Every year there is a Spring Festival in China. Usually it is in January or February. It is the most important festival in China. So before it comes, everyone has to prepare things. They buy pork, beef, chicken, fruits and many other things. And they often make a special kind of food—“dumplings”. It means “come together”. On the day before the festival, parents buy new clothes for their children. Children also buy presents for their parents. On the Spring Festival Eve（除夕）, all the family members come back to their hometown. This is a happy moment. Some sing and dance，some play cards and others get the dinner ready. When they are having dinner, they give each other the best wishes for the coming year. They all have a good time.

    All through the winter, the Esquimaux（爱斯摩）live in houses made of snow. These small houses are very clean and white when they are new. They can soon turn dirty, but pieces of fresh snow make them new again.

    Sometimes the Esquimaux build their small houses with the wood that they find along the seaside. However, they aren't always so lucky. When they can't get wood, they use the snow. It is so cold that the snow becomes very hard, so the small houses are strong enough in the whole winter. The windows of these houses are not made of glass, but of ice.

When the warm weather comes, the houses become water slowly. The Esquimaux get wet as they lie in bed, and often catch a cold. They are glad to get away from the small snow houses and live in their tents during the summer.

    In most parts of the world there are four seasons. They are spring, summer, fall and winter.

    In different seasons people wear different clothes and do different things. For example, in summer the weather is hot, so people usually wear cool clothes and do things like swimming, boating or surfing.

    But near the polar regions(极地), there are only two seasons: winter and summer. In winter, nights are long. For more than two months you can't see the sun. In summer, days are long and the sun is always in the sky. There are no nights.

    The people living near the North Pole(北极) are called Inuit(伊特人). In summer they live in tents and catch deer for food. In winter they live in small round snow houses. They can build a snow house, they make holes(洞) in the ice and catch fish and seals(海豹). They eat much meat but not many vegetables.