1 . The origins of the Christmas traditions are the most fascinating of any holiday. All our favourite activities can be traced (追溯) back to specific points in history, and knowing how these things came about just makes celebrating Christmas much more wonderful.

The original Nicholas was born in 280 A.D. in the small country of Lycia, which is now part of modern Turkey. Nicholas became first a priest (牧师) and then a bishop (主教) in the early Christian church. The first paintings of him show Nicholas wearing the clothes of a Christian bishop—red decorated with white. When we see Santa’s suit today, we’re still seeing the two kinds of colors.

Nicholas became famous for gift-giving. In the early fourth century, a story began to spread about Nicholas coming at night to the home of three poor girls who did not have money and therefore could not get married. While the girls slept, Nicholas left gold coins in their stockings, which were drying by the fire. That’s how the tradition of Santa filling stockings got its start.

In 1841, Santa first appeared at a department store in Philadelphia. This Santa tried to climb down a chimney to impress the children who were watching, but he got stuck halfway down. In 1890, department store Santas began appearing all over America, especially on the East Coast around Boston. Parents in other countries joined together and hired passenger trains to take their families to see these Santas.

At the same time, Ralph E. Morris of the New England Telephone Company suggested that strings of lights be hung on Christmas trees. After all, lights would be much safer than candles. Our modern-day image of Santa as a fat man is based on ads of the Coca-Cola company in the 1930s. Artist Hans Sundblom used a retired salesman named Les Prentice as his model.

4 . Around 6,200 years ago, farmers living on the eastern edges of Europe, in what is now Ukraine, left their villages. They moved into an area between the modern cities of Kiev and Odessa. They built new settlements up to 20 times the size of their old ones. Scientists believe the civilization might be an early attempt at urbanization. But it isn’t clear whether the sites, or perhaps the earliest cities, were fully inhabited (居住) year round and there is heated debate over what they were for.

This puzzling culture, known as the Cucuteni-Trypillia, predates the earliest known cities in Mesopotamia. Researcher Monica Smith, the author of Cities: The First 6.000 Years, thinks the very large sites may have had something in common with Gobekli Tepe in modern Turkey. It is a building complex which is at least 10,000 years old and seems to have been a place where people gathered together periodically for special gatherings.

By contrast, scientist Johannes Muller believes the very large sites were fully occupied all year round. But the inhabitants left the lightest of footprints in the landscape, and no human remains have been found. “Not a finger, not a tooth,” says researcher Alexey Nikitin. The evidence is extremely difficult to collect because Trypillians periodically burned their houses down in a controlled way.

Uruk and Tell Brak, which arose in Mesopotamia early in the 4th millennium BCE, are usually considered the world’s first cities. Their remains point to an increased density (密度) of habitation and a hierarchical (等级制度的) social structure-two features that are considered essential to the definition of a city. But the Trypillian sites don’t meet either of those standards.

Scientists John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska agree, saying. “Trypillian sites were a social system based on the belief that everyone was equal.” These were cities, but of a very different kind from the slave-owning (拥有奴隶的) societies of Mesopotamia a few centuries later. And our definition of a city may need expanding, argue Chapman and Gaydarska.

6 . Besides “wow” and “great”, what else would you say when flying over the Earth in space? Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian female astronaut in space, posted several lines of a famous ancient Chinese composition on Twitter to share her joy.

She first wrote in Chinese, and then attached an accurate translation of the lines in both Italian and English to help more people understand. “Looking up, I see the immensity of the cosmos; bowing my head, I look at the multitude of the world. The gaze flies, the heart expands, the joy of the senses can reach its peak, and indeed, this is true happiness,” it says. Two days before she landed on Earth, the beauty of space and Chinese literature resonated on her Twitter account. Before long, her posts went viral on Twitter with thousands of retweets, likes and replies.

The text she quoted is from the Preface to Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion,a Chinese calligraphy masterpiece by Wang Xizhi (303-361) of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420). She also attached three photos taken in space of China’s Bohai Bay and the day-night view of Beijing. “The poem and views are both magnificent as well as healing. If everyone could enjoy the same sight, a lot of pain in the world would be ‘dissipated’,” one user comments.

As the first Italian female astronaut in space, Cristoforetti carried out her first space mission on Nov 23, 2014. In 2022, she started the second mission in April and returned to Earth on Friday night after a 127-day stay in orbit.

Cristoforetti has also been active in Sino-European cooperation in the field of manned spaceflight. She was a working group member with Chinese counterparts to define and implement cooperation in the field of astronaut operations. When not traveling for work, she is an eager reader and has a great passion for languages. Speaking clear Chinese, Cristoforetti once told the media that the teams from China and Europe were working very well together in the field of astronaut training.

7 . Recently, my friends Hazel Markus and Alana Conner published a book on culture. It isn’t a book on exploring cultures or talking about why you should always accept a business card from a Japanese businessman with two hands and admire it. Instead, Clash talks about eight cultural conflicts and frames those conflicts as paths to self-knowledge. In other words, it describes the self, and our individual cultures, as relative. This self-insight can help you better navigate our increasingly global world.

For example, one distinction discussed by Markus and Conner is the distinction between Americans from different parts of the United States. People from different states have different expectations and assumptions about how things should be done, and even what things should be called. Often, it is only when a person comes up against another way of doing things that these assumptions become apparent. I attended Carleton College, a liberal arts college in Minnesota. Within my first two days of being there, I realized that I possessed an assumption about rain. Coming from California, I expected that it didn’t rain in summer and that when it did rain, it would rain all day. When I woke up on September 2, to a downpour that lasted 20 minutes, that assumption was revealed to be false.

There was a particularly colorful discussion in my dorm about the game “duck, duck, goose” vs “duck, duck, gray duck”. The point is, only by coming into contact and comparing my assumptions to others did I realize that my assumptions were just that—my view of how things should be and not necessarily the truth.

Why is it important to understand your cultural background beyond your race and ethnicity(种族特点)? Because if you understand yourself, you are better prepared to recognize and embrace alternatives. For instance, a research by William Maddux has shown that people who have significant multicultural experiences are more creative. Also, if you understand where you come from, you may be more understanding of conflicts that are arising, and be able to address those conflicts in cooperative ways.

9 . The famous Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.     1    , a Chinese writer known for his love for his country and poetry who finally became a great hero.

Qu Yuan supported fighting to protect his country. Though what he did led to his being forced to leave it, he wrote poetry to show his love for it.     2    . After finishing his final poem, he jumped into the Miluo River in today’s Hunan Province to show that he was angry with the corruption (腐败) around him.

Upon hearing the news, villagers took boats and carried dumplings to the middle of the river to try and save Qu Yuan.     3    . They turned to beating drums (鼓), hitting water with wood and throwing the rice dumplings into the water. They believed these were ways to keep fish away from Qu Yuan’s body.     4    , while the search for Qu Yuan’s body became the dragon boat races.

Now, dragon boat races are held every year in China, attracting thousands of supporters to participate.     5    . They are often painted in very bright colors. The teams on board will work together to get the boats to the finish line as fast as possible, while a team member sits at the front and beats a drum to raise morale (士气) and make sure everyone keeps pace (节奏) and time.