There is a day considered special by people     1     observe solar (太阳的) movement of the sun in many countries of the world. On its eve, in England, people go to Stonehenge     2     (welcome) the rise of the sun. In Latvia, people travel from the cities to the country- side to gather, eat and sing. Chinese people attach equal     3     (important) to this day,   known as the Summer Solstice (夏至), or xiazhi in Chinese.

It is the     4     (long) day of a year in terms of daylight. After the Summer Solstice, the subsolar point begins its moving south, and daytime     5     (gradual) shortens. Though people believe it is at the height of summer, xiazhi is not the hottest time of a year. After xiazhi, the temperature will continue to increase.

While in modern China, xiazhi is simply known as one of the solar     6     (term), in ancient times it was a major festival. In the Song Dynasty, the festival     7     (offer) officials a holiday of three days. A grand sacrificial (祭奠) ceremony was also held on the Summer Solstice during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

According to Guo Wenbin, a scholar of traditional culture, many customs from the ancient Summer Solstice festival     8     (be) now celebrated as part of events. “We often believe boat race was created     9     memory of Qu Yuan. But it is said that before the death of Qu, Chinese people had already had boat race as an event of Summer Solstice festival,” says Guo. Since the Summer Solstice is often a time when people harvest wheat,     10     is a tradition to eat noodles in many places.