3 . India is known for many colorful and fun festivals. But none is as popular as the festival of lights, Diwali, which is also called Deepavali.

The celebration begins on October 21st, with Dhanteras. For those who love shopping, this is the best day of the celebration. That’s because in addition to honoring Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, the day is also considered lucky to buy everything—from gold and silver ornaments (装饰品) to new clothes.

The following day is Kali Chaudas, or Narak Chaturdashi. For some Indians it is celebrated with good food and fireworks. For others, it is the time to drive out bad spirits from homes. No matter how it is celebrated, everyone’s mind is already focused (集中) on the big day that comes after—Diwali!

Diwali begins with a visit to temples where prayers (祷告) will be given. Then families and friends get together and celebrate by exchanging gifts and sweets. Those who missed the opportunity to buy goods on Dhanteras can make up for it on this equally lucky day. In the evening, households light up their homes with oil lamps and prepare delicious Indian food. Then starts the real fun—fireworks! What makes the displays exciting is that everyone gets to create his/her own show by lighting up their favorite fireworks.

For Indians, Diwali also marks the end of the year. They will celebrate the first day of the New Year the following day.

The final day of the festival honors the relationships between brothers and sisters and is celebrated with more special food and prayers.

For kids, Diwali is like Christmas, except earlier. They get a week’s vacation from school! It is no wonder that most kids consider Diwali the best festival of all.

5 . The Chinese Spring Festival

The Chinese Spring Festival is regarded as the most significant festival of the year among the Chinese.     1    .

There are a number of things people usually do before the Chinese Spring Festival. One of these is cleaning the house for the Lunar New Year. Dust makes people think of old things.     2    . Another important custom is to decorate their doors with red couplets. The phrases on the couplets express hopes for a new year.

The most important custom of the Chinese Spring Festival is the big family dinner on the eve of the Lunar New Year. This is usually a big reunion of grandparents, parents, and children.     3    . That is why millions of Chinese people travel long distances to get home before the eve of the Lunar New Year.

When the New Year comes, there are many interesting festival activities such as “lucky money” in red envelopes or greetings with “Xinnian Hao” or “Gongxi Facai”. Another part of this custom of is to pay visits to relatives and bring them gifts.     4    . In addition, friends and family go out to enjoy loud and colourful fireworks, spend time at temple fairs, and watch exciting dragon and lion dances.

    5    . It is a special occasion to return home and reunite with family members. This deeply rooted tradition has been a necessary part of Chinese culture for a very long time, and will continue to live forever in the hearts of the Chinese people.

6 . We have been doing cultural and environmental studies to understand the area. We work with local people who live there, work there and know the land. Wherever we can, we avoid disturbing cultural heritage sites.

Consult with the natives

    1    , we consult with those for whom the cultural heritage site has significance. We work with them to preserve its value – for example by relocating artefacts – and we make sure we rehabilitate the land the right way afterwards. Where possible, we also enable native peoples to maintain access to sites of cultural significance to maintain their connection and customary practices.

    2    

We will fully cooperate with the Inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia. We are also continuing to support the government of Western Australia in the review of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA). We are committed to engaging with the rest of the industry, Traditional Owners, and federal and state governments across a number of areas relating to cultural heritage approvals and processes, and the broad contribution of the resources sector to Australia.

Avoid Disturbance

    3    , we look for ways to avoid disturbing it. This could be by adapting the design of a mining project to exclude significant sites from the mining lease, or mining around areas. Where we cannot avoid a site completely, we work with Traditional Owners to find ways we can preserve its cultural value.     4     so they can coexist with our activities, working with archaeologists to excavate and conserve artefacts, or recording oral history and other information for future generations.

Site Conservation

    5    . This can include fire management, feral animal management, erosion control, installation of protective and interpretative signage, auditing, monitoring and measuring the condition of sites, and managing public access.

8 . In America, we have a thing called stand-up comedy. This popular form of entertainment consists of a comedian standing up at the front of a club, holding a microphone, and telling jokes. Of course, comedy is popular in Chinese culture as well, but the performances are quite different from the style in the US. In China, it’s called cross-talk, which usually involves two guys engaging in an entertaining dialogue.

It’s believed that cross-talk came into being in the Qing Dynasty as a bit of a by-product of the imitation shows that were a popular form of entertainment in the Song Dynasty. After the PRC was established in 1949, this comedic art became more and more popular. Today, it’s still heavily featured in the CCTV New Year’s Gala programmes in China. The 1990s was the golden age of cross-talk; even foreigners studied the art of cross-talk. Mark Roswell, a Canadian named Da Shan in Chinese was relatively unknown in his native land but was a superstar in China. At the turn of the century, cross-talk began to decline, and many well-known actors left the stage.

There are four skills that are essential in cross-talk: speaking, imitating, teasing, and singing. Most of the time, it is performed with two actors—one serves as the lead actor while the other plays a support role. However, sometimes it is performed simply as a one-man show, and at other times there are several actors. In order to criticize something, the humor involved in cross-talk is satirical.

9 . In early February, an old stove with rich vivid images (zaotou painting) took center stage at a village Spring Festival gala in Haiyan county, Zhejiang province.     1     . They feature historical and legendary figures, animals and flowers, which are painted in bright colors and have a way of drawing attention from admiring viewers. Zaotou is a part of a kitchen stove in the shape of a square or rectangle, on which are some images showing the beauty of nature and humanity.

    2    . In ancient time, villagers would hire bricklayers (瓦工) to build a mud stove in their new home and then painted pictures on a day of good fortune.     3    . They whitewashed (粉刷) the mud-made stove with lime-water, sketched out the patterns based on the shape of the stove, applied the final coat of paint and even created a three-dimensional effect.

At first, simple tools had been used to produce such art, including a selection of brushes, rulers, and paint. With people’s aesthetic appreciation growing, watercolors were used, mostly red, yellow and blue, the three auspicious (吉祥的) ones to the Chinese people.     4    . No matter what material is available, the stove painting is always symbolic and harbors good wishes for the owners.

Now many people are devoted to the inheritance and popularization of zaotou painting and more and more support has been received from various sides including local authorities.     5     .