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Proverbs and Poems in Frost’s Descent

The Moon on a Cold Night
霜月
by Li Shangyin
(唐)李商隐
“When people can hear the sound of wild geese, the cicada stops tweeting;
初闻征雁已无蝉,
I climb up to a high building and look far into the distance, seeing the water and sky merge into one;
百尺楼高水接天。
The deity of snow and frost, Qing Nv, and the goddess of the moon, Chang’e are not afraid of the cold;
青女素娥俱耐冷,
They are still competing with each other to see who is more beautiful.”
月中霜里斗婵娟。

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What is the Heavy Snow?

In the outer reaches of the Yellow River, the ancient Chinese used the phenology calendar, in which five days formed a hou, and three hous formed a solar term. A year was divided into 24 solar terms and 72 hous. Every hou corresponded to a natural phenomenon to explain the change of weather and phonological phenomenon. The hou could be divided into two categories: one was about biological phenomena, animals and plants. The other was about non-living things, such as water or thunder. The phenomena used to characterize the hous depended on the observations of the ancient people, so some of them we today know are false, such as the eagle turning into a turtledove, or the wild bird changing into a clam. In ancient times, however, they played an important role in guiding agricultural activities.

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Yuefu 乐府 Songs of the Music Bureau

The yuefu 乐府 "[songs of the] Music Bureau" is a poetic genre prevalent during the Han period 汉 (206 BC-220 CE). In this narrow sense it is called Han yuefu 汉乐府. It introduced both a new kind of shape (five-syllable verses) and new contents at a social and often very personal level into Chinese poetry. The yuefu was so popular that Han period yuefu were imitated by later poets until the mid-Tang period 唐 (618-907). The term Han yuefu often includes ancient, i. e. anonymous songs (gushi 古诗) from the Han period which are, from the origin and the content, actually no yuefu songs. Examples of these songs can be found in the collection Gushi shijiu shou 古诗十九首.

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Double Ninth Festival / Chongyang Festival

Double Ninth Festival (Chinese:重阳节), or Chongyang Festival in Chinese, occurs on the 9th day of 9th lunar month. It is celebrated for over 2000 years but officially defined as a festival during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). As the development in modern times, the Double Ninth Festival gradually to be celebrated also as a Elder Day for young people to show their respects to the elderly as double nine symbolize the longevity in Chinese culture.

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Ice and Snow Season in The Bird’s Nest

The Second Bird’s Nest Ice and Snow Season will be held at the National Stadium on December 15. The projects will focus on “being available to see, to play and to participate.” Considering the location of the home field and warm-up field at the Bird’s Nest, and the filming, the activities are set as follows:

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Xinqingnian 新青年 La Jeunesse (New Youth)

The Xinqingnian 新青年 "La Jeunesse (New Youth)" was a periodical published by Chen Duxiu 陈独秀 in Shanghai. Its first issue came out as a monthly periodical on September 15, 1915 with the title of Qingnian zazhi 青年杂志. From the second issue on it bore the name of Xinqingnian. It is probably the most famous newspaper of Republican China and reflected a very widespread intellectual current among young Chinese intellectuals. The two main objectives held high by Chen Duxiu and the authors were "democracy" (minzhu 民主) and "science" (kexue 科学). Influenced by Western philosophy of the state and society the authors suggested changing traditional China in order to strengthen her politics, moral, education and thinking. Old ways of thinking, as embodied in Confucianism, and the old style of literature, using the classical language, should be abolished.

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China’s abacus applies to be a World Intangible Cultural Heritage 珠算申请非遗

The Zhusuan, or China’s abacus, was doing the math long before the electronic calculator was invented. The simple counting aid is now applying to become an Intangible Cultural Heritage. The result will be revealed next month during UNESCO’s 8th intergovernmental Council in Azerbaijan.珠算,即“中国的算盘”,在计算器被发明之前一直是主要的计算工具。这个简易的计算辅助工具现在已申请列入非物质文化遗产。下个月于阿塞拜疆举行的联合国教科文组织的第八次政府委员会将揭晓其结果。

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Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-autumn Day (Chinese:中秋节), or Mid-autumn Festival, falls on the fifteenth day of the lunar August, the middle of the autumn, usually happens between the early September to early October in western calendar. Mid-autumn Day is a big traditional festival just second to Spring Festival and is celebrated world wide among Chinese. It is also a reunion festival related to the moon and the beautiful legend of Chang E (Chinese:嫦娥), a beauty lives in the moon.

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