Dragon Dance is a kind of traditional dance in Chinese culture. It has been spread all over China and to the whole world.

Traditionally, dragons were made of wood and cloth. However, in the modern times, dragons are lighter because they are made of lighter materials like plastics. The length (长度) of dragons can be from around 25 to 35 meters for acrobatic (杂技的) models. And it can be up to 50 to 70 meters for the largest parade (游行), because people believe that the longer the dragon is, the more luck it will bring.

The Dragon Dance itself began during the Han Dynasty. And it was started by the Chinese who had shown great respect towards the dragon. It was already a popular event during the Song Dynasty. At that time, it became a popular activity like the Lion Dance. People could often see it during some important festivals. In the Qing Dynasty, the Dragon Dance Team of Fuzhou was invited to put on a show in Beijing. And the emperor spoke highly of it. The emperors of ancient China thought themselves as the dragons.

3 . Stonehenge

With a history of about 5, 000 years, Stonehenge is one of the world’s wonders. It’s a circle of stones of different heights. The stones used to be about 200 kilometers away. Now people still wonder how ancient people moved the huge stones without machines’ help.

Louvre Museum

No visit to Paris is complete without a trip to Louvre Museum, one of the largest and most famous art museums in the world. About 35, 000 works of art from different centuries are on show.

Mount Qomolangma

Heavy snow, cold wind and thin oxygen (氧气), Mount Qomolangma seems to say no to any climber who dreams about making it to the top of the world. Tenzing and Edmund were the earliest to arrive at the top.

Lake District National Park

In the north of England lies Lake District National Park, which is very beautiful, with hills, lakes and forest. Most tourists like walking around the lakes and climbing mountains. Lake District National Park is also a perfect place to paint the beautiful countryside.

4 . “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” This is an old English saying. It means that we should go to bed early at night and get up early in the morning. If we do, we will be healthy. We will also be rich and clever.

Is this true? Perhaps it is. The body must have enough sleep. Children of your age need eight hours’ sleep every night. If you go to bed late, you can’t have enough sleep. Then you can’t think carefully and your homework will be wrong. You will not be wise and you may not become wealthy!

Some people go to bed late at night and get up late in the morning. This is not good for them. We should sleep at night when it is dark. The dark helps us sleep well. When the daylight comes, we should get up. This is the time for exercise. If the body is not used, it will become weak. Exercise keeps it strong.

Exercise helps the blood (血液) to move around inside the body. Blood takes nutrition (营养) to all parts of our bodies. The brains (大脑) in our heads also need blood. We think with our brains. If we keep our bodies healthy, and take exercise, we can think better!

Our bodies also need air to breathe. Without air we will die. Get up early in the morning and we can have plenty of clean, fresh air. That will keep us healthy and happy.

Almost everyone is using mobile phones now. Smart phones are used as televisions, cameras, and music players. They are also used for sending e-mails or surfing the Internet. If someone talks about mobile phones, many Chinese will think of Huawei.

In China, even in the world. Huawei is a wonder (奇迹). Ren Zhengfei set up Huawei company in 1987. The company sold 58.4 million smart phones in the first season of 2019. Huawei has got the second place at the mobile market.

Now, Huawei has been the leader in 5G field. It has more than 75, 000 top engineers and scientists on research. They try their best to bring digital (数码) and high technology to every person and place. It’s more convenient for modern people to live in a rapid way. What a useful technology 5G is!

We are looking forward to seeing a stronger Huawei. It provides a faster and better communication way for us. It also brings “Created in China” to the world.

6 . Is that Yao Ming playing basketball? It looks like him, but it is a robot! The Yao Ming robot was one of the many “stars” at the World Robot Conference (世界机器人大会). It was from Aug. 23 to 27 in Beijing.

Robots from the world came to WRC. Some can work in factories. Some go to outer space or underwater. But service robots were the most popular at the WRC. Service robots can help do many jobs in our daily lives, such as washing, teaching and playing sports.

For example, the Yao Ming robot can teach kids how to play basketball. If schools use it, it can bring lots of fun to PE classes.

Alpha 2 is a housekeeper robot. If you want to turn off the lights, or TV, just tell it before going to sleep, children may also want to hear Alpha 2 tell them a bedtime story.

A supermarket robot makes shopping easier. You can talk with the robot. It will help you find things. It also carries them for you. You can even use the robot to pay for your things.

Do you want to have a service robot, too?

As early as 5000 or 6000 years ago, Chinese people started to dance and made it a part of their life activities. In the Xia dynasty (夏朝), dance became a main part of activities. Court dance (宫廷舞) started at that time. Court dance was the best in the Tang dynasty, because the Tang dynasty dance spread fast to Korea and Japan. Even today people can find the charm (魅力) of the Tang dynasty dance in the dances of these countries.

Folk dance (民间舞) is sometimes special to a place: the lion dance in Hebei Province and Guangdong Province, the tea-picking dance in Yunnan Province, the great yangko in the north-east of China and so on.

8 . In Chinese culture, gift giving is a way of remembering special days. But there are some taboos (禁忌) on gift giving.

Chinese people usually don’t give a clock to each other. A clock sounds as zhong in Chinese. It means “the end”. So, giving someone a clock means “Your time is up.”

If clocks aren’t OK, maybe buying some fruit is a good idea. But remember not to buy pears. A pear sounds as li in Chinese. That means separation. The umbrella also sounds the same as the word for separation in Chinese. Therefore, pears and umbrellas aren’t good.

If you want to celebrate a happy moment, prepare some flowers. But don’t buy the chrysanthemum (菊花), because it is often used to remember the passing of a loved one.

Four sounds like si in Chinese, which means death (死亡). You shouldn’t give gifts in sets of four. When giving lucky money, the number shouldn’t include a four such as 40 or 400. Chinese people like to give lucky money equal to certain “lucky numbers”. For example,“520”means“I love you”,“1314”means“forever love”, “666”means“hoping everything goes well for you”and“888”means“wishing you wealth”.

At last, it’s better to wrap (包装) your gift with paper in red or other warm colors. Black and white are considered unlucky colors.

9 . People are busy working every day, so they don’t have enough time to do exercises. As a result, many people become too fat. To keep our bodies healthy, we have to do exercises every day.

These are many kinds of exercises. Bending (弯腰) and stretching (伸展) helps us move easily. Before we play ball games or swim, it is better for us to do bending and stretching exercises first. This kind of exercise is sometimes called warm-up exercise. Running is also a good exercise. If we can not run fast, we can jog. Jogging means running slowly. Again, before we run or jog, we must do warm-up exercises. Also, we should not run or jog in busy streets. The air is often dirty. Some people like weightlifting (举重) because it can make their bodies strong, we also need to do some warm-up exercises before weightlifting.

10 . People in different countries have different hobbies.

Japanese like reading. We can see them read everywhere, in the station, on the bus, in the subway and in other public places. Japanese read 40 books on average (平均) every year, while the number in China is only 7.

American people’s hobby is watching TV. When they are free, a family often stay at home and watch TV together. Americans watch TV at least one hour each day. And about 96% of Americans take watching TV as their first hobby.

When you visit England, you may see many people wearing scarves (围巾) with different colors and patterns (图案) in the street and on the bus. They are always talking about a coming soccer game. Watching a soccer game is their common hobby. And different scarves stand for different soccer teams they like.

People in France like music. When they have time, some will stay at home to listen to music. Some choose to go to the theatre to enjoy an opera or a concert.