As one of the oldest ethnic groups in China, Yao people are     1     (wide) distributed across the southern part of the country. Every year on the 16th day of the     2     (ten) month of the traditional Chinese calendar, Yao people gather to worship their ancestor-King Pan-through song and dance. This day marks the Panwang Festival, a grand celebration that     3     (symbol) the essence and continuation of Yao traditional culture.

The Panwang Festival has     4     recorded history of more than 1, 700 years. There is a fixed procedure,     5     the first step is to make offerings to Panwang. Altars are set up and idols     6     (hang). After three fires of a musket and a chorus of firecrackers, elders offer sacrifices such as pig heads, sticky rice cakes, chicken, and wine at the altars in front of the idols. People bow their heads in silent prayers as a sign of respect and remembrance.

With no     7     (write) language of their own, the history and culture of the Yao ethnic group have been passed down through the generations orally     8     the form of songs, legends and stories. The “Panwang Song”, also known as the “Great Panwang Song”, is an epic and comprehensive collection of Yao poetry. The song covers a wide range of topics     9     (include) mythology, legends and ancient events, and encompasses everyday aspects of life.

In May 2006, the Panwang Festival was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. The Panwang Festival has evolved beyond being solely a     10     (celebrate) for the Yao people, and it now attracts numerous tourists who come to experience Yao culture during this period.

Huizhou enjoys a time-honored history. In 2000, Xidi and the nearby Hongcun village were declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO for their outstanding preservation of rural architecture     1    (date) back to the Ming and Qing dynasties.   

Huizhou houses are often wooden structures with brick walls, which require a lot of maintenance. Moreover, daylight is valued in Huizhou houses, which is reflected in the building of open interior courtyards,     2     (allow) sunshine to enter the rooms. Now, walking along the bluestone streets there, visitors can appreciate the distinctive Huizhou-style houses featuring white walls, dark tiles (瓦片) and layered horse-head roofs,     3    feel like they are immersed in a traditional Chinese ink painting.   

The tourism boom helps to protect and breathe life into the ancient village. A    4    (symbol) paifang, standing at the entrance to Xidi,     5     (build) in the 16th century in memory of Hu Wenguang,     6    Ming Dynasty official born in the village who made great     7    (contribute) to local education and livelihoods. It is the local people’s desire to protect the local historical characteristics that leads to the buildings     8    (preserve) to this day. Besides ancient dwellings and paifang, there stand some ancestral halls    9    clans (宗族，家族) will gather to make sacrifices to their ancestors. With their own unique and marketable value, all these old Huizhou buildings are giving full play    10    their distinctive cultural charm.

6 . Every November, as Thanksgiving Day approaches, one memory comes to my mind. At my big Turkish family’s get-togethers, baklava (果仁蜜饼) is the norm at the dessert table. There’s rolled baklava, nut-filled baklava and chocolate-dipped baklava.

One year, though, back when I was in high school, my cousin Johnny decided to change things up a bit. He showed up at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving with two items that had never been served before--apple pie and a can of cream.

Those two items caused one of the biggest arguments. I distinctly remember my mom and aunts whispering in the kitchen.

“Apple pie?” one of my aunts said. “What to do with this?”

I can still recall my mom’s puzzled expression at it all. If there’s one thing in this world my mom distrusts, it’s fruit-filled desserts, a no-no in our cuisine culture. “Why would you bake fruits into a dessert when you can eat them fresh?” she often says.

The cream only made things worse. My mom didn’t want to hurt Johnny’s feelings. In a true act of love, she put the pie out on the dining room table, accompanied by the cream. It went mostly untouched.

Nowadays, things are different. We actually have pie at Thanksgiving--my mom regularly makes pie (the fear of fruit-filled sweets continues, but desserts topped with fruits or nuts have been given the okay). We still laugh about the drama caused by Johnny’s apple pie. I’ll never forget it. It wasn’t just about the pie for me. Growing up, I sometimes felt like an outsider because of my culture. That Thanksgiving, though, was one of the first times I realized that my family’s oddness was actually a good thing. It’s what made us.

What about you? Which Thanksgiving sticks out as your most memorable one?

7 . Having spent more than a decade on the dance floor, ROME — Niccolo Filippi, a 23-year-old Italian dance performer, recently decided to explore Chinese culture and its traditional dance forms and believes that this experience will not only boost his career, but also broaden his horizons beyond the world of dance.

His interest in diversifying his skills grew after he stumbled upon a short video of traditional Chinese-styled dance on YouTube. “I saw it as an art that combines tradition and modernity, which was mostly the reason why I liked it,” says Filippi.

Ever since, he has been closely following Chinese dance performers and watching numerous videos to learn more about the traditional style that he admires. “I prefer the traditional style because of its light movements. It also reflects my personality with elegance,” he adds.

Filippi’s chance came when he was invited to perform for a Chinese New Year celebration in the central Italian city of Florence. He has since fully committed himself to the art form, learning several pieces and putting his newfound passion into practice.

“The biggest difference that I found (compared to other disciplines) is the change of mood and emotional expressions among dances,” says Filippi, adding that he needed to shift from the dynamic moves of hip-hop to the graceful and fluid movements of Chinese dance. Despite various obstacles, Filippi’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Two of his friends shared videos of his performances on social media, and the response was overwhelming. One video garnered 500,000 views, while the other received 200,000 views.

Filippi believes that learning about different cultures is priceless, and he sees it as a means of personal growth. “I like to think of a person as a book,” he says. “Embracing different traditions and cultures, such as Chinese culture and many others, is like adding new chapters to my book, making it more diverse and wonderful.”