Chinese Valentine's Day

　　The seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is Chinese Valentine's Day.

　　There is a beautiful legend about this festival: Zhi Nu the youngest daughter of the Queen of Heaven, fell in love with Niu Lang, a cowherd on earth. Zhi Nu's mother was opposed to the love between a fairy and a human, so she separated the two lovers with the Milky Way.

　　However, their love story moved the magpies on earth. Those magpies gather together annually on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month to form a "magpie bridge", so that the couple can meet each other once in a year. Today, on this day, young girls often pray to Zhi Nü in the moonlight, wishing for a happy marriage.

　　對(duì)聯(lián)(Chinese couplet)也叫“對(duì)子”，由兩句形式相通、內(nèi)容相連的語(yǔ)句組成。第一部分稱作“上聯(lián)”，貼在右側(cè)，第二部分，即“下聯(lián)”則貼在左側(cè)。兩行字不僅字?jǐn)?shù)要一致，而且相同位置上的字必須對(duì)仗工整(antithetic in form)，平仄協(xié)調(diào)(harmonious in tone)。按用途不同，對(duì)聯(lián)可以分為很多種，在新年貼的對(duì)聯(lián)也叫“春聯(lián)”，表達(dá)了人們的美好祝福與愿望，也為新年增添了節(jié)日氣氛。The Chinese Couplet

　　The Chinese couplet is also called "Duizi". It consists of two sentences which are identical in form and interrelated in meaning. The first line is called "upper couplet", which is put up or hung on the right side, and the other is called "lower couplet", which is placed on the left side. Not only are the two lines required to have an equal number of characters, the words stand in the same position in each of the two sentences must be antithetic in form and harmonious in tone. For different purposes, there are different couplets. The couplet for the Spring Festival is called "Chunlian", which conveys the blessing and good wishes of the people and enhances the festive atmosphere of the New Year, too.

　　故宮是世界上規(guī)模最大、保存最完整的帝王宮殿建筑群。它位于北京的中心，是明清兩朝的皇宮。明朝的十四個(gè)皇帝和清朝的十個(gè)皇帝曾在這里居住，他們統(tǒng)治中國(guó)的時(shí)間長(zhǎng)達(dá)491年。故宮始建于明朝永樂(lè)四年，歷經(jīng)15年方才建成，迄今已有570多年的歷史。它占地72萬(wàn)多平方米，四周有各類宮殿房屋9900余間。故宮的建筑集中地體現(xiàn)了中國(guó)古代建筑藝術(shù)的精湛水平和民族特色。

　　Forbidden City is the world’S largest and best preserved imperial palace complex.It is located in the center of Beijing，and served as the Palace for the Ming and Qing dynasties. emperors of the Ming dynasty and 10 emperors of the Qing dynasty once lived here.They ruled China for up to 49 1 years in total.Construction of the Imperial Palace started in the 4th year of Yongle reign of Ming Dynasty,and it took 15 years to finish the construction.It has been standing there for more than 570 years by now.The complex covers more than 720，000 square meters，with more than 9.900 rooms in the surroundin9.Sophisticated art of ancient Chinese architecture and national wisdom is integrated in the buildings of the Imperial Palace.