Welcome to Dunhuang, a place with more than 2,000 years of history! On the old Silk Road, this city was the gateway to and from Ancient China, and a green island in the middle of the desert.

Dunhuang’s long history shows it is the center of culture and business. Today, Dunhuang is a world-class tourist site with more than 700 caves. Now we are going to enter some ancient caves known as the Mogao Grottoes? These caves were carved out of the rock. Now look around the walls of the cave! You can see elements from Ancient Greece, India and Iran.

What is unique to Dunhuang is the mural that shows the Apsaras who are musicians, singers and dancers in heaven. In one mural, the Apsaras are sailing in the bright blue sky, with their scarves flying, as if they are about to fly down to meet us. And here is another one. The Apsaras are playing musical instruments, dancing and throwing flowers. The paintings of Apsaras reach the highest level during the Tang Dynasty. These paintings are full of life, showing the optimism and happiness of people at that time.

Next we’ll see the famous Library Cave very soon-it is only a stone’s throw from here. The treasures such as paintings and silk products in the ancient library give us a picture of Dunhuang when it was at the center of the Silk Road trade. Thanks to the library, now we know that goods arrived in Dunhuang from as far away as the east Europe, and that goods were also sold from Dunhuang to other countries.

Now let’s move on to the next cave...

【推荐3】While most people think the Chinese New Year’s celebration goes on for only one day, by custom it is a fifteen-day celebration, and some of these days have their own festivals.     1    , the festival on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year’s celebration.

    2    . In one old story, an emperor ordered people to light lanterns to honor Buddha（佛陀）. Much later, people began to carry around red paper lanterns with pieces of paper with riddles（谜语）written on them.     3    , walked around and tried to solve each other’s riddles.

During the Lantern Festival, many people eat tangyuan or yuanxiao. They are quite similar, and some people even say they are the same food.     4    . These foods are most often eaten at home with the family on the day of the Lantern Festival.

Of course, an important part of the Lantern Festival is the lanterns themselves. Some cities try to have the largest, most beautiful lanterns around, of all different kinds of shapes and sizes.     5    . It makes everyone feel festive（喜庆的）and happy.

【推荐1】Boys and girls, if you enter “teen expression” and search the Internet, you will get more than what you search for. There are some really great websites out there. The sites listed here are made for you and encourage you to share, connect, and express yourselves.

Teen Ink

This is a magazine by teenagers and for teenagers. You can write stories, share stories, and judge(评判) the stories of others. You can use the free information online or pay for a subscription(订阅) to the magazine.

Young Composers(作曲者)

This is a site built to help you share your musical works. Logging in(注册) is free, and the music is quite good. If you are interested in creating your own music and dream of producing your own musical production, please join the composer club.

Budding Writers Network

This is a place where you can share your writing and get review from other teen writers. While the site is just a discussion board, the activities are often organized and teens seem to be sharing some pretty nice works as well as offering encouragement to one another.

Scenarios USA

This cool website encourages you to create and post films that deal with social problems. The films are pretty impressive(令人印象深刻的). Topics cover hot topics including heavy traffic, environmental pollution and food safety.