4 .

Moab Music Festival       Where: Moab, Utah       When: Aug. 29-Sept. 9

This area is better known for mountain biking than for music. But since 1992, it has hosted a private festival that brings classical, jazz, Latin and other types of music to the land. This year there will be 16 concerts, including three "Grotto Concerts", where guests take a 45-minute boat ride down the Colorado River to performances. Events start at 25. moabmusicfest. org.

Cheyenne Frontier Days       Where: Cheyenne, Wyoming     When: July 19-28

There's something for everyone at this 117-year-old festival, from an "Indian village" and Old West museum to country concerts. But the competition is still the main attraction, with cowboys(牛仔) and cowgirls competing for major money in the world's largest outdoor stage. Competition tickets start at $18, and concert tickets at 23. cfdrodeo. com.

The Glimmerglass Festival       Where: Cooperstown, New York        When: July 6-Aug. 24

Each summer, opera lovers from around the country (and the world) travel to upstate New York to watch productions that include stars like Nathan Gunn and Ginger Costa-Jackson. This year's performances include Wagner's" The Flying Dutchman" and Verdi's "King for a Day", in honor of the 200th birthdays of both composers (作曲家). Tickets start at 26. Glimmerglass.org.

6 . Smith, Williams, Brown are common surnames that you will meet in Britain. However, you may come across some strange English surnames. The following surnames are rare, but they are real.

GotobedYou are not going to meet many people with the surname “Go-to-bed”. The first recorded person to have this surname was John Gotobedde of Cambridge in 1269. Professor Reaney, an authority on English surnames, explains the surname originated from people who had a bed, which was rare back in the 12th century. People were proud that they could afford to have a bed, thus adding it to their name. Strange but true!

Onions

This surname, which was first popular in France and Ireland before coming over to the UK, dates back to l279 and identified（显示）a person’s job. He was either a seller or a grower of the vegetable.

Nutter

Nutter means a crazy or silly person in spoken English. You wouldn’t usually call yourself a nutter, but it’s genuinely a surname that originates from Yorkshire and Lancashire. It’s a variation of the old English surnames “Notere”, which means a clerk, and “Nothard”, which means a person that keeps oxen.

Hardmeat

You might have guessed that “Hardmeat” must have something to do with a family of butchers. In fact, it might just have been a misspelling of the village that the name came from, which was “Hardmead” in England. Wish they had a spellchecker back then!

My favorite traditional Chinese festival

9 . Culture is particularly at risk in an armed conflict or disaster owing to its great symbolic value. At the same time, culture is regarded as a driver of recovery, strengthening the flexibility of a civilized society.

During recent conflicts, cultural relics have not only increasingly suffered from the damage caused by war, but have also become the target（目标） of systematic and deliberate(故意的) attacks because of its high significance in the nations to which it belongs. The destruction of the cultural relics in Palmyra(Syria) and the robbery of the National Museum of Iraq are tragic（悲剧的） examples of an intention to destroy the very cultural identity and break the bonds that bring them together as a society.

Disasters caused by natural and human-made harm including earthquakes, fires, floods and typhoons, also have caused extensive damage to many cultural and natural relics, museums, cultural institutions. The earthquakes in Nepal and Ecuador, the floods in Myanmar, Hurricane Matthew in the Western Atlantic Ocean and the heavy rainfalls following El Niño in Peru have all resulted in a mass of damage.

Culture, however, is not only a victim （受害者）of emergency situations. Immediately after a disaster or an armed conflict, all nations often find cultural relics can work well as material and psychological support. The ability to access one’s cultural attractions — like a religious building, a historic city, an historical relic or a landscape — or to keep a specific cultural practice, may provide a much-needed sense of identity and dignity（尊严）. Moreover after an emergency（紧急情况）, culture can be an engine both to rebuild economies and societies and to promote tolerance, compromise and understanding, easing tensions（紧张） and preventing renewed conflicts. Music, dance, theatre and cinema, for example, have been used to build deeper understanding among people who flee for safety.

This is why protecting culture in emergency situations, and cultural protection from disasters is fundamental to a country’s development and people’ security.

Yours,

Li Hua