1 . Resting her phone on a stand and making the light more suitable, 49-year-old Lyu Min started her livestreaming session — her daily job during the COVID-19 outbreak. Dressed in a qipao, a traditional Chinese dress, Lyu started the livestreaming session from her workshop at 10 in the morning, sharing the art of making Chinese knots with many handicraft (手工艺) lovers. Lyu, an inheritor (继承人) of the art of making Chinese knots, which is listed as an intangible (非物质) cultural heritage, became a livestreaming host.

“Though the sales of Chinese knots have dropped a lot, I’m still confident that I can get out of the trouble brought by the outbreak. I can make full use of this period to improve my skills and develop this traditional handicraft online,” she said. Lyu is quite new to the world of livestreaming, having bought all the necessary equipment (设备) after following her friends advice. She practises livestreaming every day and records a large number of educational videos. As face-to-face interaction is still impractical for many, even as the outbreak has been largely brought under control in China, she thinks livestreaming classes can meet more Chinese knot lovers’ needs to learn the handicraft.

She has integrated the anti-epidemic spirit into her works, expressing the determination (决心) and confidence of the Chinese people to win against the COVID-19. “I love Wuhan, where I showed my works in 2019. Chinese knots are popular among many local people, and I made lots of friends there,” Lyu said. She designed a special Chinese knot to express her thanks to the medics who were sent to support Wuhan several months ago.

She has more than 200 followers right now. There are more and more Chinese knot lovers on her online platform. She is using a length of colored string and determination to keep this traditional art of Chinese knots alive online and help more people understand the culture.

2 . Minor Cold: A sugary feast to get through the freezing winter

Minor Cold, or “Xiaohan” in Chinese, is the 23rd of the 24 solar terms in the Chinese lunar calendar     1       We’ve outlined below how people deal with the Minor Cold and its significance in Chinese culture.

Eight treasures rice pudding or “babaofan” in Mandarin is a special sweet rice dish enjoyed during Minor Cold and Chinese New Year dinner. In Chinese, the number eight is pronounced as “ba”, which is similar to another Chinese word “fa”.     2    . Because of its pronunciation, this traditional Chinese dim sum is regarded as a symbol of wealth and health.

    3    . Different regions in China have different eating habits. People in Nanjing and Shanghai usually cook vegetable rice while in Guangzhou, it is a tradition to eat sticky rice on the morning of Minor Cold.

For Chinese people, this time of year also sees preparation for the most important festival of the year: the Spring Festival.     4    . In the old days, Chinese families would usually start to purchase the necessities for the Spring Festival, write couplets and make paper cuts by themselves.

The ancient Chinese noticed the slight changes in seasons by observing the movements of the birds. Wild geese would usually start to fly back to the north while the magpies (喜鹊) make their nests. These animals remind people of the beginning of the suitable farming and life for Minor Cold.     5    . Therefore, more attention should be paid to domestic animals’ warmth.

3 . When I first met Nao Junior, he was in his 40s and one of only nine members of his Indigenous(土著的) group, Great Andamanese, who still spoke the idiom of his ancestors. As a language specialist, I had researched more than 80 Indian languages. I was on the islands to document their Indigenous voices before they faded into whispers.

Words in this language consisted of two classes: free and bound. The free words were all nouns that referred to the environment and its inhabitants, such as ra for “pig”. They could occur alone. The bound words were nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that always existed with markers indicating a relation to other objects, events or states. The markers came from seven zones of the body and were attached to a root word to describe concepts such as “inside”, “outside”, “upper” and “lower”. For example, the morpheme(词素) er-, which qualified most anything having to do with an outer body part, could be stuck to -cho to yield ercho, meaning “head”.

Just as a head, a bound word, could not conceptually exist on its own, the mode and effect of an action could not be divided from the verb describing the action. Great Andamanese had no words for agriculture but a great many for hunting and fishing, mainly with a bow and arrow. Thus, the root word shile, meaning “to aim”, had several versions: utshile, to aim from above; arashile, to aim from a distance; and eshile, aiming to make a hole with a sharp object.

The studies established that the language seems to be truly old in origin. In a multistage process of development, words describing diverse body parts had changed into morphemes referring to different zones and combined with content words to yield meaning. The structure alone provides an insight into an ancient worldview in which the macrocosm(宏观世界) reflects the microcosm, and everything that is or that happens inseparably connects to everything else.

4 . Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an ancient system of health and wellness that’s been used in China for thousands of years. It has saved millions of lives around China’s vast territory by providing vital information on diagnosis (诊断), treating common medical problems and diseases, and emphasizing prevention. If you do not have previous experience with Chinese culture or medicine, be prepared for a cultural experience.     1    

Several thousand years ago, The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor put forward the principle that one should develop yang energy in spring and summer,     2     And in China’s long history, the principle has proven of great value for good health and longevity of life.

According to TCM theory, yang energy is the power for inner organs.     3     “Summer treatment” takes advantage of abundant yang energy in nature during summer, when yang energy is outward and upward. It is the right time to supplement (补充) yang energy by internal or external traditional Chinese medicine methods. This helps to adjust to the balance of yin and yang in the body, resulting in a more effective outcome.

    4     Therefore, it is the best time for the human body to supplement essence and store vital substances throughout the whole year. TCM holds that Gao Fang, the cream formula, is the best choice for tonification (滋补) in winter. By adjusting qi, blood, yin and yang of the body, it can achieve the effects of treatment, regulation, and nourishment.

“Sprouting in spring, growing in summer, harvesting in autumn and storing in winter” is the law of development in the nature.     5     It needs to be in agreement with timing and the seasons. With such direction, ancient Chinese people handed down to later generations medical texts for an orderly-arranged daily life.

5 . India’s touring (流动的) cinemas are dying, and being reborn. And India is perhaps the most film-mad country in the world while it also has the lowest ratios of screens to human beings.     1     The screens that do exist are unevenly distributed. PVR, India’s biggest cinema operator, has more screens in Chandigarh, a prosperous city of about a million people, than it does in Rajasthan, a poor stale of 80 million. If Muhammad could not go to the movies, the movies had to come to Muhammad. Twenty years ago, there were 1,400 odd touring cinemas in Pusegaon.     2     However, today there are only 52 travelling cinemas.

    3     One is smartphone and internet expansion, which leads to the other reason for the collapse of the touring cinemas:     4     Sushil Chaudhary, the founder of a new chain of touring cinemas called Picture Time, is making a different bet on the possibilities of cinema. Mr. Chaudhary started his company in 2015 and has since set up 37 moving screens seating between 100 and 250 people. The touring cinema was nothing like the one in Pusegaon.     5     The picture was crystal clear and the sound used Dolby. Picture Time’s tickets are cheap, at between 30 and 70 rupees, compared with an average ticket price of 191 rupees at PVR’s cinemas.

7 . While the term cultural heritage is used to refer to both physical and intangible qualities, it is not limited to physical objects. It can also refer to beliefs, traditions, language, and food. These are often passed down from generation to generation.     1    The preservation of these cultural treasures can help promote global understanding and mutual respect.

    2    Determining what constitutes(构成) “cultural heritage” is often a challenging and contentious task, and advocates of cultural preservation and integrity are often accused of making false assumption(假设)about the cultures they study.

It is important to recognize that cultural heritage is not limited to physical objects and monuments. It also includes living expressions of culture inherited from our ancestors. Intangible cultural heritage refers to knowledge and practices related to the environment and traditional crafts.     3    It is essential to protect these valuable assets for their protection and appreciation.

    4     It is essential to preserve these objects in order to preserve their significance. And it is necessary to protect the intangible cultural heritage, because it is often overlooked. These works of art have symbolic and aesthetic(美学的) value and are valuable to the people of the country. Some of them are even more significant than the physical objects.

As cultural heritage is a part of a culture, it can be protected. However, if someone is trying to patent a design, you have to ensure that you do not copy it.     5    Whether they’re paintings, sculptures, or food, they’re worth protecting. Fortunately, it’s important to protect and conserve our cultural heritage. It’s the legacy of the culture and the way it was once lived.