Let's celebrate some festivals in summer.
The Cariwest Festival
It is one of Edmonton's most colourful summer festivals! It's three days of fun as Caribbean Canadians share their music, cuisine and carnival culture! Local performers bring you amazing dance, music and fun. Bring Cariwest atmosphere into your home this year with these amazing online events.
Indigenous Festival
The annual Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival (SSIF) in Edmonton has done a wonderful job to make their annual off-line festival a number of online events this year because of COVID-19. The events take place from June 1 to 21. SSIF has partnered with BMO to provide Education Days for students to learn together about indigenous history. These classes for which only a small fee will be charged include art workshops, book readings and museum tours.
Bluegrass Festival
Just 45 minutes from the heart of downtown Edmonton is the town of Stony Plain that works hard to keep ties to its agricultural background, and here you'll see old-styled lamp posts and historical wall paintings with a long history everywhere. It's also the site of Western Canada's largest bluegrass festival, which has been a main attraction for more than 25 years and in July every year draws in all the big names, including Grammy winners.
Cowboy Festival
You like poetry, music, art and cowboys? Then you can't miss it. Heading into its 24th year, Cowboy Festival in Stony Plain in August is a showcase of the cowboy life. The events include good old-fashioned BBQ meals and some other entertainment.
The "24 solar terms" (节气) originated and was firstly used in China. It was created thousands years ago on the basis of practical needs of agriculture. Ancient Chinese people used it to guide agriculture production, special climate signs and even healthy living tips. Last year, the 24 solar terms was added to UNESCO's world cultural heritage list. Now, it has been brought to life thanks to a creative designer from Southwest China's Guizhou province.
On the eve of this year's Qingming Festival, Shi Changhong released (发布) his version of re-produced and packaged characters for each solar term in the form of "moving art" of gifts. Since their first release on Zcool on March 29, the gifs have won great praise among the general public and quickly flooded social media with millions of hits during the festival period.
To maximize publicity, Shi released his work in three forms: video, animation and picture. The background sounds add to the brilliance.
"When I watch the short video, I can strongly feel the Chinese-style elements hidden in them. And it is really cool to liven up Chinese traditional culture in such a unique way." WeChat user Xiao Feifei said.
"It is really a comfort to me to see so many people like my latest work. To be honest, it would really surprise me if the work does not arouse great interest among Chinese people. The 24 solar items is a deeply rooted concept that covers the essence of Chinese wisdom. However, only a small portion of people know all the names or the correct order of those terms. My intention is to increase Chinese people's self awareness to learn more about our traditional fine culture. Actually, the 24 solar items work is only a part of my whole design program 'Charm China', which I started over a year ago." Shi told China Daily.
In the workshop of a brush-pen store in Huzhou, Shi Wangli makes traditional Chinese brush-pens. Her hands are immersed (浸泡)in water for at(little) eight hours a day, in summer and winter. The choice of the hairs in steps of making a quality brush-pen is of great(important) and the work she does cannot be performed a machine. It is a difficult but meaningful job. She is the youngest brush-pen technician in Huzhou. The manager of the store says he is worried the thousand-year-old technique for making the Huzhou brush-pen used in calligraphy (书法)will be lost with few young people(will) to learn it. In Chinese history, brush-pen is an essential (基本的)tool for cultural inheritance (传承). However, with the rapid progress of modern technology, brush-pens(replace) firstly by pens, then ballpoint pens and now keyboards.
The Ministry of Education required elementary and middle schools to start calligraphy classes(protect) the Chinese traditional culture. There is a general(believe) that brush-pen making should be regarded as a techniquerepresents Chinese culture. People should get to know the meanings and thoughts behind these traditional(technique).
Pumpkin carving at Halloween is a family tradition. We visit a local farm every October. In the pumpkin field, I1with my three brothers and sister to seek out the biggest pumpkin. My dad has a 2that we have to carry our pumpkins back home, and as the eldest child I have an advantage—I carried an 85-pounder back last year.
This year, it was hard to tell whether my prize or the one chosen by my 14-year-old brother, Jason, was the winner. 3, we forgot to weigh them before taking out their insides, but I was determined to prove my 4 . All of us were hard at work at the kitchen table, with my mom filming the 5 event. I'm still unsure now why I forced my head inside the pumpkin, but it seemed to make perfect sense at the time. With the pumpkin resting on the table, hole uppermost, I bent over and 6 my head against the opening. At first I got jammed just above my eyes and then, as I went on with my task, unwilling to quit, my nose7prevented entry. Finally I managed to put my whole head into it, like a cork forced into a bottle. To my surprise, I was able to straighten up with the huge pumpkin resting on my shoulders. 8, my excitement was short-lived. The pumpkin was too heavy for me to carry on for a long time. With Jason helping to 9its weight, I bent back over the table to give it somewhere to rest, but in vain. When I pulled 10 , my nose got in the way. I got into a 11 as I pressed firmly against the table and moved my head around trying to find the right angle, but it was 12 . "I can't get it out!" I shouted, my voice sounding unnaturally loud in the 13 space.
Eventually, Dad 14 to break the pumpkin with a knife; meanwhile, I realized the camera had been rolling the whole time! My family had an 15 moment that we would always treasure, and my father broke the rule, announcing that both my brother and I were winners!
The Xi'an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China's long history. It (build) originally to protect the city the Tang dynasty and has now been completely restored (修复). It is possible (walk) or bike the entire 14 kilometers.
We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.
After (spend) some time looking at all the defensive equipment at the wall, we decided it was time for some action and what (good) than to ride on a piece of history!
We (hire) our bikes from the rental place at the South Gate. My bike was old and shaky did the job. It took us about 3 hours to go all way around the Xi'an City Wall. Supposedly you can do it in two hours, but we stopped at the different gates and (watchtower) to fake pictures or just to watch the local people going about their (day) routines.
