[家教老师]

     

Celebrations Around the World

In different places there are different celebrations. People have their own ways to celebrate their festivals.
What celebrations are there in your place? When are they?  How do you celebrate them?

[家教老师]

Ramadan

Ramadan is the name of the ninth month of the Muslim calendar- a lunar calendar whose months change in thirty-three-year cycles--so in one year the holiday might fall in one season, the next year another. It is said that on the twenty-seventh day of Ramadan, Allah sent the Koran to Mohammed from Heaven, and at the same time, the tree of Paradise trembled. To mark these momentous events, Muslims fast for forty days. By night they may eat; in fact, they feast. But from dawn to dusk--or in Mohammed's words, "while it is possible to distinguish the white thread from the black" - they abstain from all food and drink, as well as snuff and tobacco.

The days are hard, especially in those years when Ramadan falls during a demanding harvest season. The boom of a gun or a canon signals the dusk and the start of evening prayers, after which the famished celebrants break the fast with a quick handful of dates or nuts, or a glass of orange juice. The evening meal varies from place to place: in Morocco, the favorite Ramadan dish is harira, a heart vegetable soup made with lamb, noodles, and much red pepper.


_{http://org111.zpcdn.cn/0/5463/34967980.2393c5.jpg}

[英语课]

Mid-Autumn Festival -Zhong Qiu Jie

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon Festival, is a Chinese festival since the Sung dynasty. The moon is said to be at its loveliest on this night: its roundest, brightest, and most magical.

Outside their homes, families set altars that are stocked with wine, tea, incense sticks, and fruits, including the huge grapefruit-like pomelo, whose Chinese name, yow, is a homophone for "to have". Also on the altar is a stack of the holiday's ubiquitous mooncakes --thick pastries shaped like corrugated drums. The moon cake is traditionally made in the shape of a full moon, symbolizing union and perfection, is usually about the size of a doughnut, and is stuffed with a variety of fillings such as bean paste, lotus seeds, dates, pineapple, walnuts, almonds, and sesame, and at the very heart of each is a boiled egg yolk to symbolize the moon.
Most Chinese consume moon cakes given to them by relatives, friend, employers, or public relations people.

The Chinese tradition of moon-viewing parties long ago carried over to Japan, where this holiday is called Tsukimi. Friends gather for the evening beside lakes or in special moon-viewing pavilions, have first enjoyed bowls of "moon-viewing noodles": thick white udon in broth with a perfect egg yolk floating on top.




_{http://travel.cnr.cn/jckd/200807/W020080728301980428670.jpg}

[家教老师]

Halloween

Halloween is on October 31st.

The Celts knew this day as the eve of their great festival Samhain. This was the time for leading livestock home from summer pastures to the winter shelters. Samhain Eve was a time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead grew especially thin, and ghosts ventured toward the warmth of people's hearts and homes. On Samhain Eve the Celts built bonfires in memory of their departed ancestors and left food and drink on their tables overnight for the mourishment of the ghosts.

Odile, the tenth-century abbot of Cluny, changed Samhain's name to All Saints' Day. October 31 became All Hallows' Eve or Hallows' Even, and eventually Halloween. Never having lost its haunted quailty, Halloween has fallen into the hands of children, whose practise of trick-or-treating has its roots in the English custom of "sou-caking." From medieval times onward, poor people would beg door-to-door for spiced cakes that the householders would award as payment for prayers the beggars promised to say for the householders' ancestors. The sou-cakers sang:

                Soul, soul, for a souling cake,
                 I pray, good missus, a souling cake,
                 Apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,
                 Any good thing to make us all merry.


_{http://www.zwani.com/graphics/halloween/images/1rtrickortreat.gif}