3 . Literary (文学的) festivals are all over the UK and Ireland this month. Here are four of them.

Hay Festival

Set on the beautiful Wales-England border, this year’s Hay Festival includes travel writer Kapka Kassabova delivering the 2023 Jan Morris Lecture, Ray Mears discussing the British woodland, and Bear Grylls and Ranulph Fiennes celebrating a love of wild spaces. Author-led tours with Wayfair Walks explore the Brecon Beacons.

Date: From 25 May to 4 June

Guernsey Literary Festival

Celebrating great writing and big ideas in the beautiful island of Guernsey, this event includes activities such as a talk by Susie Dent centred on her book An Emotional Dictionary — Real Words For How We Feel, and family-focused drawing classes from painter Rob Biddulph. The festival also offers poetry competitions, writing workshops and the chance to stretch your legs on Guernsey’s coastal trails and nature walks.

Date: From 2 to 14 May

International Literature Festival Dublin

The ancient streets that were once inspiration for James Joyce, W·B Yeats and Oscar Wilde welcome Ireland’s leading literary festival this May. The 10-day event celebrates the best Irish and international writers, poets, playwrights and screenwriters. Book-themed guided walks are also offered.

Date: From 19 to 28 May

The Bath Festivals

Founded in 1948, The Bath Festivals is a year-round creative learning program that inspires and connects different people and communities through various activities. For example, we have Bath Contemporary Artists’ Fair in May and Bath Children’s Literature Festival in September. Our other year-round hands-on music and literature projects give children and young people opportunities to gain real-world experience.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is one of the most important     1     (festival) celebrated in China and other East Asian countries. It falls     2     the 15th day of the 8th lunar month on the traditional Chinese calendar. On that night, the moon is     3    (bright) and fuller than any other night. Enjoying the beauty of the full moon on this day     4     (be) a long standing traditional Chinese custom for centuries.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a big day for Chinese people,     5    will go back home and have dinner with their families. The roundness of the full moon expresses people’s desire for a wholesome happy family. After the dinner, friends and family usually get together     6     (enjoy) the moonlight and moon-cakes.

Eating moon-cakes is     7     important custom during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Due to the different diet habits in different regions, moon-cakes vary in taste.     8     (general), traditional tastes include fillings of five kernel, egg yolk, jujube paste and bean paste. Now there are new tastes like ice cream and durian.

    9     the taste of moon-cakes is changing, the symbolic meaning of the full moon remains unchanged and the Chinese custom of eating moon-cake and     10     (long)for reunion during the Mid-Autumn Festival will never fade away.

8 . You’ve got the perfect Halloween costume picked out, but here’s the real question: Where are you—or your kid—going to wear it? Here are some of the best.

The undead return to Silver Spring, looking for brains—and the 11:15 p.m. screening of “night of the Living dead” at the AFi Silver. One of the region’s biggest (and most enjoyable) spooky season gatherings finds hundreds of costumed zombies wandering the streets. Everyone—adults and families alike—gathers at the Quarry House tavern at 7 p.m. before shuffling（移动） over to Ellsworth drive by 9 p.m., then over to the theater. There’s no charge to participate, and topical outfits are welcome (the gorier the better).

If you’ve been to Kensington’s Babycat Brewery, you know that kids are welcome—and, on some weekend afternoons, seem to outnumber the adults. Fans of all ages are welcome to celebrate the brewery’s first year in business, with costumes “strongly encouraged.” Younger ones can be amazed at the Kensington Volunteer Fire department’s firetruck, which will be on-site from noon to 3 p.m., while older folks will appreciate live music from 3 to 9 p.m. Look for special beer releases to go with the pop-up food from Steezeburger—our No.1 burger in the D. C. area—plus o’ Boy pizza and neighbors the dish and dram.

It’s a day of two parts at the perch, the park located 11 stories above McLean. From noon to 4 p.m., a family party includes “spooky golf” at the Perch Putt mini-golf course, bounce houses, pumpkin decorating and face painting, and costume and pie-eating contests. From 4 p.m. on, the party is for 21 and older, with live music from the cover band “Lights Out”. By 8, beers from the Starr Hill Biergarten, a costume contest and more fun.

10 . Few parlor games (室内游戏) have left a larger global impact than mahjong, which is at once a mainstay at immigrant family gatherings.

Mahjong is a four-player game that, like poker, operates on the interplay between chance and skill. Chinese icons are visible in tiles’(麻将牌) “suits”, which include bamboos and circles, which represent ancient Chinese currency; arrows or “dragons”, which symbolize the ancient art of archery; and flowers, which represent the four Confucian plants, including chrysanthemum and orchid.

There are more than 40 versions of the game across the world, according to Annelise Heinz, author of the bestselling Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture. She says the material connection and core tile design keep it recognizable.

The rhythms of mahjong are especially conducive to building community, Heinz says. Whereas the shuffling of cards in between poker games takes mere seconds, mahjong players must sit through extended pauses to reset tiles after every round. The interval encourages conversation.

In the early 1920s, American businessman Joseph P. Babcock brought the game to the U.S., where it became an “enormous national fad” that Heinz says reflected the country’s shifting cultural norms. Dubbed “the game of a hundred intelligences” and “the gift of heaven”, the first imported mahjong sets quickly sold out at Abercrombie & Fitch in New York City.

Over the past century in the US, mahjong has changed into a staple that extends far beyond the Chinese immigrant family. More recently, the record-shattering 2018 romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians, which features   a crucial mahjong scene, brought the game back into popular culture, fueling interest among Asian American millennials and Gen Zers. Mahjong’s lasting popularity, Heinz says, speaks to rapid cultural changes that have unfolded over the past century. “It also offers a kind of hopeful vision of positive identity building and community building that this game can be a part of into the future,” she says.