International Beer Day is a day that is celebrated     1     the first Friday of every August all over the world. The purpose of this holiday is for friends to gather together and enjoy some beers together, to celebrate people     2     brew and serve beers, and to celebrate the beers of all nations. Although this holiday started out as a small local event, over the years it has spread to all six continents.

    3     (imagine) originally by Jesse Avshalomov in 2007, International Beer Day     4     (found) by Aaron Araki, Evan Hamilton and Richard Hernande in California. They then convinced their local bars     5     (celebrate) it and even made a website for it. However,    6     they didn’t realize was how fast it was going to take off. Almost immediately, they started receiving emails from people, some of which were as far away as Africa and the UK. Today, International Beer Day is celebrated on six continents in almost sixty countries and over 210     7     (city).

There     8     (be) a number of different ways to celebrate International Beer Day. First, you can get a group of friends together and you all can taste beers from other countries. Second, you can thank and tip your waiters for     9     (they) service, and third, you can drink a beer from another country that you wouldn’t     10     (ordinary) drink.

2 . In its first year, the Nature Festival will be celebrating South Australian nature with over 100 events for different ages. It is full of creative ways to get you out and about enjoying all that nature has to offer.

Its 10-day program, starting from 25th September 2020, provides a wide range of both free and ticketed experiences. From “adventure” and “learning” experiences to “slowing down” and “helping out” experiences, there will be something for everyone. Here are just some of the events.

Explore the role of tree hollows and learn how to build a backyard bird box.

Take your torch and discover, on a guided walk, the creatures that come out at night.

Hear Dr Ralph Body share his understanding of artist Hans Heysen.

Walk with local bat experts and hear how the grey-headed flying-fox bat came to be in our city.

Walk along the coastline and learn about the work being done at the dunes.

See a short film about who and what lives in the Port River.

The full Nature Festival program is available on the website https://www.naturefestival.org.au. If you’re interested in any of the experiences above, please register as soon as possible.

4 . Clothing decorated with lucky animals such as Chinese dragons and phoenixes (凤凰), and designers devoted to making China's Olympians look good, all these reflect that the Chinese Olympic Team is not only focused on winning medals, but also showing the beauty of China to the world.

The first impressive moment for Chinese fashion started from the opening ceremony of the Olympics. The Chinese team's uniforms used red as a main color, which represents wishes for a good start for Team China. The Team's uniforms, combining red with white, were designed by a group of designers from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. The uniforms are decorated with a peony (牡丹), which is China's national flower, and the style of the flower was inspired by an ancient Ming Dynasty bowl at the Palace Museum.

Some Chinese gymnastics' uniforms also use the traditional Chinese symbols such as the Chinese phoenix. China's trampoline (蹦床) gold medalist Zhu Xueying said she was pleased with her uniform that looked like a traditional qipao decorated with a phoenix. The bright red uniforms have traditional elements (元素) on the neckline—a qipao knot (结) and a Chinese phoenix. The pattern on the front of the chest represented the hope that the gymnasts would dance in the sky.

The uniform for Chen Meng, another gold medalist in the women's table tennis event, was designed especially for her. The uniform is pink because that is Chen's favorite color and the designers embroidered (刺绣) a Chinese dragon on her right shoulder to represent the hope that she can take off like a powerful dragon.

“I have been watching the Olympics. The uniforms for the Chinese team have added many fashionable elements,” Zhang Yan, a young Chinese designer told the reporter. The most impressive uniforms for him have been those that the Chinese athletes wore on the podiums (领奖台). The elements formed in the clothing designs, including the curving shapes, the colors and the Chinese standing collar, make them both beautiful and practical. “When the athletes stand on the podium, I think the Chinese design is not only attractive, but also a kind of new fashion. The confidence shown in the clothing is really strong.” Zhang Yan said.

New discoveries at Sanxingdui Ruins

Chinese archaeologists announced the discovery of over five hundred     1     (culture) relics, during an ongoing excavation at the Sanxingdui Ruins site in Guanghan, Sichuan. The relics     2     (uncover) in six sacrificial pits( 坑) that date back over 3,200     3     (year). Among the important cultural finds are gold and bronze masks, bronze ware, ivory tusks, textiles and jade among other artifacts. Some of     4     bronze ware items were decorated with dragon and ox patterns. The Sanxingdui Ruins is regarded as one of the world's              5     (great) archaeological discoveries of the     6     (twenty) century. The site was     7     (original) discovered by a farmer who worked in the fields in the 1920s. A huge surprise came in 1986     8     two sacrificial pits filled     9     more than 1,000 relics,     10     (include) gold masks, bronze sacred trees, bronze ware, jade ware and ivory, were discovered by local workers excavating clay for bricks.

Today I will introduce the Tomb-sweeping Festival. Tomb-sweeping Festival(清明节), or Qingming Festival in Chinese, is     1     festival to worship(敬奉) ancestors in China and usually falls     2     April 4 or April 5. Tomb-sweeping Festival can be traced back to Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770BC—256BC), with a history of over 2500     3     (year). According to the tradition, people eat cold food during this festival.

Around Tomb-sweeping Festival, people visit their ancestors’ tombs(坟墓) with food, wine, fruits, joss sticks(香烛) and zhiqian(纸钱). Food, wine and fruits     4     (put)in the front of the tomb and then the joss sticks and zhiqian are burned. Also, people should     5     (clean) weeds and sweep away leaves around the tomb     6     (show )their respect to their ancestors.

Qingming is a festival as well as one of the Chinese 24 solar terms(二十四节气),    7     means the change of air temperatures, rainfall and biotemperature(生物温度), and farmers arrange their farming activities     8     (active). Qingming is the solar term implies the coming of spring and the increase of rains and temperature. It is a best time for ploughing(耕作) and sowing as well as for spring outing. Therefore, after the festival, farmers are busy in     9     (do) their farming works, and people go out for fresh air and kinds of sports activities, like riding on the swing, and flying kites.

This is     10     we call the Chinese Qingming Festival.

I’m glad to receive your email. You asked me about my plan for the summer holiday.

Hope to see you in China during the holiday.

Yours,

Li Hua