2010 Mid-Autumn Day is coming.We ‘ll have 3days for this important holiday.On that night the moon is brighter and fuller than any other day. In China, Mid-Autumn Day is a time for family reunions.

On that day, most families will enjoy watching the full moon together.  The most favorite food for Mid-Autumn Day are all kinds of moon cakes. Some moon cakes are made of wheat flour, sugar and lotus seed powder. People add chocklate, icecream, fruit and nuts into mooncakes in recent years. They’re very delicious!

Besides, Mid-Autumn Day also is the best time to travel or relax.The Expo Garden turns out to be the perfect location for people to enjoy the moonlight, eat moon cakes and hold reunion dinners with families as the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches.

As one of the best viewing points in the Expo Garden, the restaurants located on the top floor of the Cultural Center are getting ready for tourists who want to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival at the Expo Garden.

Shufu, a Sichuan restaurant on the top floor of the Cultural Center, will be one of the most popular eating places on Sept 22. The restaurant holds about 300 people and provides unmatched evening views of the Huangpu River and Zone A in the Expo Garden.

When most of us live in the city, we miss and look forward to the countrylife more and more. We like the sweet smell from the soil of countryside, the close touch with the nature. More and more people like to “plant ” on the internet, they enjoy the feeling of working and harvest.Why not to taste the life of a farmer?

Sweat, bug-bites, a few skull-meets-falling-orange episodes later… and I’m now officially hooked. Why? It’s fun! Whether you’re a social type or more of a contemplative loner, it’s honestly a great way to spend a few hours. Sure, there’s the do-gooder feeling that comes from knowing you’re bringing previously-wasted produce to poor families in need of nutritious food. But there’s also something actually enjoyable about plucking ripe, orange spheres from the sky and delivering them into boxes where they sort of glow against their own greenery. Before I wax too poetic about the whole thing, I’ll stop and say: Just come on. You can meet great people and make friends, or just find your own tree and let your thoughts wander while you help feed people.

If you have young children, your trip to Genting Highlands would be more complete if you visited the Strawberry Farm in Genting Highlands. It is best to visit the Strawberry Farm on the way home rather than on the way to Genting. Well, that is only my personal opinion.

You see, on the way to Genting, the kids are so excited about the prospect of playing all the games and rides, they probably couldn’t care less about picking strawberries. lol. However, on the way home, they are disappointed and a bit down and the strawberry farm is the best place to pick up their spirits again before leaving Genting. All you need is another 20-30 minutes for a walkabout.

You can handpick strawberries at the Strawberry Farm, look at the mushroom farm, the flower farm and the organic bean sprouts. There is a little Strawberry Farmhouse Cafe if you need a little snack. They also sell pretty kites and strawberry print umbrellas.

Playing Kite with your families and friends in Spring is a good recreation way and sports. This is not only a chance to touch with the nature, but also a good way of enjoy life.

Kite as a Chinese invention, has been praised as the forerunner of the modern aeroplane.They began there use in the military’s of China and then became and intricate part of their arts and entertainment.Chinese kites became so popular they spread worldwide. Now they are used for art, competition and even sports like surfing.

Most ancient Chinese butterfly kites were made from carefully chosen bamboo and silk cloth. However, light-weight paper or tissue is sometimes used as a sail material.

The weight and strength of the sail material, whether tissue or silk, must be matched to the size of the kite being made. The sails are made slightly over-size, with the excess material folded over the outline of the kite frame and glued down.

With silk kites, the sail is generally painted after the kite is constructed. The kite frame conveniently holds the silk taut while the brush strokes are applied. However, mass produced silk kite sails are screen printed before being cut out and attached to the kites.

Paper lends itself to having the art work done first, before it is attached to the kite frame. This includes applique, where colored cut-outs are glued to the sail to form a design.

Summarizing the methods, a kite can be hand-painted, screen printed, appliqued, or even a combination of these.

My family and I enjoy the art of Chinese kite making. There’s nothing more gratifying that seeing the kite you made in flight. Kite Crafts teach kids construction abilities, problem solving, patience and art all in one easy to do project. Kites are the foundation for many great inventions we see today, such as the Airplane, ever heard of it? Chinese kites are where it all started!

There are two steps to starting skateboarding. Number one, get a board. Number two, ride it. If you know nothing about skateboards then you can use some of the articles on the site to help you out.

First you should get used to just riding the board. Being comfortable while pushing, standing, stopping, and turning are important skills to develop. You might not be sure which foot you should put in front while riding.

As a beginner, the chances are that the one you’ve got is pretty slow, with Abec ‘A’ bearings and a thick, heavy deck. Your deck won’t have much concave (meaning it won’t be very curved) but the good news is that this type of board is less likely to slip away from you so in fact is ideal to learn on.

Start pushing off up a shallow hill or on a level surface.Firstly, the skateboard tends to get away from them as they are pushing, because they tend to push from a position where their feet are level with each other or even with the pushing foot behind the front foot. Instead, you should imagine that pushing off is like walking – your pushing foot must step in front of the foot on the skateboard and then push back, just like taking normal steps. Your front foot should be just behind the front bolts.

When you’ve got some decent pace just practice gently leaning the skateboard to turn left and right. You don’t need to physically lean your body, but just put more of your weight into your heels or toes.

After a while try lifting the front wheels briefly as you lean to get a sharper turn. Do this by applying a bit more weight to the back tail until the front wheels are off the ground, then aim the nose a bit more towards whichever direction you are facing and put the front wheels back down again. Do this repeatedly while you turn to turn in as tight a circle as possible.

The obvious way for a beginner is what’s known as a tailstop. This is where you grind the tail of the skateboard into the ground, letting the friction slow you down. It works pretty well, although it’s not very efficient if you’re going really fast. You will also wear away the tail of your skateboard – personally I don’t mind this, but you might, depending on how precious you are about the board. Put it this way – it will take a hell of a lot of tailstops to wear the board down entirely, by which point you almost certainly will want a different one anyway.

Even though it wears your board out, it is a useful ‘trick’ to learn because it’s a start towards practicing your balance. When you first do one, you’re going to need the confidence to stomp the back down quite firmly and then ride out the tailstop at an unfamiliar angle (with the nose in the air) until you come to a halt. While you are doing this, try turning at the same time as well. All these little things will add up and be very useful later on.

Recently, a movie called Avatar is very popular all over the world.With its incredibly stunning visuals and compelling story line, James Cameron’s “Avatar” is memorable and meaningful. It’s so much more than a film that looks cool with a 3-D treatment.

 Avatar was extraordinary only because of its special effects. So congratulations should go to the geniuses at Weta Digital, the company responsible for producing them over the course of two years. Instead, last night the Golden Globes judges named Cameron “Best Director” and – mind-bogglingly – Avatar the “Best Drama”.

It’s a environmental parable, in other words, and a clumsy one at that. I’ve written at length about Avatar’s patronising and racist subtext: how the blue-skinned Na’vi, a pastiche of this planet’s “ethnic” races, are utterly powerless without the help of a principled white man. And how I was disgusted that the Na’vi – like the Africans in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness – demonstrate a “triumphant bestiality”. (Cameron is so obviously 2009’s worst lefty.)

What I have yet to hit home, however, is Avatar’s overall failure as a film. But you know what? The Vatican newspaper already has that spot on . It’s “bland”, a reviewer wrote in L’Osservatore Romano last week. “It has a great deal of enchanting, stunning technology, but few genuine or human emotions. Its significance is in its visual impact rather than in the story, and in its messages, despite the fact that they are hardly new.”

Finally, the review lays into Cameron who, “concentrating on the creation of the fantasy world of Pandora, chooses a bland approach. He tells the story without any profound exploration.”

Christmas Eve

Though the Christmas day sourced from the Western, it  is widely popular with the young all over the world. Such as me.I am a Chinese,  I like the Chinese festival, such as the Spring Festive. But the Chrismas is another festival I liked. The two are very different to me.When it come to Spring Festive, I miss my families very much. In China, The Spring festival stands for the reunion of a families. when the spring comes, every one will go home to meet others no matter how long the way to home. While the Chrismas let me happy like a Child. The music, the Father Chrismas, the Cart etc.

The Chrismas Eve is coming, forget all of the annoyance and unhappiness. Let’s enjoy the moment of happiness.You can do:

Prepare a special Christmas Eve meal. If Christmas dinner means ham or turkey, perhaps you can make a warm pot of chili. Or cook traditional foods from your culture on Christmas Eve, whether it’s Italian, Polish or Korean.

Host a Christmas Eve party that gathers your friends for an evening of food, laughter and good memories.

Get the children involved. Make a Gingerbread House or cookies for Santa. Allow the kids to track Santa’s progress by radar on the Internet. After leaving cookies and milk for Santa, read “A Visit from St. Nicholas” and tuck in the kids for a special Christmas Eve night.

Wish others a Merry Christmas. You don’t have to worry that you will offend them. If they want to wish you a Happy Hanukkah, in response, thank them and wish them the same. Wishing others a Merry Christmas helps spread the cheer.

Give to others. Whether to your family and friends, or to others less fortunate, spend some time this Christmas in giving. We give in remembrance of the gifts of the Magi to the Savior, but at the very heart of it all, recall that we are to give because He first gave to us.

Chinese Valentine's Day

A legend of the festival
Chinese Valentine’s Day is on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month in the Chinese calendar (August 26th in the year 2009). A love story for this day is about the 7th daughter of Emperor of Heaven and an orphaned cowherd. The seven daughters of the Goddess of Heaven caught the eye of a Cowherd during one of their visits to earth. The daughters were bathing in a river and the Cowherd, Niu Lang, decided to have a bit of fun by running off with their clothing. It fell upon the prettiest daughter (who happened to be the seventh born), to ask him to return their clothes.

Of course, since Niu Lang had seen the daughter, Zhi Nu, naked, they had to be married. The couple lived happily for several years. Eventually however, the Goddess of Heaven became fed up with her daughter’s absence, and ordered her to return to heaven. The 7th daughter was forced to move to the star Vega and the cowherd moved to the star Altair. However, the mother took pity on the couple and allowed them to be reunited once a year. Legend has it that on the seventh night of the seventh moon, magpies form a bridge with their wings for Zhi Nu to cross to meet her husband. If the night Chinese Valentine’s Day rains, the rain is the tears of the Weaving Maid and Cowherd.

Traditional customs of the festival
The Chinese Valentine’s Day is also called The Daughter’s Festival. Long ago, Chinese girls always wanted to train themselves having a good handcrafting skill like the Weaving Maid. The skill is essential for their future family. On that night, the unmarried girls may pray for the Weaving Maid star to let them become smarter. When the star Vega is high up in the sky, girls do a test, which is to put a needle on the water surface. If the needle doesn’t sink, then girl is already smart enough and ready to find a husband. Girls may ask for any wish, but only one per year.

In some Chinese provinces, people believe that decorating the flowers on the ox’s horn on the Chinese Valentine’s Day enables to prevent from the disaster. On the night of Valentine’s Day, women wash their hair to give it a fresh and shiny outlook. Children wash their face in the next morning of the Valentine’s Day using the overnight water in their backyards to have a much more naturally beautiful appearance. Girls throw the five-color ropes, made at Chinese Dragon Boat festival, on the roof for magpies. Magpies will carry ropes to build the bridge.

However, nowadays, young people are not familiar with this traditional Chinese festival. Instead, they celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14th. I think it is a pity that the Western Culture is more popular than Chinese traditional culture among young people.