Every year, people in the west celebrate Easter (复活节). Easter falls on April 8 this year. It is a very old Christian (基督) festival. It is older than Christmas. At Easter, Christians remember the death of Jesus (耶稣) and his coming back to life.

Eggs are very important at Easter. It is because an egg means the start of a new life. The eggs come in special boxes. When kids open them, they find a chocolate egg in two halves. And inside there are candies. Kids get to eat a lot of chocolate at Easter. At Easter kids also boil eggs and paint them pretty colors.

And do you know the Easter bunny (兔子)? Kids like the lively bunnies very much. Rabbits also mean the new life, because rabbits have lots of babies.

The BBC celebrated 100 years on Oct. 18. To celebrate the day, it brought out a 100 second video showing BBC hosts (主持人) making silly mistakes or forgetting their lines. It’s British humor. Humor is a big part of British daily life. Although they don’t make jokes all the time, it is true that most conversations have some humor even if they are talking about bad things that have happened. Let’s have a look at the British special ways to be humorous,

British people are quite outgoing. They like to make fun of themselves and laugh at just about anything. They make fun of each other, lightly making one another angry and then laughing about it. For example, if their friend makes them fall down and says “enjoy your trip”, they call this kind of joking between friends “banter”.

British people love being sarcastic (挖苦的)—when they say one thing but mean another. Like if their friend has got a bad haircut and they say “Wow that’s the best haircut I’ve ever seen”, when they both know it’s really bad. Similar to this is the understatement (淡化), like saying “it’s a bit windy”, when there’s a huge storm outside.

They also love their awkward (尴尬的) situations. The British can be quite awkward people not knowing what to say in social situations or saying the wrong thing to the wrong people, or just being a bit strange in pubic. Mr. Bean making a fool of himself in front of people is a good example.

Another thing they love doing is being “deadpan”. They always like to tell funny things with a serious face. This makes us feel that they aren’t telling a joke. So, the next time you meet a British person and don’t understand their humor, don’t worry, it’s very understandable.

Long time ago, people from other cultures used their hands to eat food, while the ancient Chinese invented chopsticks to keep their hands clean. Early chopsticks were used mainly for cooking until 400 A.D. when people began eating with chopsticks.

We don’t know exactly when chopsticks were invented. There’s a research showing that they didn’t come into wide use until about 300 B.C. Chinese thinker Confucius was an important person in the history of chopsticks, because he thought peace would not appear if people used knives during a meal.

The “no-knives-on-the-table” rule led to a big change in Chinese cooking. Food had to be cut into small pieces. This was the birth of Chinese cooking and it has made Chinese food popular around the world.

However, many Westerners find it difficult to use chopsticks. Eric, a foreign teacher, had the experience of learning to use chopsticks. “I need to hold them properly to be able to put the food carefully into my mouth.” Eric’s Chinese friends taught him patiently, but it still took him months to learn this skill. “But it’s worth learning. I have learned a lot from this experience,” Eric said.

Cultures can often be understood through food. For Chinese, food doesn’t just provide energy. It also brings happiness. And chopsticks also mean a lot. As a good example of Chinese culture, they show the Chinese wisdom (智慧).

The third largest country in the world

China is the third largest country in the world. In the north-west, you can find the hottest and driest places in the country. In the west, the countryside is beautiful, and the mountains are high. Some of the mountains are more than 7000 metres high. They are covered with ice and snow all year round, so people cannot live there. Qomolangma is the highest mountain in the world. It is also in the west. Every year people from all over the world try and climb it.

Some of China’s most important rivers begin in these mountains. In the west, they are very small. Then they become bigger as they flow to the east. Rivers like the Changjiang River and the Yellow River begin in the west of China.

In some places, the rivers are connected to big lakes, like Dongting Lake in Hunan Province. Most of the rivers run to the east and the south. In time, they run into one of   China’s seas—the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea or the South China Sea.

There is a cafeteria (自助食堂) in Chen Guixiang’s neighborhood. The 79-year-old woman goes there with her husband almost every day. They don’t need to cook for themselves. “The cafeteria is near our home so we only need to walk for five minutes to get there. And the foods are not expensive and taste great,” Chen said.

The cafeteria started up in September, 2022 and has served more than 17,000 people. There are three dishes and a soup for each meal. It costs only about 10 yuan for old people aged 60 and above. Of course, young people can also eat there, but they pay a bit more.

“We welcome old people to our cafeteria to eat and spend time with friends. There are some volunteers working here. They may help take meals to disabled people’s homes,” the leader of the cafeteria said.

There are also some interesting activities for old people in the cafeteria, such as Chinese calligraphy and painting. They make the old people’s life colorful. The old people enjoy themselves there. Wei Xiaokun, 82, comes here to have dinner. “I enjoy the food here. And I also enjoy exercising or talking with my friends,” Wei said. “I learnt how to use my smart phone and Chinese calligraphy from volunteers.”

There are 528 such cafeterias in Fuzhou, serving around 610,000 old people. They are quite convenient for the old people.