Food festivals around the world

Stilton Cheese Rolling

    May Day is a traditional day for celebrations, but the 2,000 English villagers of Stilton must be the only people in the world who include cheese rolling in their annual plans. Teams of four, dressed in a variety of strange and funny clothes, roll a complete cheese along a 50-metre course. On the way, they must not kick or throw their cheese, or go into their competitors' lane（赛道）. Competition is fierce and the chief prize is a complete Stilton cheese weighing about four kilos (disappointingly, but understandably the cheeses used in the race are wooden ones). All the competitors arc served with beer or port wine, the traditional accompaniment for Stilton cheese.

Fiery Foods Festival—The Hottest Festival on Earth

    Every year more than 10,000 people head for the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They come from as far away as Australia, the Caribbean and China, but they all share a common addiction—food that is not just spicy（辛辣）,but hot enough to make your mouth burn, your head spin and your eyes water. Their destination is the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival which is held over a period of three clays every March. You might like to try a chocolate-covered habanero pepper—officially the hottest pepper in the world—or any one of the thousands of products that are on show. But one thing's for sure—if you don't like the feeling of a burning tongue, this festival isn't for you!

La Tomatina—The World's Biggest Food Fight

    On the last Wednesday of every August, the Spanish town of Bunol hosts Ea Tomatina—the world's largest food fight. A week-long celebration leads up to an exciting tomato battle as the highlight of the week's events. The early morning sees the arrival of large trucks with tomatoes—official fight-starters get things going by casting tomatoes at the crowd.

    The battle lasts little more than half an hour, in which time around 50,000 kilograms of tomatoes have been thrown at anyone or anything that moves, runs, or fights back. Then everyone heads down to the river to make friends again—and for a much-needed wash!

    Every year gray whales swim a 10,000 miles round-trip, from the cold waters near Alaska, down the coast of North America to the warn waters near Mexico, and back again. It is one of the longest migrations (迁徙) of any mammal (哺乳动物).

    All day, all summer long, in the cold waters near Alaska, gray whales eat and eat.

    Instead of teeth, gray whales have baleen (鲸须) they use to get food from ocean water. They get big mouthfuls of muck (淤泥) from the ocean floor, then push that muck right back out through their baleen. The mucky water flows through, but tiny animals get trapped in the baleen and licked up.

    When the water starts to freeze, the whales begin their long trip south. They swim night and day, without stopping to eat or rest. During the long journey, migrating whales may push their heads out of the water to see where they are.

    Two months later, the whales reach Mexico. Babies are born here in warm, shallow (浅的) waters called lagoons (濒海湖). Ocean lagoons have no food for the adults, but the babies are safer here than in the open seas. All winter the babies grow big and strong.

In spring first the dads and teenagers leave the lagoons, then the moms with babies. Migrating gray whales swim close to shore, especially moms with babies. The ice is melting up (融化) north, and it's time for the hungry whales to make the long journey back to their summer feeding grounds.

    Tang Dynasty poets sang for about three centuries in different tones. There were many famous poets living in the Tang period such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi and Li Shangyin. Poems of the Tang Dynasty edited in the Qing Dynasty is a collection of more than 48,900 poem that were written by over 2,200 poets. But it didn't cover all the poems of the Tang Dynasty.

    During the Tang Dynasty, poems were recited when lovers walked under the moonlight. Poems were also recited when soldiers fought on the battlefield. People recited them in the open air or at temple fairs.

    Tang Dynasty poets wrote poems to win fame and also to develop their temperament(性情). They poured out deep feelings for their friends and criticized in injustice in the world through poems.

    In the Tang Dynasty scholars had to be poets. Their readers were not only people of high social position but also common people. Poets recited poems, women singers sang poems and other ranks of people, including old women and children, read Tang poems. This atmosphere affected foreigners who visited the country at that time. As a result, Tang poetry was introduced to some adjacent countries, like Japan and Vietnam.

    Tang poetry is a most brilliant page in the history of ancient Chinese literature. It's a miracle in the cultural history of mankind. The Tang Dynasty was a powerful empire with a vast territory. It inherited(继承)Chinese civilization that went back to ancient times, was combined with the best of other cultures and adopted the benefits of other nations in the world. Tang poetry wasn't the only spiritual wealth created by the Tang Dynasty people. Philosophy and religion, handwriting and painting and music and dance all gained new peaks of development. Tang poetry, however, was the jewel in the crown and its greatest achievement.

    Happy Shakespeare Day!

    The 23rd April is World Book Day, but did you know that it is also Shakespeare Day? Everybody has heard of Shakespeare, but do you know many plays he wrote? Have you heard of many of his poetry?

    Shakespeare's plays fit into three categories: tragedies, comedies and histories. Perhaps his most famous play is the tragedy story of Romeo and Juliet, which deals with two young lovers who are forbidden to marry by their parents. Other tragedies include Hamlet, a play about a vengeful ghost Othello, about an army general who is manipulated(操纵) into killing his wife, and Macbeth(麦克白). If you've seen Harry Potterandthe Prisoner of Azkaban written which is sung in the Great Hall after the Sorting Ceremony. These words come from the Witches in Macbeth!

    Shakespeare's comedies include Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night is a play about confusing identities. Two twins are shipwrecked and the sister, Viola, dresses up as her brother, Sebastian, who she thinks is dead. It's hilarious, because the brother reappears without Viola realizing and there's a big love triangle going on: Viola is in love with the Duke Osino, who is in love with Olivia, who falls in love with Sebastian, except she doesn't realize that Sebastian is actually Viola dressed up! Everybody falls in love with the wrong person, but it is all made right in the end.

    The history plays, such as Antony and Cleopatra, Richard III and Henry V are based on the lives of real historical people. Antony and Cleopatra is a story about a doomed romance in ancient Egypt. Cleopatra becomes Antony's mistress and Antony becomes so obsessed with her that he loses his military might. Cleopatra kills self by letting a snake bite her after Egypt's army has been defeated by Octavius and Antony kills himself too.

    Shakespeare's plays can be very heavy going sometimes. Some of the themes they deal with are heavy and complex, so they almost always contain a lighter subplot with characters who aren't closely linked to the characters in the main plot. They are often used in tragedies to lighten the mood of the play and to keep the audience interested in the main plot.

    USING YOUR GOLDEN ARROW MULTIPURPOSE CALCULATOR TO DETERMINE THE DATE AND TIME AT YOUR LOCATION AS WELL AS LOCATIONS AROUND THE GLOBE SEETING THE DATE AND TIME FOR YOUR LOCATION

    Use the TIME ZONE chart below to locate code that corresponds with the time zone in which you live. Select the major city that shares your time zone. Press the code that corresponds to that city (e.g. ,if you live in Washington ,Oregon California, or Nevada, all of which are located in the Pacific time zone, you would choose Los Angeles and press the corresponding code which is the 1 key).

    ⒈Press TIME twice. The two digits representing hours will begin to flash.

    ⒉Depress and hold the ▲or▼ key until the desired hour flashes. Then release.

    ⒊Press SET. The two digits representing minutes will begin to flash.

    ⒋Depress and hold the ▲or▼ key until the desired minute fleshes. Then release.

    ⒌Press SET. The two digits representing seconds will begin to flash.

    ⒍Depress and hold the ▲or▼ key until 00 flashes. The release.

    ⒎Press SET. To set the year, month, and day press DATE three times. Then repeat steps 2 through 7.

    NOTE: At this point, hour, minutes and seconds will change to year, month, and day.

    DETERMINAING DATE AND TIME FOR THE WORLD'S16 TIME ZONES

    ⒈PRESS ZONE TWICE.

    ⒉Use the TIME ZONE chart below to locate the code that corresponds to the time zone for which you desire the date and time. Press that code (e.g., press = to determine the date and time in Hong Kong). The selected date and time will alternately display for 10 seconds and then return automatically to your home date and time.

    Next month, I'm traveling to a remote area of Central Africa and my aim is to know enough Lingala — one of the local languages — to have a conversation. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage this — until I discovered a way to learn all the vocabulary I'm going to need. Thanks to Memrise, the application I'm using. It feels just like a game.

    "People often stop learning things because they feel they're not making progress or because it all feels like too much hard work," says Ed Cooke, one of the people who created Memrise. "We're trying to create a form of learning experience that is fun and is something you'd want to do instead of watching TV."

    Memrise gives you a few new words to learn and these are "seeds" which you plant in your "greenhouse". When you learn the words, you "water your plants". When the application believes that you've really memorized a word, it moves the word to your "garden". And if you forget to log on, the application sends you emails, reminding you to "water your plants".

    The application uses two principles about learning. The first is that people memorize things better when they link them to a picture in their mind. Memrise translates words into your own language, but it also encourages you to use "mems". For example, I memorized motele, the Lingala word for "engine", using a mem I created — I imagined an old engine in a motel (汽车旅馆) room.

    The second principle is that we need to stop after studying words and then repeat them again later, leaving time between study sessions. Memrise helps you with this, because it's the kind of application you only use for five or ten minutes a day.

    I've learnt hundreds of Lingala words with Memrise. I know this won't make me a fluent speaker, but I hope I'll be able to do more than just smile when I meet people in Congo. Now, I need to go and water my Vocabulary!