123.Interesting Chinese Culture——Morning Markets & Night Market

132.Interesting Chinese Culture——What Is the Dragon Boat Festival?

Every year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, people across China hold dragon boat races, eat zongzi, and follow many other interesting customs. To understand it, we need to start with where it came from. In fact, the Dragon Boat Festival was not connected to one famous person from the very beginning.

131.Romance of the Three Kingdoms-14

Sun Quan could not stop thinking about Jingzhou. Zhang Zhao offered a plan and said, “The person Liu Bei relies on most now is Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang’s elder brother, Zhuge Jin, serves in Eastern Wu. First, we can place Zhuge Jin’s family under guard. Then send Zhuge Jin to Western Chuan to meet Zhuge Liang and force him to persuade Liu Bei to return Jingzhou. Just tell Zhuge Liang that if Jingzhou is not returned, Zhuge Jin’s family will not be safe. Zhuge Liang values family loyalty and will surely agree.”

130.Romance of the Three Kingdoms-13

Pang Tong and Fa Zheng continued urging Liu Bei to kill Liu Zhang during the banquet. In their view, Western Shu could then be taken with little effort. But Liu Bei firmly refused. “I have only just arrived in Shu,” he said. “I have not yet earned the people's trust or established my reputation. Such a thing must never be done.” No matter how many times they tried to persuade him, Liu Bei would not agree.

129.Interesting Chinese Culture——How did advertising in China slowly take shape?

These days, we are so surrounded by ads that we are almost numb to them. You unlock your phone and the first thing you see is a notification. You open a webpage and a pop-up jumps right into the middle of the screen. You scroll through short videos and suddenly one cuts in with, “Friends, you have to buy this.” Even when you just want to sit quietly and listen to some music, before the intro is even over, you can get hit with ads for shampoo, insurance, and during election season, even ninety-second campaign ads. Basically, whatever ads a website wants to throw at you, it just keeps cycling them in front of you. So it is very easy to feel that all of this belongs to the modern commercial world, as if advertising could only exist after factories, assembly lines, neon city lights, television, and the internet came along.

128.Romance of the Three Kingdoms-12

Zhou Yu had been defeated by the three forces of Guan Yu, Huang Zhong, and Wei Yan, which Zhuge Liang had arranged in advance, and Eastern Wu’s navy had also suffered considerable losses. Huang Gai and Han Dang quickly helped Zhou Yu back onto a boat. From a distance, Zhou Yu saw Liu Bei and Lady Sun standing on the mountaintop, watching the battle. Shame and anger surged through him. His arrow wound had not yet healed, and now, with rage attacking his heart, the old injury burst open on the spot. He fainted at once. After the generals revived him, they could only escort him back to Chaisang. Zhuge Liang ordered everyone not to pursue, then returned to Jingzhou with Liu Bei to celebrate and reward the soldiers who had made contributions.