Chinese weddings are as much about the happy couples as they are about their families. The weddings are     1     (impress) affairs that focus on blessings of happiness. The date of the wedding ceremony is chosen not     2     chance. Many couples carefully choose a favorable date     3     (bring) success to their marriage. The ceremony can last anywhere from four hours to three days,     4     depends on how many Chinese wedding traditions are observed.

The Chinese wedding invitation is     5     (typical) red with a golden Double Happiness symbol, with dates for the wedding and names of the couple     6     (include) inside.

While Chinese wedding traditions have modernized, the journey to pick up the bride     7     (be) still a lively affair. It can involve     8     use of firecrackers, playing drums, or even a lion dance.

Another vital tradition, the Chinese tea ceremony (Jing Cha),     9     (perform) at Chinese weddings to show the new couple’s respect, gratitude, and     10     (appreciate) for their parents’ love and effort in raising them. A red tea set with a Double Happiness symbol is used for the tea ceremony.

6 . Some 120 kilometers north of Rome, street signs along the road tell drivers they're bound for “the dying town” Civita di Bagnoregio. The village stands on a declining plateau. It has gone through landslides, earthquakes, and erosion since humans' first settlement about 2,500 years ago. Nowadays Civita has been reduced to only 90 by 150 meters.

In the Middle ages, the size of the plateau was three times its size nowadays, and the population was over 3,000， yet the river surrounding Civita gradually made the town collapse from the bottom up. Since 1695, when a destructive earthquake took place in Civita, many people were forced to escape from their hometown, and the population there has never recovered. By the 1920s, there were merely 600 residents in the town. Currently, there are only about 10 residents. What a small population it has!

The survival of Civita is uncertain. However, as the news that the town was about to disappear started to widely spread, more and more people wanted to visit it. Now up to 10,000 people visit Civita per day. And there is doubt as to whether it is dying. The flood of people and money leads to natives longing for the rescue of the town.

Yet the actual situation in Civita is that there are no grocery stores, hardware, or convenience stores. People living there can only have access to a handful of restaurants and tourist shops. Besides, they have to get supplies through a narrow, 300-meter-long bridge that connects them to the outside world.

Today, Civita is pursuing a UNESCO World Heritage designation, in order to earn official recognition of its landscape and adaptability to nature. Recently, the town presented a 242-page document to the UNESCO, hoping that it will help strengthen Civita's role as a site of historical and cultural significance. Also, Civitas UNESCO team plans to create tourist attractions in the surrounding towns. If Civita recovers successfully, other towns in the same situation could find a direction based on its experience.

7 . Singing in Sichuan dialects with energetic movements and unique mask-changing is not just a Sichuan Opera performance. It's the exercise for students of Mianyang Foreign Languages Experimental School in Sichuan province.

“Sichuan Opera is a local opera, and it is now facing a gap in inheritance (传承). Therefore, we cooperated with Mianyang Intangible Cultural Heritage Center to create a simple and easy-to-learn Sichuan Opera exercise," said Shen Junhua, who is responsible for organizing the school's exercise between classes.

According to Shen, this new type of exercise has been practised since 2017 and has been popular among students. When students enroll, they will spend several weeks practising. At present, almost all of the students and teachers have mastered it.

"In fact, we had hardly heard of Sichuan Opera before teachers taught us how to do the Sichuan Opera exercise,” said Li Yangwenwen, who also joined the school's Sichuan Opera club out of interest. “It's very different from normal exercises. After practising it, we found it very beautiful and became interested in it. Now, almost all of the students look forward to our daily exercise time and feel excited to do it.”

“By combining opera with routine exercise, the daily class activity allows students to understand and appreciate Sichuan Opera's culture,” Shen said. After years of continuous efforts to spread the seeds of traditional culture, the younger generation is finally catching on.

9 . Like any language, English has many variations in vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation. The differences can be regional or even exist within the same city! As a Canadian who lives in Vancouver, I have always known these differences, but I didn’t get to experience them firsthand until I began attending an American university.

I found that there are some Canadian words that people in the US just don’t understand like “tuque”, which is a warm, knitted hat. My friends tease me every time I use the “washroom,” as the word isn’t used in the US—“bathroom”, “toilet” and “restroom” are often used instead. In a similar way, when I asked my friend what marks he got on his test, he gave me a confused look. People in the US only say “grades”.

Though certain Canadian expressions sound very different from our North American neighbor, they share the same original language because both served as colonies(殖民地) of the former British Empire. This cultural heritage survives through speech and language.

Unlike American English, most Canadian spellings are similar to the British words. In the US, words like “harbour” and “colour” are spelled without the “u”. Even so, some words changed in Canada, like “aluminum”. British people spell and pronounce this word as “aluminium”.

As a result, Canadian English has developed an identity of its own. For example, we cannot forget the most important word in Canadian English: sorry. While it isn’t really the most important word, Canadians have a reputation for being polite and friendly. I want to preserve that reputation and honor my Canadian roots, even while I’m in the United States.

“Language brings with it an identity and a culture…,” wrote South African comedian Trevor Noah in his book, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Child. “A language barrier says ‘We’re different.’ A shared language says ‘We’re the same’.”