuclear power, it doesn’t need to buy much oil from other countries.

However, there are also a lot of problems that come with nuclear power. For example, nuclear accidents are very serious. In 1986, there was a nuclear accident in Russia. In the next 20 years, about 4,000 people got sick or died because of that. In 2011, there was another very serious nuclear accident in Japan. That was several years ago, but Japan is still trying to clean up the nuclear waste from the accident.

Many people don’t want nuclear power in their countries. They say that it’s not safe. A lot of people in the United States, Russia, France, Japan, India and many other countries hope to use safer and cleaner ways to get electricity. Sometimes they get together to show their strong disagreement with nuclear power.

Though many people hate nuclear power, more and more countries are using it.   One reason for this is that the world is using more and more energy, but we just don’t have enough fossil fuel.